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A review by zeph1337
Before We Go Live: Navigating the Abusive World of Online Entertainment by Stephen Flavall
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
This is gonna be a hard one to rate since I have not read a non fiction book for literally years, so I'm completely missing any frame of reference.
But let's start at why I decided to read this book. The author is one of my favorite content creators, certainly my favorite in his own little niche. My favorite (strategy) game of all time: Slay the Spire. I have watched many of jorbs' Youtube videos and while I don't spend a lot of time watching individual streamers on Twitch I'm always happy seeing him online. His streams just always have this super chill and extremly welcoming atmossphere and just make you feel wholesome. I'm also certain that he is a great person. So when I saw that he wrote a book I immediately got intrigued.
In this book jorbs reflects on his struggles of starting a career as a Content Creator / Streamer and also highlights emotional vulnerabilities in his personal life, mainly being in an abusive relationship and struggles with depression. On the business side of things he mainly lines out how people tried to take advantage of his kindness and/or scam him or offering him questionable deals.
But the most prominent thing that is portrayed in this book is the sexism, discrimination and abuse towards his coworker and friend Hannah, he witnessed over his career. This inherent sexism in the Gaming Industry / Business is what made him write this and he has many stories of past experiences to tell that just leave you thinking: What the fuck is wrong with this world? I mean a lot of this has come to light over the last years, probably most prominently with the horrible working conditions for women at Activision Blizzard but with this book you get a different look at it from a way more personal level.
As a strategy gamer jorbs obviously has a very analytical mind and that clearly shows in his writing. In my opinion that makes it a little harder to connect with it on a deep emotional level. Also he does like to ramble and losing himself in the process quite a bit. But the stories he has to tell do make up for that. Just the audacity of some people who think themself better than others just because of money, gender or standing. It's quite frankly just disgusting.
I really hope that this book helps a little bit to make the world a more inclusive place.
But let's start at why I decided to read this book. The author is one of my favorite content creators, certainly my favorite in his own little niche. My favorite (strategy) game of all time: Slay the Spire. I have watched many of jorbs' Youtube videos and while I don't spend a lot of time watching individual streamers on Twitch I'm always happy seeing him online. His streams just always have this super chill and extremly welcoming atmossphere and just make you feel wholesome. I'm also certain that he is a great person. So when I saw that he wrote a book I immediately got intrigued.
In this book jorbs reflects on his struggles of starting a career as a Content Creator / Streamer and also highlights emotional vulnerabilities in his personal life, mainly being in an abusive relationship and struggles with depression. On the business side of things he mainly lines out how people tried to take advantage of his kindness and/or scam him or offering him questionable deals.
But the most prominent thing that is portrayed in this book is the sexism, discrimination and abuse towards his coworker and friend Hannah, he witnessed over his career. This inherent sexism in the Gaming Industry / Business is what made him write this and he has many stories of past experiences to tell that just leave you thinking: What the fuck is wrong with this world? I mean a lot of this has come to light over the last years, probably most prominently with the horrible working conditions for women at Activision Blizzard but with this book you get a different look at it from a way more personal level.
As a strategy gamer jorbs obviously has a very analytical mind and that clearly shows in his writing. In my opinion that makes it a little harder to connect with it on a deep emotional level. Also he does like to ramble and losing himself in the process quite a bit. But the stories he has to tell do make up for that. Just the audacity of some people who think themself better than others just because of money, gender or standing. It's quite frankly just disgusting.
I really hope that this book helps a little bit to make the world a more inclusive place.