FiNessi streams on Twitch and does educational work on topics that are close to her heart. MeinMMO spoke to the streamer at TwitchCon Europe.
Nessi aka “FiNessi” is openly trans and has been doing educational work on topics such as sexual and gender diversity, ableism and environmental protection on Twitch for 4 years. During this time she has achieved a lot: she has built up a loyal community of almost 9,000 followers and was awarded a Youlius Award for “Current Journalism” in 2023.
FiNessi was recently declared a Twitch Ambassador: These are content creators who contribute particularly positively to the Twitch community and also work on innovations on the streaming platform.
At TwitchCon Europe on June 30, 2024, MeinMMO spoke to FiNessi about her path to becoming a Twitch streamer, her new role as an ambassador and explains why her stream is not a “safe space”.
Sandra Friedrichs also shows that Twitch is no longer just for gaming, as she addresses topics such as mental health on the streaming platform as an “abnormal disaster”.
Twitch streamer wants to change the view of gaming as Miss Germany: “You can’t demonize it, but you can’t glorify it either”
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The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
From activist to Twitch streamer
MeinMMO: On your Twitter profile you describe yourself as a moderator, an activist – do you see yourself as a Twitch streamer who uses her platform for education, or do you see yourself as an activist who uses Twitch as a tool?
Fitness: This is a super difficult question. I also believe that this has changed. I come from an activist background, and of course I still am. I feel like there are more like two sides to it.
In the beginning it was just my tool because I experienced a lot of discrimination and then I said I wanted to express myself and then express myself online. That’s why it started like that. I would say that Twitch was definitely just a means.
Now I see it a little differently, because I already feel very comfortable on Twitch, and it’s a bit of my home, my online presence home, that’s where it all started. And that’s why I would see myself as a Twitch streamer, yes.
MeinMMO: What was the moment for you when you realized: This is no longer just a hobby, this is now my job, I can make a career out of it?
Fitness: That was also by accident, well, a lot of things happened to me by accident. I did it on the side, initially alongside school, which I had to drop out at some point for mental health reasons after I ended up in the hospital because of it. Then that didn’t work anymore.
Then I had a social worker who helped me with counseling, where I went through every system that there is and Germany, every welfare system. That means I got no money, no government funding, nothing. That means I was mentally unable to work and at the same time there was no safety net.
That means I had nothing: no money, nothing. And then I thought: Hey, I’m streaming on Twitch, so I’ll just do it now. That means it was so out of necessity that I thought I might get a little money out of it.
And then I did it full time, that is, very, very early on, when it wasn’t really possible to do it full time, I started it and now I can make a good living from it.
MeinMMO: From what I’ve seen, your parents were very supportive of you coming out – what was it like when you told them: “I’m an influencer now”?
FiNessi: I don’t think my mother understands that to this day. But that’s okay, my mother fully supports it too. Sometimes I say things and, as I said, she doesn’t fully understand it, but she thinks it’s great and she’s happy.
My father is also very proud, he understands it a little better, so that’s not a problem at all. My grandpa keeps asking things because he doesn’t understand why we do it and what effect it has.
Appointed Twitch Ambassador: “I thought I was going to get banned”
MeinMMO: Can you say something about the process of becoming a Twitch Ambassador?
Fitness: That’s super interesting. Basically they have an application process like this. I applied for this 3 years ago or so.
MeinMMO: You were just at the beginning yourself, right?
Fitness: Right, I did 4 years ago – [am 1. Juli 2020, Anm. d. Red.] started streaming and I completely forgot about it. And then my management got an email, not my internal Twitch email, but actually via my management email, and they said they wanted to talk to me. There wasn’t anything else there.
And I was already thinking: Will I be banned now? What have I done? Am I being warned now? And that’s why I was a little excited.
I then did the interview alone because my management didn’t have time. And then the three of us sat there with an employee of [?] with me and a US employee and I sat there and was like: Okay, what’s happening here now?
They then started talking a bit mystically, and then I still didn’t know what they wanted now. Until they came to the point that they said: We want you as an ambassador and we’re going to give an idea of what that actually is and then there was a huge power point about what it all promises and what I want to do for it and Then they asked me if I wanted to be that.
