I think a large part of it is the parasocial aspect. People get to know streamers (or at least, the streamer’s persona) and form attachments to them over time. The same way someone wants to see how their favorite character’s arc plays out in a show, people want to watch streamers because they feel a personal connection to them.
Even though that connection is almost certainly one-sided, (except maybe for smaller streamers who actually interact with all of their viewers on a regular basis,) it doesn’t stop the viewers from forming those emotional connections. And that somehow makes them more “real” than some random piece of ass on pornhub.
I think a lot of it stems from loneliness, and wanting a personal connection. Pornhub is great for porn, but it’s undeniably commercialized porn. Lots of people will likely end up viewing nude twitch streams the same way they’d view nudes from a significant other. Even if the quality isn’t as good as pornhub, it may be considered more desirable simply because the viewers feel like they know the person.
That is what has always boggled my mind about all this softcore stuff, like why are you on twitch with your dick out anyway? If you want to jerk off why not just do it properly lol
People listen to music without dancing, it's the same thing - it activates pleasurable parts of your brain which trigger various biochemical responces. I normally work with video essays on in the background but when things get complex and stressful I switch to hot people dancing or similar, trying to juggle a dozen variables and get all the code loops right can be mentally taxing so when my brain in churning over my options it can be good to have a nice juicy butt to rest my eyes on, watch sway and pop and grind... It's not going to interrupt my train of thought but it holds it.
Also something that no one seems to consider possible but there are some really interesting and funny women that enjoy showing off their body, the music is often great and the atmosphere fun and light hearted - the notion that because it's sexy it can only be low tier, base and worthless is just puritan nonsense, it's good content.
And no you don't have to jerk off the second you see a sexy butt, I think that way of thinking might be more puritan baggage. You can just feel good about seeing sexy bodies gyrate.
There's also Internet allow only firewalls specially designed for parents who want to implement some control, which isn't enough when content on platforms decide to saturate their content with that you don't want to expose your children to. Then, it just becomes an exponential game of having to keep up and adjust each platform's individual controls when they could have simply kept their adult content elsewhere and have it be easily accessible to any adult who wants to see it.
That's a good point, but for any media. The problem is identifying something a child can watch and letting them watch it and because of a spur of the moment oversight find them watching something they shouldn't be because they are not mature enough yet, and the same but having it devolve to extremes. It's just not that difficult to set up a different domain/service name for it and making it easier for parents.
No, my point is specifically for twitch and other streaming platforms.
If you let your kid on twitch, and you arent locking them in to a pre vetted list of known safe channels, youre letting them expose themselves to far far worse shit than porn.
In the same way that if you let your kid watch netflix or HBO, you dont open the streaming app, hand them the remote, and walk off. You pick the channels or movies they can choose from.
Other media is typically pre crunched into known safety levels. Twitch is a way to watch things, not a thing you watch.
I consider the risk on those platforms much less, and if they begun hosting hardcore porn I would consider only other platforms. Netflix and HBO implement parental controls and involve fixed runtime content, whereas Twitch involves real-time streams and widely differing types of moderation where streamers may be involved in safe and non-safe content, and it lacks the ease of the parental controls of the services you've mentioned.
Why do you consider forcing all that micromanagement to parents easier than just moving porn to another domain or under another brand?
Fortunately for most parents, most governments disagree. They realize it's a society problem. But I really hope that they eventually catch up with this type of bullshit in the Internet industry. I know that Steam and other services have begun to get flak for it, specially in countries like Germany.
Click. On. Another. Fucking. Link/Brand. It's not that hard.
If you diss and fail to understand why there is government regulation surrounding it all because you dealing with adult only websites is too difficult for you, it's less a case of shouldn't and more of a case of mustn't for you, bud.
Pretty sure twitch is supposed to only be for all 16 plus anyway right I'm sure that's somewhere in their terms of service that you can't have an account of your underage.