Interview: Vtuber FallenShadow On Twitch Moderation, Mental Health, and Vtuber Discrimination: “The Rules Are Constantly Manipulated Depending On Who The Recipient Of The Punishment Is”
In service of our reporting on her recent Twitch ban, we reached out to vtuber FallenShadow for both comment and fact verification.
And while she graciously offered her thoughts on her quick banning and unbanning, the vtuber also spoke with us regarding the streaming platform’s recent actions, their harsh treatment of vtubers compared to ‘fleshtubers’, and how streaming has helped her mental health.
As not all of this information was specifically pertinent to our coverage, FallenShadow was gracious enough to allow us to present our conversation in interview format.
This small insight into her life also showed her infallible willpower and heart. So for that, we once again thank the vtuber for her time, and proudly present her words below:
Ryan Pearson: Are you an adult woman? We have seen your hand cam streams and you discussing your age, but this is purely as a matter of due diligence.
FallenShadow: Yes, I am an adult woman. I am in fact considered a legal adult in all parts of the world!
Ryan: Is your vtuber persona an eldritch being, or a ghost?
FallenShadow: A completely normal girl, of course! That’s not a polite question to ask a lady! I am normal and human.
Ryan: In a prior stream, you mentioned having schizoaffective disorder, and on X mentioned being disabled. Do you still live with schizoaffective disorder? Is there anything about it you’d like people to know, or inform them about living with the condition and how it has affected you?
FallenShadow: Yes, I still live with schizoaffective disorder – unfortunately, it’s not something that can go away. There’s no cure, though therapy and medication can definitely improve living conditions. I was an extremely young presenting case. Typically, with schizoaffective disorder, symptoms will start to show around mid-teens to early adulthood.
What I would now argue is fortunate in my case, I started showing symptoms a little after I started learning to talk and was initially diagnosed and treated for childhood schizophrenia, but later on as it became apparent I presented with symptoms of bipolar schizoaffective disorder this diagnosis was retracted/combined into bipolar schizoaffective disorder, childhood presenting.
I said fortunate before, because I have understood and come to terms with my illness. It takes a very long time just to get a diagnosis of this sort, you will be shuffled between doctors, psychiatrists, therapists, especially if you are classed as a minor. Getting the right cocktail of medication can take years to balance.
FallenShadow: I went through all of this as a child, so now as a young adult I am reasonably stable, however most people with schizophrenia-type disorders suffer this “adjustment” period around the age I am now!
This diagnosis, and all of the treatment I have had, defined most of my childhood and I was never really able to be normal or make friends! I had very little schooling, as I spent a lot of time in different hospitals, some stays lasting several months.
It’s hard for me to speak on behalf of people with these types of illnesses, as my case wasn’t normal even by abnormal mental illness standards, and I faced a lot of stigma growing up, from teachers, parents, even doctors.
Growing up, spending over a decade in therapy, and over many years of trial and error on many different medications, I’m able to function to a pretty high degree! I am mentally impaired due to anti-psychotics but I am reasonably able to do most things by myself, though sometimes I need a little more time for some tasks.
It’s like always feeling as if I haven’t slept in days. Some days are a bit of a blur!
FallenShadow: I was a very spite-filled person for most of my childhood and young teenage years. I had a lot of resentment for people that were not on medication, for the people that mistreated me, for my parents (who are both also mentally ill) for having me. I spent a lot of time being very angry and hateful towards everyone and everything.
This mindset didn’t help me in any way, and growing older, I’ve found that doing a complete 180 has been the best thing possible for my mental health. I do my best to treat others with patience and care and understanding.
We are all going through our own battles, and the more people I can reach and talk to the more I realize this. Nobody has an easy time in life! I don’t know a lot about most things, but if I can talk a little about my mental health, and have a positive impact on others, it’s made my life feel very much worth living.
My audience is mostly made up of men, and I think mental health is an area that doesn’t receive enough support, for them especially.
I don’t consider myself an advocate of any kind. I don’t want my disorder to define my content, but I do like to talk about these things from time to time, and I do my best to listen to others talk about their troubles too. I am always cheering everyone on!
Ryan: In a prior stream, you mentioned being the primary source of income for your family, being the sole person paying for their rent. Is this still the case?
FallenShadow: I am! This is the case! I live with my mother and four younger siblings. My oldest brother has recently become an adult, and contributes a little towards the house situation now. But my sisters are all still in school. My mother works, but it isn’t really enough to cover essentials for so many people, and my grandmother lives with us too.
