ZEvent: a successful 2021 edition, but marked by controversy

ZEVENT 2021. Successful bet for French streamers. The videographers came together once again for a record-breaking 2021 ZEvent. A very nice pot of ten million euros collected for Action Contre la Faim but an event clouded by a case mixing sexism and harassment.

[Mis à jour le 3 novembre 2021 à 16h47] It is a very beautiful weekend placed under the sign of generosity which ended last Monday November 1 at one o’clock in the morning. The ZEvent 2021 raised more than ten million euros for Action Contre la Faim, after a charity marathon of more than 50 hours of continuous streaming. A great success for the colleagues and friends of ZeratoR who were able to count on a community of viewers as numerous as they were generous to raise such a titanic sum. This happy event was unfortunately marred by a controversy around sexism and harassment, which, if it does not take anything away from the titanic accomplishment of these young streamers, has nonetheless revealed the flaws of an increasingly cultural medium. unavoidable. All the info in detail.

The ZEvent is an event organized by Adrien “ZeratoR” Nougaret and Alexandre “Dach” Dachary since 2016. Each year, these two big names of the French streaming scene bring together a whole panel of streamers for a weekend. Over 50 hours of continuous streaming on Twitch, Amazon’s must-have live streaming platform. Concretely, the guests get together in a gigantic LAN where everyone broadcasts their stream and participates in common activities. The amount of donations offered by all the spectators, or viewers, is accumulated in a jackpot donated at the end of the weekend to a charity. Each streamer encourages their viewers by setting themselves “donation goals”, challenges to be achieved if the donations of their spectators reach certain amounts. We must also add to this amount all sales of derivative products (mainly t-shirts) which represents a significant amount each year. In 2021, ZEvent joined forces with Action against Hunger, the French NGO which fights against malnutrition in the world.

If we could have believed that the 2020 edition had been the peak of ZEvent, in terms of donations or audience, nothing is less true today. The French streaming charity event ended with a monstrous prize pool of 10,064,480 euros. An amount that shatters the record for the year 2020 which was 5.7 million euros, and proves once again that streaming is an essential element of French culture. More than a million spectators watched the closing ceremony of this crazy weekend, making ZEvent a kind of new generation Telethon that it is now impossible to ignore. The big beneficiary of this weekend is of course Action Contre la Faim, the members of the NGO reacted with emotion on Twitter by thanking the donors but also all the participants in the event:

Among the great moments of ZEvent 2021, we will remember the evening of Saturday, where Samuel Etienne came to present the second edition of “Questions for a Streamer”. This pastiche of Question for a Champion was followed by several hundred thousand people who saw Ponce and Antoine Daniel win after fierce competition. It was also a great operation for Samuel Etienne, who established his presence on Twitch and ensured a bright future for his popular press review. Good news after the little quack of Friday, October 19, where the presenter of France 3 was temporarily banned from the Amazon platform for 3 days after indirectly showing the buttocks of an actress during this morning exercise.

Great moment also during the stream of Jean Massiet Acropolis. The streamer had the brilliant idea of ​​offering Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 players a chance to get together for a virtual Montpellier-Moscow flight. Several dozen players then took to the controls of their respective planes to follow the French streamer used to political discussions. Gear in the colors of the ZEvent which ended up at 38,000 feet altitude and over 500 km / h for a great moment of streaming. A great action for Action Contre la Faim which was one among other great moments of this ZEvent 2021.

Among the clips that captured the attention of the community and aroused general hilarity, there were also the escapades of Mister MV. The French Youtubeur and Streamer, one of the biggest names in the French-speaking streaming scene, had indeed established as a “donation goal” the reading of the book “Le temps des tempêtes” by Nicolas Sarkozy if his prize pool reached 10,000 euros. A goal fulfilled in a few hours and which allowed the videographer to treat us to a moment of reading punctuated by autotune and other musical interludes as funny as they are malicious. It’s often said that streaming and politics don’t mix, but after all, why not?

Another event that should be highlighted, the videographer Amine better known under the name of Aminematuer reached one of his donation goals during the ZEvent (donation goals are pledges or challenges that the streamer imposes if his pot reaches a certain amount). And what about this donation goals? At 50,000 euros, Amine had to organize a live with Doums and Nekfeu. But among these two French rap artists there is one who has not appeared in the media for a few years. We are of course talking about Nekfeu which could well make its comeback (eagerly awaited) for this occasion, on Twitch of course.

