Not Even Bob Ross Livestream Safe From Rape Jokes and Grossness

Last night, Twitch.tv livestreamed a bunch of episodes of Joy of Painting with Bob Ross. You know, the “happy little trees and clouds” guy? The one with the giant ‘fro? Yeah, that guy. Everybody loves him, right? I mean, how could you not. He’s like, the calmest guy ever. So why is it, then, that some commenters in the livestream chat felt the need to hurl around some typical internet grossness?

Oh, right. I answered my own question. Because it’s the internet.

It all started when a woman was featured on an episode. She was painting a beautiful scene, talking incredibly kindly and peacefully… and that’s when the jokes and awful comments came out of the woodworks. According to The Verge, their comments touched on things from the typical awfulness (rape jokes) to the surreal grossness (“Bob Ross pulled a Caitlyn Jenner”).

I can hear people commenting now: “It’s Twitch, of course it’s awful.” Yeah, sure, fine, but just because we’re used to livestream chats being a complete dumpster fire doesn’t mean that’s how it always has to be, does it? We can strive for better, can’t we?

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Jessica Lachenal

Jessica Lachenal is a writer who doesn’t talk about herself a lot, so she isn’t quite sure how biographical info panels should work. But here we go anyway. She's the Weekend Editor for The Mary Sue, a Contributing Writer for The Bold Italic (thebolditalic.com), and a Staff Writer for Spinning Platters (spinningplatters.com). She's also been featured in Model View Culture and Frontiers LA magazine, and on Autostraddle. She hopes this has been as awkward for you as it has been for her.

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