It seems like there are streamers making headlines all the time due to controversial statements or actions, and today is no exception (but for perhaps very different reasons). PC Gaming peripheral giant, Razer, has recently dropped support for Brazillian streamer, Gabriela Cattuzzo. Cattuzzo focuses a lot of her streaming on Facebook (which might explain why you may not have heard of her before).
Last week, she posted a photo of herself riding a bull to her Twitter account and received a reply stating “you can ride me as much as you want.” Naturally, this didn’t go down well and she replied, saying “There’s always an asshole to say shit and sexualize women, even when the woman is making a joke, right?” Later on, she added “non-shitty men are the exception” and “not the majority.” Her tweets have been removed, however, you can still read the instigator’s reply to the tweet here.
Of course, there was backlash towards Cattuzzo and her replies, going so far as to receive harassment from a Brazilian dark web forum named ‘Dogolachan’. These harassments include a number of people digging through old Twitch streams to find a clip of her insulting a viewer who asked a question (not entirely sure what the question was). It comes as no surprise that Cattuzzo has apologised for the comments made in the old Twitch stream.
In response to all of this controversy, Razer posted a statement on Twitter, explaining how they are disassociating with Cattuzzo and will not be renewing her contract with the company upon its upcoming expiration next week.
Razer Brazil reinforces that the opinion of its influencers does not reflect, necessarily, the opinion of the business, which is totally against any type of discrimination be it of sex, religion, political party or whatever type of intolerance and extremism.
We have been since the beginning, as gamers, confronted with all types of preconceptions and stereotypes, and we will continue to fight so that this type of situation won’t repeat itself. – Razer via Twitter
Cattuzzo has since apologised on Twitter for reacting the way she did, but not for defending herself.
Since you are struggling to find the tweet, I’ll do another:
I reacted rudely to the boy who made a bad joke and ended up cursing a lot of people in the process, and I apologize for that.
I don’t apologize for defending myself. I’ll always defend myself. – Cattuzzo
What should be noted is that the gaming community has grown quite used to this treatment of female streamers, often reacting with “oh look, it happened again” or something of a similar vein. Whether or not you find Cattuzzo deserving of this consequence or would rather exonerate her is up to you, but do keep in mind that this reaction is more a reaction to something much larger than just this situation.
Jordan lives and breathes Dark Souls, even though his favourite game is Bloodborne. He takes pride in bashing his face on walls and praising the sun. Hailing from the land of tacos, he is the token minority for WellPlayed.
