As Mixer hits the headlines, their conservative clothing guidelines have been spreading across social media and both streamers and viewers have a lot to say about it. While some are happy with the very clear guidelines, others feel they are restrictive and shaming towards women, targeting those choose to wear strapless, cropped or low cut tops in particular.
Some of the rules are obvious and expected, such as no nudity and no underwear/lingerie. They also have a no topless streaming rule, regardless of gender. However, the controversy has arisen when people have read through the rating-specific clothing guidelines.
In order to classify yourself as a family friendly stream your clothing must cover the entire visible body, showing little to no cleavage, and cannot be strapless. If you show more than a hint of cleavage then your stream will be considered teen rated.
The real restrictions come in on the 18+ stream. Many users expect little to no dress code for an adult rated stream but Mixer has a pretty restrictive one.
A streamers chest must be covered from the bust-line to the end of the rib cage, although a crop top is allowed if it follows these rules. Strapless tops can only be worn if the top can be clearly seen on camera. Swimwear and gym clothing is allowed but only if worn at a beach, pool, gym or sporting event.
One of the biggest threads about the subject came from Jennifer Scheurle (@gaohmee) who was very upset about the guidelines.
She suggests that context is vital and Mixer are ignoring that. Her response goes on to say “Ground rule for clothing guidelines: Unless it’s about safety, f**king ditch them. Context matters. If I’m working my job, that’s clearly a non-sexual context and you don’t get to sexualize my body based on my clothes. That’s the only rule you need.”
Many agree, calling the guidelines restrictive, conservative and archaic. It’s suggested that everyone should be allowed to dress as they wish, especially in the summer heat. A common theme is that men need to do better, by not making overtly suggestive comments to women showing some skin.
However, there are some defenders of the guidelines with it being suggested that they’ve had to be put into place due to an increasing number of women using their bodies to gain views and tips.
The restrictive clothing choices are not the only guidelines on Mixer which address sexual behavior. They even define harassment to include “Calling a streamer a "cam-girl" or other derivatives referring to physical features,” something which ironically is rife on social media right now in threads about their guidelines.
It remains to be seen if Mixer will actually enforce these anti-harassment policies to justify their strict dress code and help make Mixer a more friendly place to stream, or if they're simply another symptom of the double-standard in streaming culture that will disproportionately affect female streamers.