What do you get when a beloved VTuber finds herself the face of controversy, off the back of
a hiatus for personal reasons, due to her interest in a popular video game deemed a problematic
purchase by transgender individuals for the alleged discriminatory actions of its creator?
I'd say, the radicalization of said VTuber's audience, due to the monopolization of a
situation missing its context, by a group of anti-trans individuals who want to capitalize
on the situation for attention and social credit. But that's a lot of word vomit to say,
I'm going to explain the situation to you and hopefully make it make sense. Let's
look back on Pikamee Amano's graduation from her VTuber career and the reasons behind said
graduation that have been misconstrued out of context to paint an uncharitable
representation of people who had justified reasons to be concerned with her actions.
This is Pikamee Amano, and the radicalization of a VTuber audience.
But before I get into all of that, I think it's important to bring up that this video was recorded
when I was at The Right Opinion's studio, so if anything is wrong with the audio at all, it's
his fault and not mine because everything I make is perfect and I've never once made a mistake.
[Oranges] "The face of a liar." (agreed)
Wait wait wait. One sec. I gotta stop the video again.
Sorry, sorry to interrupt your content again.
I wanted to make a quick announcement before this video begins. Don't worry,
I'll do my best to keep it short.
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aspect. A lot of you have been pointing out in the comments that you really enjoyed the
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the videos this way. But unfortunately, that left me with a problem. Because these videos
are so much more work, even though they're to a much higher quality, I can't release them on the
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all of the support. And with that being said, I'm really sorry I interrupted this video for so long.
This situation started when on February the 10th, 2023, Pikamee Amano announced that she
was ending her hiatus for personal reasons and was going to be streaming Hogwarts Legacy. This
decision was met with a lot of backlash from people in her audience. For those of
you in the audience who have been living under a Harry Potter franchise-sized rock, JK Rowling,
the creator of the aforementioned franchise, has now had a long and documented history of...let's
say...off color comments towards the transgender community. It really isn't that piping hot a take
to say that JK Rowling has been controversial for quite a while now surrounding her comments
towards transgender people, her comparison of the trans rights movement to Death Eaters,
and her self-identification as a Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist.
Her comments are not few and far between and many people have been quick to call
her out for being transphobic. And, while I'm not *personally* going to say that...
That's where that sentence ends. I don't want to be sued.
But I would say that, from the comments JK Rowling has made publicly, I believe people are completely
within their rights to be concerned about what JK Rowling said, and stating that her actions come
across as allegedly transphobic is a fair stance. This links back to Pikamee's situation because,
after Pikamee announced that she was going to be streaming Hogwarts Legacy,
she received a lot of backlash from people within her audience, the reason being obvious. Hogwarts
Legacy is a game in JK Rowling's Harry Potter IP and as such, JK Rowling will make profits
from any support of this game whether you promote it on your public platform or just
purchase it privately. And I think the people giving Pikamee backlash are justified in their
decision. I wouldn't say I personally agree with this approach, but I completely understand
why people whose human rights are being debated publicly would be understandably upset when they
see a content creator they support playing and promoting a product without a care in the world,
whose creator has made public statements attacking the right of the people in question to exist,
and determining for them whether they should be able to do what they they want with their own
body. And let me make this clear, I disavow hate and harassment in all of its forms. I think it's
very easy to say that I stand with the trans community and understand why they're upset and
also that I disagree with the hate and harassment Pikamee may have received from people who were
upset she played this game. Now, as of making this video and after doing extensive research, I have
found no evidence so far that proved Pikamee was actually attacked or harassed for playing
this game. However, as the people attacking the transgender community right now and discriminating
against trans people for Pikamee are claiming that Pikamee was attacked and harassed for playing this
game, I thought making the prior statement clear was important. I also don't think it's
fair to attack transgender individuals or the transgender community as a whole as a
result of some people who may have potentially sent some hate or harassment Pikamee's way.
