Twitch Streamers Are Getting Banned for a New Trend Called “TV Meta”

Anything for the clout!

Twitch streamers are taking virality to the next level by risking getting banned for their content.

To catch you up to speed if you’re not a Twitch aficionado, while the platform did used to be about marathoning games for hours on end, that’s sort of a thing of the past.

Streamers are now just as likely to watch and react to random videos that their fanbase sends them. Enter… "TV Meta".

What is “TV Meta”?

Streamers are always hustlin’ for more and more views, to the point that it’s become like a competitive game.

In such games, the “meta” is a term for strategies of winning. There can be various metas, and Twitch streamers have applied this concept to their content creation.

“Hot tub meta” was a thing for a bit, when streamers were sitting in inflatable pools.

“TV meta” is fairly straight forward—streamers watch and react to TV shows, live.

So, what’s the problem?

As you’ve probably already figured, this trend leads to massive copyright infringements.

Streaming someone else’s intellectual property is not allowed. It’s like uploading a full-length movie to YouTube, except with someone’s face in the corner making commentary every twenty seconds.

What streamers have been banned?

Last week, Pokimane was temporarily banned for watching Avatar: The Last Airbender on stream. She’s usually known for League of Legends and Fortnite streams, and has since responded to claims that she’s “lazy” for the Avatar stream.

She said on her first stream back from suspension, “while I agree react content is one of the easiest content to make, it’s just unfair to just label people as ‘you’re untalented and lazy.'”

The day after Pokimane’s ban, Hasan Piker got a copyright strike on his channel for watching Master Chef. He seems pretty nonplussed.

As of yesterday, DisguisedToast got issued a one month ban for streaming the anime, Death Note.

What does the internet think?

Yeah, not too many people are happy about this trend.

Most people on Twitter completely agree with Twitch’s decision to issue bans to those who don’t comply with copyright rules.

Further to that, many users find the content outright boring and lazy.

To all the streamers who think it's a game to risk getting or have gotten banned for streaming content that goes against the DMCA for the sake of "TV React Meta" I say: pic.twitter.com/kknFTCYmYF

— Dyrocc Games (@DyroccGames) January 11, 2022

Don’t worry, before we know it there’ll probably be “TV meta meta”—streamers reacting to streamers reacting to TV shows.

Header Image: @pokimanelol, @hasandpiker, @disguisedtoast via Instagram