Dragging streamers out of their respective holes and into the real spotlight is a somewhat thankless job. Yet content creator and consummate event planner QTCinderella has made a name for itself doing just that.
Last weekend, she hosted one of the largest streamer-run content creation events, The Streamer Prices, in partnership with Twitch. The awards show, which hosted more than 300 top streamers and drew more than 1.6 million unique viewers, according to a statistic provided to Polygon by Twitch, had its second annual run 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 plan an awards show to celebrate streaming — even after she had to deal with in the center of a deepfake porn scandal, where her likeness was used in explicit content without her consent.
Ever since she was a child, QTCinderella had always had a love for event planning. “I had a Alice in Wonderland murder mystery party for my 16th birthday. No one showed up, so seeing 300 people show up now is unreal. But I really like bringing people together. My mother was just like that,” she said.
Photo: Twitch
She told Polygon that she didn’t realize how her interest in events could apply to streaming until she attended another event, ShitCon, hosted by friend and streamer Malena. “It was one stream with a group of us and we just played games. That was it. And from there I realized how you can apply event planning specifically to this industry. From there, QTCinderella asked her friend if she could plan a similar camping event herself in Los Angeles, which became one of her first streamer productions, Shitcamp. That event took place in 2021, and from there she developed Shitcamp and other events, such as Christmas concerts And Master Baker.
“My event planning experience just went wild. And I found my niche. I found what I care about; I like bringing people together. I love it when people say my group streams are a bit like the Avengers. Like you finally see Spider-Man and Doctor Strange in the same room and you think, Oh my God.”
Since then she has played an important role in content creation: event planning. While it might be easier to focus on flashy stunts or marathon streams to garner subscribers, the kind of work QTCinderella does is a little more behind the scenes, but she’s no less tireless. She noticed that the current video game and esports awards show lacked a robust set of streamer-specific categories. So she wanted to make something to fill that void.
She did not 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 herself, 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 people get too competitive sometimes, especially in this industry,” QTCinderella said. “He could have taken one route and just ignored me, but no, he held out his hand. He was like, “Let me know if you need help.” And I was like, ‘Thank God, I do.’ And he has been so helpful.”
Still, even with support, the event came with a unique challenge: organizing streamers in one physical location.
“I don’t think people realize that every person you saw in a seat had a personal message from me, not just an invitation, their RSVP, their plus-one details, their dietary restrictions, their seating assignment, their arrival time, their after-party- information, their dress code information,” she said. “All of these things need to be communicated to over 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 tremors often crop up as most communication is filtered through screens. It’s easy to get caught up in gossip. The awards show gives streamers an opportunity to come together and connect about a shared profession.
“I honestly believe that, you know, behind the facade of an awards show is a connection between people. And that’s what’s so much more important than anything – than any frog trophy – getting these people together and having a family reunion once a year.
Being a content creator comes with its own set of challenges. Streamers on YouTube and Twitch have to grind and adapt to an ever-changing internet landscape to gain viewers and find the next “meta,” a phrase used to describe a popular game or trendy way of streaming for a period of time . Large streamers, such as Pokimane, have therefore decided to stream less. In addition, personal drama can fuel further speculation and commentary from other streamers. Given the industry’s issues, Polygon asked QTCinderella if she’s concerned about celebrating it.
“I understand the concept of, Wow, we’re celebrating, you know, millionaires. Not only that, but we celebrate toxic millionaires,” she said. “I think it’s massively misunderstood. Essentially, I think people think ‘gaming’ and they think ‘toxic,’ but you don’t know these people. Just because you see Tyler1 yelling at someone in a video game , he’s not a bad person. He’s actually really damn nice. He’s very sweet. And so I think it helps fight those misconceptions that some of these people have. You know, everyone has a facade. We’re all entertainers. ”
QTCinderella knows firsthand what it’s like to be embroiled in controversy. The end of January, streamer and colleague Atrioc accidentally showed some of his open browser tabs during a live stream. One of these tabs was a website that sells AI-generated deepfake porn from other streamers. She was one of the streamers whose image appeared among these deepfakes, and in the weeks that followed, she faced online harassment as those images circulated.
QTCinderella went live on stream at the time 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 schedule.
“I think any woman in the industry can confirm it’s just an uphill battle, you always swim upstream and you can either give up or keep swimming. It is tiring. But I am a fighter. And I stay close. I started joking about it. That’s something I do when I’m out of control over something horrible that happened to me,” she said. “My introduction to the awards ceremony was a joke about AI porn. The reason for this is that if you make a joke about it, you have control over it, right? Now I have control over how people see me. I’m a victim here, but I don’t let that define me.’”
As for her own aspirations for the show and its 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 on (the level of) the Oscars,” she said. “But maybe we’re the MTV Music Video Awards or something. Like, I’ll never be that polished because that’s not who streamers are. I do want to represent streamers and we will be planed.