You are justified in criticizing those people. Attacking transgender individuals and their human
rights is never justified. Irregardless, I don't think of myself as a politician,
so I don't really want to discuss this side of the conversation anymore. I think I've made it
clear where my stance lies and I'm doing my best to keep this video as clear and informative on the
information as possible. Following the backlash Pikamee received, she would announce that she is
no longer going to stream Hogwarts Legacy, and then would follow up with a comment saying "I am
just a kettle who wants to play the game, playing the game doesn't mean I'm supporting something
specific. I just want to play it, that's all." She would then go on a hiatus until the beginning
of March and announced that she was going to be graduating from her streaming career and would
no longer be producing content under the name Pikamee. And it's here where I think context
has been cut on this situation so that people can monopolize this situation as some form of a weapon
against the transgender community, because the way this is presented, the way you just heard this,
is not reflective of the full story in any capacity. Firstly, the story you were just
told cut the context of Pikamee Amano's original hiatus. That context being that the hiatus Pikamee
Amano went on before they announced that they would be streaming Hogwarts Legacy was for the
sake of her mental health relating to her family member's passing. She was already dealing with
personal reasons that would have motivated her to want to graduate and focus on herself. Secondly,
Pikamee's graduation was planned quite a while ago and wasn't at all related to the fact she played
Hogwarts Legacy. While you could totally argue that potentially this decision was moved forward
down the pipeline, it was not the cause behind it. This was always going to happen. These are the
public statements made by other people surrounding Pikamee after Pikamee announced that she was
graduating that make it very clear that they were already aware Pikamee was planning to graduate.
[FalseEyeD] "Next up reacting we also have VShojo's Silvervale giving us a very
interesting reply. 'Even though I knew this was coming it hurts so much to see.' Again,
repeat. 'Even though I knew this was coming it hurts so much to see. We love you so much
Pika. Thank you for all the cute kettle laughs and positivity you spread into the world. You deserved
better. You've motivated and inspired so many. I hope you find happiness in your next adventure!'"
[Harley] But despite it not being the case that Pikamee Amano is graduating because of harassment
received from her streams of Hogwarts Legacy, with this decision being entirely planned beforehand,
this discussion has been entirely capitalized upon by people who were looking for an opportunity to
attack the transgender community already and saw it as the perfect opportunity to take advantage
of an audience of people who are sad and needed someone to vent their frustrations on, making
those people no better than the people they're supposedly mad at for harassing Pikamee. Harassing
trans people and going after the trans community in response does not make you any better than
the people who allegedly attacked and harassed Pikamee. I feel like that's not an extreme stance.
Unfortunately, that hasn't stopped the widespread hatred from people within this community, who are
now attacking transgender individuals. Like this tweet, which received a ton of support before it
was removed from the platform, which read "Do your part. For Pikamee." and showed an image of
Pikamee pouring fire out of a...gas...canister I don't- it would have exploded if the fire was
going up the gas- is showing Pikamee pouring gas fire onto a trans flag. And I don't really think
it takes a genius to figure out that this is an obvious call for hate and harassment and
isn't acceptable in any capacity. I don't think that just because you're upset your favorite
content creator is quitting, it justifies wishing death or harm upon a minority group and everyone
within it for no reason other than because you're mad at some people in that community.
Crazy hot take, I know. You can probably guess what happened next, but
I'm gonna tell you regardless. Then, all of the anti-woke... losers, for lack of a better term,
came out in full force. Using this as the perfect opportunity to capitalize upon this situation,
use Pikamee as a martyr, and use this situation as a talking point to spread anti-trans rhetoric,
like is seen in the videos: "WOKE freaks call Vtuber Pikamee a LIAR!?" and "WOKE freaks get
Vtuber Pikamee to QUIT the internet over Hogwarts Legacy!" I really love the buff
Greta Thunberg in the thumbnail as well. I don't really know why that's happening?
But f*** it, whatever! If it benefits your talking points you might as well, right?
The effect TheQuartering has had on YouTube videos is irreparable dude...
Anyway, as of releasing this video, it would appear Pikamee has already graduated and I don't
really think there's much more in this situation to talk about. Some other VTubers came under fire
for playing Hogwarts Legacy, but none of those situations were really extremely interesting,
so I thought it was important to focus specifically on the Pikamee situation and
how I think a certain narrative has been spun surrounding it that is incredibly malicious
and has been used to send hate and harassment towards a minority group that doesn't deserve it.
With that being said, I'm HarleyTBS lounging around in my room and talking
about whatever interests me. This video has been in the works for way too long
and I needed to get it finished. You can check out my Patreon to get previews of
videos early and all the other benefits as previously mentioned in the link in
the description down below. Subscribe to the channel, follow my Twitter, you know
all that jazz. And with that being said... [TRO] "What the f** are you doing in here?"
[Harley] "Well, well you see um..." [TRO] "What the f*** are you
doing in my house? Who are you?" [Harley] "I'll see you next video!"