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Twitch streamer Lydia "lydiaviolet" encountered a man who stream-sniped her while she was doing a Christmas IRL stream in the streets of London. The man in a hoodie incessantly followed the content creator around, despite Lydia saying "bye" multiple times while the live chat urged her to alert the police and call for help.
Lydia, however, was trying to be as non-confrontational as possible, politely trying to get away from the man. However, the stream-sniper kept following her for about half an hour before a female security guard came up to help her. While the whole ordeal took several minutes, clips of certain interactions between herself and the stalker have been shared by viewers on social media, with a particular one titled Creepy dude won't leave Lydia alone garnering a lot of attention r/LivestreamFail.
Redditors of the streamer-focused subreddit sharply condemned the actions of the man following lydiaviolet, with one person describing the incident as "scary af":
"Full on creeping on her, that's scary af."
"I am going to walk that way, you walk that way": Stream sniper refuses to stop following Twitch streamer lydiaviolet till security steps in
While IRL streaming has become quite popular in the last few years on big platforms such as Twitch, it does come with its dangers. Content creators live-vlogging their travels through cities can come in harm's way if not careful. Only yesterday, a clip of Twitch streamer "ira_aba" getting her phone stolen on livestream went viral on social media.
Instances of stream-sniping and swatting on camera have become far too frequent in the last few years. In her latest IRL stream, Twitch streamer lydiaviolet encountered one such person who seemed adamant to keep interacting with her despite her clearly trying to walk away from the conversation. Here's a clip of her interaction with the man who had followed her from an ice skating rink.
The Twitch streamer was trying to get away from the stream sniper and kept turning around while walking. At one point, she says:
"Okay, right. I really need to go, I am sorry. I am going to walk that way and you walk that way, it's chill we are chilling."
When the man refused to go, she outright asked him what he was trying to do:
"What are you doing?"
In the clip, the stalker even asks the stream sniper whether she would like to go somewhere "on the other side," ignoring her request to go their separate ways. Thankfully, Lydia did manage to get rid of the man after talking to a security guard at around the one-hour and 17th-minute mark of her stream.
Keep in mind that the person had been following the streamer for over 30 minutes at this point.
Timestamp 1:17:43
Viewers were quite concerned for the streamer during the long interaction. Here are some general reactions from social r/LivestreamFail, with many sharing news stories about other catcalling and stalking incidents that ended badly for the victim.
Stalking internet celebrities, especially women, has been one of the more sinister sides of content creation. While video creators on websites such as YouTube still can get doxxed, livestreaming offers malicious people the opportunity to see their actions affect the streamer in real time. Last month, a popular YouTube streamer, IShowSpeed, got swatted twice in a row.
