Community Moderator Hats

The moderator has a small sword and a long evening ahead. Twitch streamers and moderators use the sword as shorthand for the role, while forum moderators describe swatting spambots with a banhammer. These community moderator hats put that recognizable authority beside the absurdity of doing it as a hobby. UNPAID VOLUNTEER UNLIMITED POWER is the central joke, and HALL MONITOR OF THE INTERNET supplies its perfectly oversized job description. The tools behind the jokes are real. Twitch moderators can time out, ban and unban users, slow the chat, or switch it to emotes only. A default timeout lasts ten minutes; a ban remains until lifted. Discord Slowmode gives each user a separate channel cooldown, while Reddit mod mail lets a moderation team communicate internally and handle community requests. KEEP THE MEMES OUT OF GENERAL and ONLY FOR BANS turn familiar moderation language into compact embroidered bits. The volunteer pride also has a concrete gift occasion. In a study of 20 Twitch moderators, none received money from their streamer, although some received subscriptions, event tickets, mugs or T-shirts. Other firsthand accounts include paid moderators, so the unpaid joke belongs to volunteers rather than every person with a sword. Choose a plain Discord or Twitch badge, or the outrageous confession about timing out one's own mother.