MeinMMO: Is there anything that you can currently say: This is a problem?
Fitness: Wow, what are the bigger problems that are bothering me? Actually, it’s more about the details. So I don’t think Twitch has a huge problem. Unfortunately, I think a lot of it comes from the fact that Twitch generally doesn’t have a lot of money right now.
I understand that very well. And there are a few things, for example I would like to have pronoun badges in the Twitch chat, i.e. directly from Twitch itself. They have already announced that something like this is coming.
First of all, and what I think I would basically like to see – I’ve already mentioned this – is if you’re featured, as a marginalized group, on the main page, then there’s a lot of hate. And yes, the moderation tools are really great on Twitch, I don’t know of any other website where they are so strong. I streamed on YouTube once and it really wasn’t good as far as moderation tools go.
But if this is for smaller streamers, then the mod team is still not big enough for the homepage and so I would have liked there to be a bit of support from Twitch.
They say: We have moderators who are responsible for this and then we put them there. So that you have a little bit of support. Not: You are put there and then get the hate. That’s not in anyone’s interest.
Safer Spaces on Twitch: “Discrimination has no place here”
MeinMMO: I saw in your Ambassador announcement that your stream was referred to as a “Safer Space” – what specifically makes your stream a “Safer Space”?
Fitness: That’s a very interesting question because for a very long time I didn’t describe myself as that, for good reason. So there was a time when I started to say: Yes, this is a safe space. But that’s not true. So I can’t say: This is a safe space, because it can’t be “safe”. People can always come in and write something that isn’t okay.
At the same time, I struggled with the term for a long time because I said that I was dealing with topics that were stressful, that they weren’t nice topics, that they were often about discrimination, about violence, and for me that wasn’t a safe space, but rather a “It’s uncomfortable here:”
But then it was like that for a long time that I did that, I’m in a lot of contact with my community because of that and we just talked a lot about it. And why I’m putting it back in now and naming it that way is so that people, no matter how they were born, can feel safer with me and are heard when it comes to difficult topics.
This means that we cover difficult topics, but no discrimination will be tolerated in the chat, regardless of who it is towards. This means that people can safely talk about such topics. And that’s why I would call it a “safer space”, “safer” too, important because it can never be completely safe. We’re trying to keep it good with my mod team, they’re great.
MeinMMO: What do you have to pay attention to if you want to create a safe space – or a “safer space”?
Fitness: There are many things, but also so many little things. I think it starts with dealing with the issues, with marginalization. So for me it’s like, of course, I’m open myself as a trans person, but I deal a lot with ableism because I also think that it’s a super important field, which unfortunately is very, very often overlooked.
And I’m not affected myself, so I have to ask people and get information about it. That’s the first step in the direction of “Safer Space”, I think, becoming aware of it yourself, and then either who you’re playing with, paying attention to, okay, what’s the language, you are Maybe just be a little nice to people, and maybe use terms that I don’t want to say now in everyday language, which are ableist, anti-queer, so that you become a little more aware of it.
And at the same time, which is also important for me, to reflect this in the chat in such a way that the moderators are trained on this: If you read about discrimination, then it will go away. And then simply say: Discrimination has no place here.
MeinMMO: So there’s a lot of work behind it – you can’t just say: “I want everyone to feel comfortable here”
Fitness: Yes, I think that’s something that a lot of people come across too. They then say: This is a cozy space, and then suddenly something happens and then there is friction. Or maybe you don’t want to face this topic, but in the end it’s important, and it’s important to really ban discrimination and say: No, you have no place here.
And I think a lot of people need to realize that this is not a big political statement, but should be normal. You don’t have to do a huge political stream to create a safer space.
At TwitchCon, MeinMMO editor Lydia had the opportunity to interview the platform’s CEO, Dan Clancy. It was about the place of non-gaming content on Twitch as well as current events. You can find the conversation here: We asked the head of Twitch what he said about the scandals in Germany surrounding Anni The Duck and Unge