Open
Letter
Predz88
Objective
The objective of this review/report is to show from a personal experience of my interactions with the youtube/twitch channel Girls play (GP_TV) previously known as WGP (Watch girls play) and individuals that are and were in this channel. Also my experience with the personel when i am a mod for GP_TV(currently) and strikhedonia. (removed as mod). This review/report I will try to remain objective but being human my subjective view will come into play.
Where i come into this
I first came into contact of this channel when i discovered they had done their first react, at first i thought the channel was clickbait but over time come to understand it’s not and it’s more than what it first seen. I only made it to their live streams after and year of them doing due to not having stable Internet during this period, since then i rarely have missed many streams, thou i do due to be australian and having a different time zone.
I was modded on the twitch channel march 2018 for gp, and i was modded for the channel strikhedonia may 2018 but was removed not long after being modded.
During my time with watching GP i have played many games outside of normal streaming times with a number of the members, and some of the people that have worked behind the scene and have gotten to know a bit them.
Overview of the channel
Initial view of the channel was that it was clickbait using girls to draw in views, i stuck around due to liking the member Molly personality, and over time enjoying the others. And ended up sucked into the community eg. nerd herd and stuck since. Over the time i’ve been around many of the girls have left due to personal reasons, greed or personalities clashing with others within the group. Also i knew most of the girls lack technical skills and would’ve had others help in these areas (people behind the scene) this become more obvious when they started to stream everyday and have a youtube video’s out 5 out of 7 days. The current girls i feel have the best meshing capabilities since the channel started as their personalities tend to work well together. While in the past you could see especially in the afk videos there seem to be a divide between, quiet nerdy girls and loud party nerdy girls. While they could get along it was a obvious divide.
THE DRAMA
This part will be looking over the recent drama that has happen with the channel within the past 2 years.
Starting with stephanie and her leaving the channel, from my point of view steph, left in a reasonable manner, she didn’t drag out any issues into public space even when drea and nae did she kept it confined to behind the scene, the actions of drea and nae was not required it should've been handle behind the scene, if it was we wouldn’t have had videos like the one done by Sb500 which was heavily bias to one side without any input from the other side. Also i found it wrong that people where being told/timed out in streams for even mentioning her name, considering steph/stephanie is a common female name. In reality I wish that stream was shut off as soon as drea started to mention it.
Next issue is when Drea left the channel, at first this seemed to be handled well, even when drea started to stream in no less than 2 weeks after leaving and stating in her goodbye stream she wasn’t. This i had no issues with her streaming, this period i found GP at fault because they made the issues public first and drag in the community into this issue. Once again i believe a lot of the issues should’ve stayed behind the scenes. But also following GP’s stream (more specifically sydney’s) about what was happening on social media.
With Drea’s stream trying to explain why she did, I didn’t believe that she needed to stream to pay bills, she could’ve searched for a job during that time, and that she had her set-up ready within two weeks shows that she had always planned to stream when she decided to leave. I would’ve been fine with drea if she was more honest and said that she wanted to stream from the start and wasn’t planning to look for a job outside, that she was more use to the lifestyle of streaming than going back to a basic job. But alas she didn’t she pushed forward with this lie to make people feel sorry for her.
I use to like drea when she was part of GP, she had a way about her that would get people to donate, she had great reactions to stuff and generally was fun to watch and also play games with, that changed when i saw some of the war streams she was apart of, more so the fallout after them, Even thou she would win the war streams, she would still complain, get upset that not everyone would vote(donate) for her or would do it for multiple girls. This was a strong indication of her narcissist side of her. After these I became a bit more weary of her, thou she still had her other good qualities.
Next we have when Renae left the channel, this started with what looks like a lack of communication, especially from Renae. Ever piece that was shown on social media showed that renae was unwilling to communicate with the others, especially when she wouldn’t give a answer about her doing a goodbye stream/video. Aslo her attitude to expect others to tell that she was leaving, that could’ve been handled by her just saying in a tweet that she was but it had shown she was too lazy to do things on her own, and during this beginning part she decided to drag drea into this argument. She was the first to mention her. But then tried to turn that on sydney. And this drama exploded after that.
List of stuff that was brought up
• People working behind the scenes
This surprised me alot when people didn’t generally knew that they’re was people working behind the scenes, over the years you could tell the girls were not technically minded, EG. they ain’t qualified technician, so it was a simple thought that they would have others helping behind the scene to help them as a channel.
• Pay and income
This is one of the more interesting arguments that came out of this debacle. Both drea and Nae said in thier stream they had personally not know how the pay system worked. And didn’t really do nothing with it except for getting paid, but then in short order they start claiming that money was going elsewear to make GP look bad. This made no sense just after they said they didn’t know the details of the money with GP. Also with in their own stream sydney did explain how it was, but was constantly ignored and harassed by drea’s mods, even offering to show the pay system but was once again ignored and was limited in response due to them having slow chat on, so drea’s mods would continue to harass but sydney wasn’t able to answer quickly which would be required.
• Alex
The person behind the scenes, who became the big bad guy for Drea and Nae. This became that way after Nae decided to show messages that had his name in it, from my point of view, they weren’t having enough success in making Sydney the bad guy, but when they saw the questions about alex he become the perfect target for it. Due to the fact few knew him personally and some didn’t even know he existed, so they could go after him with next to no resistance, and the few who could defend him they will claim he manipulated them Eg. the girls. He became their ideal boogeyman. But looking at it and actually knowing more behind the scenes he has been apart of the channel since its first video. The room with the orange background was his and his wife’s place. Which begs the question if he is as bad as they girls claim he is, why did Renae returned, why did Drea stay as long as she did when she is such a strong headed person. Why does Liv still stay around, considering she is a very strong women and wouldn't tolerate the stuff that they say he did. Why would maddie still be around, her anxiety would’ve prevented her from even stepping in to the studio if a person like alex(as Drea/NAE/Kenz portray him as) were there. When you look at these things it makes no sense in what they say about him.