My grandparents mostly raised me, and my grandfather supported my family mostly alone until he passed away from COVID-19 complications in 2021. After this, I became the primary earner!
If it had not been for my content creation picking up around this time, we definitely wouldn’t have been able to keep paying bills. We don’t live in an especially big house considering how many people live here. I currently share a bedroom with two of my sisters.
Ryan: Based on comments by yourself on X and from your fans, we think we understand what was said during the September 13th drinking stream. You expressed a deep gratitude to your fans’ for their support, and shared that you had or have fears for the future due to your mental health (but your community’s support helped you greatly). Am I reading that correctly?
FallenShadow: You’re reading that correctly! I take full responsibility for getting a bit too emotional on stream, but I don’t regret anything I said, as it’s all true. If it wasn’t for streaming, I’m not sure I would be alive now. Streaming, and everyone being here for me, through times of poor mental health, through loss and grief, truly did save me.
Supporting my family gives me a reason to keep working hard, but knowing I can make people smile, I can make so many peoples’ days just a little bit better, it gives me a reason to keep loving what I do! I don’t often cry on stream, as I try not to let the mood veer in that direction, but I think considering the circumstances it was okay!
I do worry about the future a lot. Content creation is a pretty fickle career path, and sometimes I get stressed because a lot of people rely on me. My medication may not work forever (many times I’ve had to switch before because they lost efficacy, and the medication I am on now is pretty much all maxed out.
FallenShadow: I take a higher dose of clozapine than is usually dispensed due to my case being extremely very treatment resistant) and it is very possible that someday there just won’t be a combination I can take that leaves me stable enough to stream.
I don’t know what my life will look like at this point, and it’s very scary. It’s extremely scary to know that something completely outside of your control might some day take away the things you love most in the world!
I think this is a worry and a fear that every single person with an incurable illness, mental or physical, has to kind of cope with on an everyday basis. Therapy has helped me a lot to work through these feelings, but it’s always something that’s there, especially when I’m feeling a little emotionally vulnerable.
Ryan: Did Twitch only contact you after you tweeted about their lack of communication? (In both the original ban and unban messages)
FallenShadow: Yes. I initially received no email or communication from Twitch regarding my ban, how long it would be, or what policy I violated. I always check my email as soon as I wake up, and then Twitter [X] and Discord after. I found out about the ban through a Twitter bot that tweets Twitch partner bans as they happen, which is absolutely surreal to me, even now.
About 30 minutes after my initial email (and about 9 hours after my ban, which came through while I was asleep) did I receive the standard email from Twitch.
FallenShadow: I did not receive any contact from my partner manager at all until after the issue was already resolved and I was unbanned, as the ban happened in the early hours of Saturday morning and they don’t work weekends, which is understandable, and this is information I’ve received previously but forgot about in the initial panic of the ban.
Apparently the delay in communication (in regards to the ban email) is because it was the weekend too. I do find it interesting that it managed to come through after I tweeted about it though, after hours and hours of completely nothing!
It’s also worth noting in my opinion that the email I finally received lacks a lot of the information that typical Twitch ban emails contain, as if it was rushed together and sent out quickly. If you look up how they usually look (which is how mine looked the first time I was banned on my birthday, too) the one I received on September 14th is incredibly barren.
There’s even “(video)” written where they’re supposed to link the offending content, and there’s no violated policy listed on that email either! I was so bewildered when I received it that I thought it was a fake email at first (since I’d tweeted about my ban, and it’d been many hours since it’d gone through) but no, it was real!
Ryan: In one tweet, you mention “Is it just against the made up second set of rules that my partner manager admitted moderation has for me (that I’m not allowed to see or hear about btw) because I am a petite woman with a high soft voice using a vtuber model that reflects me IRL?” Is this something your partner shared out of sympathy, or something they let slip? Would your message cause them any issues in the future?
FallenShadow: This is what I ascertained from what my partner manager told me after I received my first ban. It was explained to me that due to the way my VTuber model looks, I am not allowed to violate the sexual content rules in any capacity, which would be completely fine to me as I’m not a sexual channel.
When I questioned this, my partner manager explained to me that moderation had decided that there is different standards for the sexual content policy for me since my model looks young, and this applies to all young looking VTubers too.
I asked if these different policy rules would apply to a webcam streamer (fleshtuber) who also looks young or debatably underage, and I was told they likely would not.
