Browsing the subreddit for World of Warcraft: Classic will pretty quickly reveal something about the community as it exists now. Specifically, a lot of these people do not like streamers, like, at all. It’s hard to pin down why, but this post outlining an “anti-streamer addon” called “The Blacklist” serves as a good starting point for understanding the degree to which players are apparently bound and determined to make sure that servers are unfriendly to anyone streaming the game.
Apparently, the prevailing belief is that streamers will have large followings rolling on the servers for them specifically, clogging up the population with fans and/or engaging in dramatic antics or zerg PvP. Obviously, this logic suggests, the best thing to do is to repeatedly gank streamers while they’re streaming, making them look ridiculous instead of cool and driving them off of servers.
If this strikes you as somewhat ridiculous and unnecessary (like, say, because “cool” is not a non-renewable resource), you are probably not on board for this. Heck, if you recognize that the overall plan seems to basically be textbook harassment that could get you banned by Blizzard’s terms of service, you are probably not on board with this. But if you’ve just been wondering why this animosity is there and why this addon has cropped back up in headlines, well, now you know.
