Douyu study: Female streamers use beauty filters more, earn less per webcam

A new study from researchers at multiple universities, including Mengxiao Zhu and Cuihua Shen, analyzed data from Douyu, a leading Chinese live streaming platform. The team examined 867 streamers and 94,227 individual streams to explore how gender influences the use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) tools such as webcams, beauty filters, and stream titles. Drawing on gender role theory, they hypothesized that female streamers would be more likely to use visual enhancement tools to conform to viewer expectations, while male streamers might focus on other strategies.

The findings confirm that female streamers disproportionately employ visual tools—especially webcams and beauty filters. Yet the return on these tools is unequal: the positive effect of using a webcam on both earnings and audience engagement is significantly weaker for female streamers than for male streamers. This suggests that while women invest more in visual self-presentation, the platform’s reward structure still favors male streamers who use the same tool. The study underscores the complex interplay between gender norms, technology, and economic outcomes in the live streaming ecosystem, with implications for how platforms design features and monetization systems.