Pulling streamers out of their respective caves and into the real-life limelight is a somewhat thankless task. Nonetheless, content creator and consummate event planner QTCinderella has made a name for herself with it.
Last weekend, she hosted one of the largest streamer-led content creation events. The Streamer Awards, in partnership with Twitch. The awards ceremony, which hosted over 300 top streamers and attracted over 1.6 million unique viewers, according to statistics provided to Polygon by Twitch, was held for the second time on Saturday. After the event, QTCinderella sat down with Polygon via video chat to talk about how she created the “Avengers” of content creation events and what it was like to schedule an awards show to celebrate streaming – too after coming to terms with being at the center of a deepfake porn scandal that saw her likeness used in explicit content without her consent.
Ever since she was a child, QTCinderella has always had a penchant for planning events. “I had a Alice in Wonderland Crime party for my 16th birthday. Nobody showed up so it’s surreal that 300 people are showing up now. But I really love bringing people together. My mom was like that,” she said.
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Photo: Twitch
She told Polygon she didn’t realize how her interest in events might apply to streaming until she attended another event, ShitCon, organized by friend and streamer Malena. “It was a stream with a group of us and we just played games. That was it. And that made me realize how event planning can be applied specifically to this industry.” From there, QTCinderella asked her friend if she could plan a similar camping event in Los Angeles herself, leading to one of her first main streamer productions, Shit camp, was. This event took place in 2021 and from then on it continued to develop Shitcamp and other events such as: Christmas concerts
“My event planning experience has just gone wild. And I’ve found my niche. I have found what is important to me; I love bringing people together. I love it when people say my group streams are something like the Avengers. As if you finally see Spider-Man and Doctor Strange in the same room and think: Oh dear God.”
Since then, she has filled an important role in content creation: event planning. While it might be easier to focus on flashy stunts or marathon-length streams to gain subscribers, the kind of work QTCinderella does is a little more behind the scenes, but it’s no less relentless. She noted that current video game and esports awards shows lack robust streamer-specific categories. So she wanted to do something to fill that gap.
She didn’t hire a production company for the Streamer Awards. She said planning an event like the Streamer Awards requires a lot of industry knowledge. She started it alone but also credited Geoff Keighley, creator of The Game Awards, as a key mentor throughout the process.
“It was really cool because you would think sometimes people get too competitive, especially in this industry,” said QTCinderella. “He could have gone a route and just ignored me, but no, he got in touch. He was like, ‘Let me know if you need any help.’ And I said, ‘Thank God I do.’ And he was so helpful.”
But even with support, the event presented a unique challenge: organizing streamers in one physical location.
“I don’t think people realize that every single person you’ve seen seated had a personal message from me, not just an invitation, their response, their Plus One details, their dietary restrictions, their seat assignment , their arrival time, their after-party information, their dress code information,” she said. “All of these things need to be shared with more than 300 people, and I’m literally the one doing that.”
Her work not only highlights the work of streamers, but also brings streamers together. Many streamers work from their bedrooms, and offense often ensues since most communications are filtered through screens. It’s easy to get caught up in gossip. The awards show gives streamers the opportunity to come together and network around a common profession.
“I really believe that behind the facade of an awards ceremony there is a connection between people. And that’s way more important than anything – than any frog trophy – to bring these people together and have a family reunion once a year.”
Being a content creator comes with its own set of challenges. Streamers on YouTube and Twitch must adapt to an ever-changing internet landscape to engage viewers and find the next “meta,” a term used to denote a popular game or trending way of streaming for a specific time describe. Big streamers like Pokimane have therefore decided to stream less. Additionally, personal drama can fuel further speculation and comment from fellow streamers. Given the troubles with the industry, Polygon asked QTCinderella if she had qualms about celebrating it.
“I understand the concept of Wow, we’re celebrating millionaires. Not only that, we also celebrate toxic millionaires,” she said. “I think it’s completely misunderstood. Essentially, I think people think of ‘gaming’ and think of ‘toxic,’ but you don’t know those people. Just because you see Tyler1 someone in one Yelling at video games, he’s not a bad person. He’s actually freaking nice. He’s very sweet. And so I think it helps break down some of these people’s misconceptions. You know, everyone has a facade. We’re all entertainers. ”
QTCinderella knows firsthand what it’s like to be involved in controversy. End of January, Streamer and colleague Atrioc accidentally showed some of his open browser tabs during a live stream. One of those tabs was a website that sells AI-generated deepfake porn from other streamers. She was one of the streamers whose image appeared between these deepfakes, and for the following weeks she endured online harassment as these images circulated.
At that time, QTCinderella went live on the stream and talked about the emotional impact of the event. “Fuck the damn internet. Fuck the constant exploitation and objectification of women.” she said. Polygon asked her how and if the incident affected the Streamer Awards planning.
“I think every woman in the industry can attest that it’s just a fight to the top, you’re always swimming upstream and you can either give up or keep swimming. It is exhausting. But I’m a fighter. And I keep at it. I’ve started joking about it. It’s something I do when I’m out of control of something terrible that’s happened to me,” she said. “My intro to the awards ceremony was a joke about AI porn. The reason is that if you make a joke about it, you are in control, right? Now I’m in control of how people perceive me. I’m a victim here, but I don’t let it define me.’”
As for her own ambitions for the show and her future, QTCinderella doesn’t have anything as formal as the Oscars in mind.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be polished enough to be there [the level of] the Oscars,” she said. “But maybe we’re the MTV Music Video Awards or something. I will never be so polished, because these are not the streamers. I want to represent streamers and we get brushed off.”