Of course, when hearing that there are different standards for things that I can and can’t do, I asked for more information and a list of what is okay and what isn’t. I was told that the moderation team said this isn’t possible to provide, as it’s not an actual legal policy.
FallenShadow: When I asked how I was expected to follow it without knowing what it was, my partner manager struggled to reply and said I should just do my best not to do anything that could possibly be perceived by moderation as sexual.
Since I’m not the moderation team, I don’t know anyone on the moderation team, and I’m not a very sexually educated person, I’m not really sure how this can be something I’m supposed to know.
For example, I was told one of my sexual policy violations that led to my 7 day ban, was showing my VTuber model’s feet on stream. Cited was a Portal 2 stream, where I jokingly put my head through one portal and my feet through the other.
I was told this means there is feet focus, and feet could be argued as something “fetishistic” and “sexual in nature” by the moderation policy, and thus this is banned sexual content in combination with my VTuber model. This is how that stream looked for reference.
FallenShadow: When I asked if this means I’m not allowed to show my model’s feet on stream, my PM said that it’s not not allowed. I asked if I would get banned again if I did. My PM said it is best for me to veer on the side of caution if I do not want to get banned.
I hold absolutely no ill will towards my PM and am fond of them. They have been nothing but nice to me and I understand they’re just the messenger. But there was several moments where my PM had to pause and try to figure out how to answer my questions and then answered them with something that was not really an answer at all.
I left that call feeling more lost and confused than before.
FallenShadow: So essentially, there is no extra TOS I have to follow, not physically, as this would require Twitch’s legal to physically make up these terms on paper. But there are unsaid, uncommunicated rules I can assume legal has never seen or weighed in on, I am not sure how many, and if I don’t follow them, I risk being banned.
Moderation will not pass these along to my PM or me, and I’m just left in a state of confusion. When I talked to Dan Clancy, the chief executive officer of Twitch, I expressed all of this. He expressed there was no extra set of rules for me, but moderation is right, and I must not make sexual content, due to how my VTuber model looks.
When I explained that showing my feet on stream was cited to me as me violating sexual content, despite there being no mention or indication of this in the standard TOS, Dan unfortunately didn’t comment further. So it seems for all legal purposes, these rules do not exist, but still they are being pushed by moderation, and still streamers are receiving bans.
I do believe that Twitch’s extremely recent policy containing changes to ban emails, will help iron out this situation. I’m extremely happy to hear about this change, as it’s exactly what I proposed during my emails with Dan.
FallenShadow: What is scary to VTubers like me and thousands of others isn’t that we could break the rules and receive a ban, it’s that we could break the rules, not know which rule was broken, not be told how we broke it or why, and still receive a ban. All we want is fair communication, and fair treatment in line with how female webcam streamers are treated.
This policy change isn’t a solution to the VTuber discrimination, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction!
Ryan: Why do you think Twitch would be harsher with a vtuber rig “puppeteered” by an adult, than a flesh-and-blood streamer who looks like a child but isn’t?
FallenShadow: My personal theories aside, I think that it’s just a general “normie” dislike of anime in general. Though it’s gotten better in recent years, the general mindset is still that anime is “icky”, “for kids”, “for creeps”, “for weirdos”.
We’re still outcasts comparatively, still the weird kids, and I think that aspect definitely still comes into play, especially when you’re comparing the weird outcast girls that a lot of VTubers are, (myself included!) to the beautiful, mainstream type of women that exist in webcam streaming.
Twitch is a mainstream site, and VTubers especially are a new phenomena. Just look at how much vitriol someone as wonderful and kind as IronMouse has recently received for becoming the most subscribed streamer on the site, and in my opinion she’s as universally “normie friendly” as it gets.
It’s impossible for me to imagine how anyone could dislike her, and yet somehow she receives a lot of hate just for existing and being magnificent at what she does! Normies still really, really don’t like VTubers!
[Author’s Note: FallenShadow linked us to the following tweets by @yoxics and @iqkev as an example]
FallenShadow: But it goes a lot further than that, and every VTuber I’ve spoken to has a similar idea to me! Twitch’s moderation staff have shown time and time again to have a lot of love for fleshtubers, (female webcam streamers!) since there is many, many cases of them breaking the rules and receiving incredibly light, or no punishment at all.
Amouranth has broken the sexual content policy hundreds of times, but is rarely banned for longer than a day. Asianbunnyx has streams with a camera directed at her butt (with little to nothing covering it) and gets banned for 3 days, usually less.