We also remembered the large donation of one of the people we expected, but who could not go to ZEvent for this 2021 edition. The Youtubeur and Streamer Squeezie gave 40,000 euros from his pocket during the “final rush” of ZEvent 2021. A colossal sum that the young man with 16.3 million subscribers on Youtube generously offered to Action Against Hunger. Let us not forget also the astronomical donation of Pokimane, the Moroccan-Canadian streamer indeed offered 10,000 euros to the NGO on the Domingo stream, a generosity which does honor to the excellent player of League of Legends.

If the ZEvent was for the most part a joyous celebration placed under the sign of generosity, games and good humor, it was however also marked by a major controversy. An unpleasant event highlighting certain parts of a world dominated by men and often marked by a latent misogyny. It was on the last day of ZEvent that one of the streamers broke the record for simultaneous viewing on his channel. The young Youtuber and Streamer Inoxtag (19) then invited the Mexican actress Andrea Pedrero in front of nearly 453,000 spectators. Viewers who saw the young Frenchman make openly sexist remarks in front of his non-French-speaking guest, making him repeat uninspiring sentences like “Inox has a big dick” or by saying “She’s the coolest girl I’ve ever seen. (…) It is I who will lift it “.

Only, this story does not end there. These intolerable comments elicited little reaction from the streamers present apart from Ultia’s. This streamer who was one of the few women present at the event openly criticized Inoxtag’s comments in the stream: “He tells her that sexist stuff, the chat is sexist. Obviously that makes viewers. And we applaud someone while everyone was fetishizing her, sexualizing her because she doesn’t speak. “It only makes misogynists laugh. And to say it’s a joke? Under cover of a joke you can say homophobic, sexist, racist things. It’s very easy to say it’s a joke.” The record number of viewers, but at what cost? “

A reaction that sparked serious reprisals on the web and in particular on Twitter. The young woman’s legitimate reaction was not to the liking of certain members of a community that is known to be largely made up of young men, and who bombarded the streamer with sexist and derogatory remarks, sometimes going as far as to the call for rape. On Inoxtag’s side, the young man quickly realized his mistake, going to Ultia’s stream to claim that his actions “Would not reproduce again” and by calling on her community to support the young woman who was the victim of a great wave of harassment.

Adrien Nougaret alias ZeratoR meanwhile was slow to react by affirming in the first place that he was not “responsible for the behavior of his guests”. A position at the very least strange for the organizer of the event that bears his name. He then split a tweet where he described the outburst of harassment suffered by Ultia as “pseudo-controversy” before deleting his message a few minutes later. More than 31,000 tweets were exchanged about the streamer who was later forced to keep her Instagram and Twitter accounts private to avoid the surge of hatred she suffered. ZeratoR subsequently reacted on Monday evening November 1 through another tweet:

A situation that echoes the many alerts launched around the place of women on social networks. Too often, members of the fairer sex are victims of harassment on the web, as a 2015 study by UN Women, relayed by Actu.conf on Mediapart, which showed that 73% of women would have been victims. In addition, the issue of parity is once again at the center of attention. Of the 53 streamers present, only 9 were women. A statistic that sheds light on an entertainment medium dominated by men, which we look at in front of or behind the screen.

And for good reason, being a woman and working on Twitch has exposed itself publicly to harassment and to many comments that often affect their physique rather than their gaming talent. It is also in view of the resurgence of these cases of harassment and the inaction of the Amazon platform that many streamers and users were called on to boycott it on September 1. Through the hashtag #ADayoffTwitch, streamers from all countries protested calling on the Amazon platform to focus a little more on the social problems that plague it rather than on their income (of which it systematically receives 50%).

Great novelty of this 2021 edition, the ZEvent was preceded by a concert whose profits also went to Action Contre la Faim. He stood on October 28 in the evening and brought together some renowned artists in a relatively small capacity room (300 to 400 seats). We found at the Palais des Sports de la Grande Motte the rappers Fianso and Kikesa, as well as the electronic musician PV Nova and an acoustic trio with the talented LEJ. They were accompanied by streamer LittleBigWhale, who first took the stage in front of no less than 100,000 spectators watching the concert live. A performance to salute and a deserved audience for a concert as joyful as it is entertaining.