Written by Lan 2022 Cohort
Recently, Steffy Evans, a Twitch female anchor who live-streams Call of Duty, began to stream with the theme of “female gamer fighting back against discriminatory males” – Steffy Evans indicated in the voice channel that she was a woman at the beginning of the game, followed by a variety of vulgar “greetings” from male players in the pipeline.
Steffy Evans would then prove herself with her excellent gameplay, sometimes making small gains, sometimes taking the game by storm, crushing her teammates or making the opposing team’s “strong mouth” break at the end of each game.
In Steffy Evans’ videos, she is often asked to shut up for no apparent reason right after the game starts, followed by gender-specific words. The way Steffy Evans herself handles all of this in her videos is why fans love watching her – she occasionally blurts out foul language in return. Still, most of the time, she doesn’t mind much of what’s going on in front of her and gives a sharp laugh, as if the emotional reactions of some male gamers are just commonplace in her case. As for the defender’s words, they are like swords stabbed into cotton and seem to have lost all their power to kill.
Recently, combined with a sentence that she is often scolded, she figured out a new way to play. The phrase is old; in the female players here, the appearance rate is relatively high, and the wording is concise, with no dirty words, but very insulting: Make me a sandwich. As soon as someone mentioned the taunt, she would run to the kitchen to make the sandwich, store it, have it filmed by a camera set up in the kitchen, and then return to the game. Audiences then will see if the players who taunted her have achieved the desired results after driving her away or if they need her back to save the day.
However, consistent with the results of carrying the game many times in the past, regardless of opponents or teammates, Steffy Evans still could not get their convincing approval at the end of a game. Still, another impromptu ridicule mixed with unsightly words.
Steffy Evans is naturally well aware of the situation and condition of female players in COD – “Make me a sandwich” is just the tip of the iceberg for them, and the words are the gentlest of the bunch. After all, she claims to encounter gender-specific taunts in seven out of every ten games. Making sandwiches is just a way to make more players understand that bad language has real effects in the real world. Improving the game environment is a long way off, and it never takes more than one side to be forgiving.