FallenShadow: Alinity has thrown her cat on camera, and gave her cat vodka, visually, on stream (cats cannot process alcohol – this is about as dangerous as giving them rat poison) and I do not believe she received any ban at all.
[Author’s Note: Alinity was banned for 24 hours in 2020 for a “wardrobe malfunction,” three days 2023 for twerking, and this April for copyright infringement, and unbanned after two days for completing “copyright school.”]
[Saskatoon SPCA declared in 2019 that their investigation “determined that there was no malicious intent in any of the reported incidents, and the owner expressed genuine remorse for her actions,” adding “the animals appeared healthy and well”.]
FallenShadow: I have absolutely nothing against any of these women (except Alinity) and believe the problem is the game, not the women who play it. Regarding them, my mindset is personally that they are businesswomen and there’s a lot to gain from them pushing the boundary!
However, it should be moderation’s job to tell them where the line is, and it often feels like the line barely exists.
I believe that a lot of these webcam streamers see VTubers, who are a relatively new concept, soaring in popularity, and have a similarly constructed fanbase, as competition. It’s been proven that a lot of people who work for Twitch and have an impact on how the site is run really, really like camgirls, and watch them in their free time.
FallenShadow: VTubers, who are usually women, and are eclipsing camgirls in popularity (look at how amazingly successful Hololive and VShojo are!) are frightening competition to some of these streamers, and since our VTuber models don’t usually have genitalia, we don’t have anything of interest to offer to these corrupt mods.
A small chested, short, just-barely 18 year old camgirl however, is a real, tangible female with assets that just maybe if the mod bans one more VTuber he’ll get a cheeky little glimpse at.
As a “young looking” VTuber, I don’t even have jiggly drawn boobies bouncing around on the stream, so I can only imagine lolitubers are exactly what moderation especially despises! I am a woman with nothing of interest to offer them!
Ryan: Why do you think Twitch is avoiding writing up some of these additional TOS elements that only apply to cases like yours? Fears of granting a loophole to serious misconduct, bad PR, something else entirely? Is it OK to have some rules not set in stone?
FallenShadow: I think that it’s just a huge legal loophole, and leaving things unsaid and unclarified gives them a lot of room to dish out bans however moderation pleases. It’s quite obvious that all of Twitch’s TOS is applied pretty sloppily and unevenly depending on just who the streamer is, how big they are, how big their boobies are, for example.
I think an awful lot of what goes on on Twitch actually happens in a “grey area” of the rules – for example it’s okay to drink on stream, and Twitch even has content classification labels intended for doing a drunk or high stream, but “Consumption of alcohol or other substances that lead to being incapacitated” is also listed in the community guidelines as being against TOS under the “self-destructive behavior” rules.
There was a fiasco late last year after Twitch briefly allowed certain kinds of “artistic nudity” allowing camgirls to take off their clothes if certain conditions were met – yet VTubers with fully clothed models doing art streams were banned for drawing bare breasts.
The rules are constantly manipulated depending on who the recipient of the punishment is, and this is something that has been going on for a very long time!
FallenShadow: To play devil’s advocate here, I do actually think that with VTubing still being “new” to the scene, it does cause a lot of difficulty for the higher ups who make the rules. The TOS was obviously designed for regular, “normie fleshtubers” and not for virtual anime girls!
Treating virtual cleavage on a drawn model that can only rotate so far, and possesses no nipples like a barbie doll, the same way as real physical breasts the camera is physically close to, can get between, can view from different angles, is just silly and makes no sense.
FallenShadow: In my personal opinion, any kind of TOS grey area absolutely needs to be written up clearly if it can lead to someone being banned. Putting someone’s livelihood, or community, or just hobby on the line because of something unstated and unsure just is not fair or right.
All we want as creators is transparency, and when a platform takes 30-50% of your earnings, I think it’s more than fair to say they owe you that!
My ban was resolved quickly only because of the huge support and outcry that I received on social media. I was overwhelmed by the kindness of it all, but it did leave me anxious wondering what would become of a creator who did not have the platform or reach that I do.
FallenShadow: It’s scary that they could do this to anyone, they likely have, and we don’t even know. A lot of content creators are outcasts, misfits who sought out streaming to escape something or find something else that they haven’t had the opportunity to have.
Streaming has presented a lot of wonderful opportunities to a lot of people that wouldn’t have had them otherwise, myself included. The connection we make with our communities is something that would break a lot of us, if it were taken away.
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