In the latest edition of “nope, I’m out” – WildEarth decided to give a pair of banded-legged Nephila, also known as golden orb spiders, an uncomfortable amount of airtime. Their Twitch channel consists of live nature documentaries that take place “in the heart of the African wilderness,” incorporating viewer interactivity into their broadcasts.
One of the guides of the stream, Lauren Arthur, did a brilliant job providing interesting information to viewers as the female golden orb spider wrapped up one of its meals. Despite the female’s ferocious looks and intimidating size, she is incapable of fatally harming humans – at worst dishing out a painful bite if threatened. Humorously, the Scottish guide added that while working for WildEarth, she had to get over her “completely ridiculous, irrational, and stupid fear” of spiders.
If we’re being honest here, most people’s fear of spiders is largely unjustified. Sure, there are certainly some dangerous species, but the creatures are mostly misunderstood. That being said, giving spiders our trust is not high on humanity’s to-do list.
Comments such as “big danger,” “spoooder,” and “oh hell no” summarized viewers’ feelings succinctly. It’s interesting to note that Twitch chat behaves differently in WildEarth’s channel. Normally, there is some amount of spam and degeneracy throughout a stream, but viewers seemed to strike a nice balance between mellow and engaged.
Lauren made sure to emphasize the staggering size differential between the male and female. As with many species of spiders, the female was noticeably larger than her male counterpart (often sexually cannibalistic, too.) Of course, Redditors had a field day with this information, drawing colorful analogies to describe the two spiders’ relationship.
Full discussion on Reddit.
Twitch culture is ever-changing, and the obsession with categorizing its viewers hasn’t slowed. The latest craze has been identifying “simps” across channels, and even spiders aren’t safe from being judged by the masses.
To provide some perspective, the creepy spider moment was only a sliver of the entire stream. WildEarth is an underrated treasure trove of captivating (and often brutal) glimpses of nature. To stay up to date with their broadcasts, check out their Twitch channel or give their Twitter account a follow!
Sources: Twitter, Twitch, Reddit