Another issue i have with how they have targeted him was, when drea first left she never mentioned him only targeted sydney. If he was the big baddie they make him out to be wouldn’t that be the first person she would’ve gone after, not just sydney. But up until Renae released the group text screenshot we heard nothing. Which adds more credit to my argument that they only made him into the boogeyman because of how the community reacted after seeing his name in the group text.
Strikhedonia
When gp decided to take a break after the drama of Renae and drea, two other members decided to leave Cori and kenz. On the day that Kenz had gave her two weeks notice about leaving they had started to ask a number of people, many mods from GP to mod for their channel. Initially i was unsure since i had only recently been made a mod for gp so i gave no reply, i wanted to see how they would leave before i gave a answer.
Though i wasn’t initially made a mode once they started streaming like many others that like me never gave a answer, i still tuned in every so often. Especially when some of the other mods I play games with were also modding strike. At this stage it was clear both girls had no idea with what they wanted they channel to do. And had no direction with it. Which made it hard for the mods at the time to function, especially when they would time people out yet the girls would read it out loud which defeats the purpose. Another contention point at the earlier stage was making drea a mod, in fairness they also made liv a mod but she had the right notion of removing herself. Because in their two week notice they had stated they wanted to get away from the drama. But it wasn't the case when they go ahead and make two people from two sides mods for them that was gonna create problems.
Yet despite this i had hope both Cori and Kenz was being genuine with why they wanted to leave, so when they actually asked me to mod i said yes. Then the contention hit a high when liv and drea got into a argument during one of their streams. At this time it was inappropriate of me to use the popcorn emote, while seeing it go down, but i wasn’t gonna touch it either, it would've been unfair to time out one, when both were at fault and i couldn’t time out the other. Also because drea was a mod she could’ve done it herself that is why i didn’t touch it cause if a mod gets into a argument it should be up to them to decide that enough is enough.
My mod time was short lived at strikhedonia, after some arguments on twitter with another mod, kenz and cori removed a number of mods, those that seemed to show greater support to gp. This was obvious when they keep one mod who was involved in the twitter argument who favours Drea. the message that i received was copied pasted from the same as the other 3 that was removed at the time, I didn’t argue it because of the other mod that was kept around.
It was clear to me then and we can see now that Kenzie wanted to do more stuff with Drea and after everything that's gone on i didn’t want to be part of it, so i never argued and just moved on.
GP_TV
At this current stage i’m still modding and supporting GP, I’ve gotten to know most of the girls abit more personally through gaming and chatting. The Drama that has happen shouldn’t have had any impact on some of the newer girls as they weren’t really involved with it, but it is too many people try to compare them to past girls instead of trying to see the individual as they are. They are human and makes mistake but most of the time they are good hearted people who just want to have fun, play games and enjoy life. These girl are more Bells, Niki, Sky. and even Maddie as during this maddie due to her anxiety took a step back. They might have been caught up in more personal reasons but this is from my point of view.
Liv and Sydney are the ones most involved in the drama out of the girls. Liv from what i’ve seen has been hurt from these because of her decision to stay with GP she has lost friends, especially the girls who first brought her to GP, her actions during strike’s stream with drea was probably going to far. I believe this is due to Liv’s not liking people bullshit. She isn’t one to be held back or controlled by anyone. Personally i think Liv is a amazing person, someone that many will look up too, she strong, confident, care for others and willing to defend those she think has been wrong. One area that really impress me is her ability to not give up, she has shown this through her gaming, Liv may not be the best gamer but when she had found games she enjoys she just doesn’t give up and it's fantastic to see this improvement.
Sydney has been the girl who has been involved mostly in the Drama, usually the one who is speaking the most or being the face of GP in all this. Initially when i found GP never thought much of her, but as time went on i got to know her a lot more and found a interesting person. First and foremost she has done wrongs in this drama, she was the one who initially brought the Drea stuff to twitter/twitch mid 2017, she has admitted that she was wrong in this when I pointed it out. She can be very stubborn which she admits herself, but she is also very caring and loving, part of the reason she got the nickname mommasyd. This has been felt first hand i know that when some people who have been AFK for periods like some mods, she will actually try to find out why, she did this with fullnelson, strangerthanreality, gabrielrojo07, myself and even some of the nerd herd. She has done this even after 2-3days of absence when she use to seeing them online everyday. She is fun to play games with mainly i think because she improves overtime ( a theme with the channel) but she gets over excited with stuff in games and its fantastic being there when she does. Over all i believe people are lucky to have her as a friend in their life, she goes out of her way to care for others, she has a protective attitude, she tries to shield hurt to others, she did this in the drama with some of the other girls. In the end the harsh accusation thrown at her has been overly unjust, she has made mistakes yes, and this does need to be pointed out, and when shown that she was in the wrong she usually shes the truth in it.
Conclusion
This has been from my point of view of what has happen,and my dealings with the person’s involved, i’ve tried to keep it short, and objective but due to the nature of it being from my PoV, it's gonna be subjective. At the end of the day i think this should’ve stayed off of social media and away from community/ies. Wrongs have been done on both sides, but it seems one sided with who are the loudest. It’s gone on too long and others who have nothing really to do with it have been caught up in it from accusations that have never had any evidence to support it, the girls that left rely on listen and believe. At the end of the day I just hope this will be the last i have to think about all this and that everyone can just go on their own way.