In some cases, individuals can misunderstand the balance of power and intimacy, and therefore, the kind of bridge that might exist between them and the other individual.

Gatekeeping Bonds

Imbalances in power and intimacy can barr content creators from establishing bonds and accessing collaborative opportunities with more prominent Simmers.

In the video to the left, LilSimsie (a content creator who has grown exponentially more popular over the last several years through her accrual of over 300,000 followers on YouTube and Twitch,) discusses her initial interactions with TheSimSupply (a content creator with over 1 million followers on YouTube and Twitch). In this story, the balance between power and intimacy is skewed because at the time of the story, her channel was just becoming popular with around 40,000 subscribers, whereas TheSimSupply's channel was already well-established.

In this video, LilSimsie discusses her first meeting with TheSimSupply at her first Sims Camp multiple years prior. Sims Camp is an event hosted by EA in which popular Simmer content creators are invited to try new gameplay, attend training sessions, and form connections to collaborate with other prominent Simmers. Collaboration and networking are advantageous because they help Simmers to accrue more social capital. LilSimsie describes the social networking process, saying "The awkward meeting people you don't know, and you're just like 'oh, we both make Sims videos, yikes.'" (Hey Simsie! Podcast 4:10) Here, LilSimsie mentions the negotiation of intimacy, which in this case is predicated upon mutual interest in Simming. But, at an event where everyone shares this activity in common, it is less binding than it may be elsewhere.

Therefore, when LilSimsie tried to use that weaker intimacy to leverage a request, she was turned down. LilSimsie says, "We were...looking on your phone in the group chat [to see] who was coming to Sims Camp--and, this is also my bad for saying this...I was like 'Hey, you don't follow me on twitter?' and then you looked at me and you said 'I only follow people I care about'" (Hey Simsie! Podcast 02:33). Though this line was meant as a joke, both content creators recognize upon re-telling the story that it was inappropriate for LilSimsie to try to establish a bi-directional bond in this manner. In this situation, LilSimsie practices what Cooper describes as "signalling" to attempt to establish a closer connection: "Writers signal how they view their relationship with other writers through conventional forms and strategies, but they can also change their relationship--or even initiate or terminate relationships--through the use of these conventions if others accept the new relationship that is implied" (8). Positioning oneself as a member of someone with larger power's inner circle when the only intimacy is a fledgling relationship is often interpreted as exploitative, which can often lead to the "signal" being denied. LilSimsie says, "My saying that, if someone said that to me, now I'd be like 'Yikes, now I definitely won't follow you. So, like, I get it'" (Hey Simsie! Podcast 04:54). Here, LilSimsie concludes that she now understands the reasons for TheSimSupply's denial of her signal to shift their relationship. This understanding has likely been cultivated from her experiences with gaining more followers. Now, she has gained experience with having a greater amount of interpersonal bridges, and likely understands that maintaining bi-directional intimacy with all of them is impossible. Additionally, she has likely experienced receiving signalled requests for greater, bidirectional intimacy from others with which she does not share much in common, causing her to feel uncomfortable and "used" for her social capital, rather than her personhood. The negotiation of social capital here shows an interesting turn--because LilSimsie was obtaining a greater amount of bridging ties, she sought to exchange a more intimate, bidirectional "bridge" or "bond" with TheSimSupply where previously, the connection had been asymetrical. Because she approached him prematurely without shared commonalities that substantiate deeper ties, TheSimSupply's response regulated her back to a sphere in which she might follow him, but he would not exchange the same capital in return.

In this case, the system of interpersonal interactions influenced an initial attempt at networking; the imbalance of power and intimacy described created an environment that is inhospitable to forming advantageous "bond" connections. In cases like these, further developments that might occur from interpersonal interaction, like collaborations, are put off until the balance of power and intimicy is evened. For example, after gaining more social capital, LilSimsie did eventually establish a bi-directional connection and collaborate with TheSimSupply, as evidenced through the video on the left. It is highly unlikely that this opportunity would have been available to her previously. Additionally, through collaborating, LilSimsie's content can reach more Simmers. Through featuring him in a video, TheSimSupply's 1 million subscribers would be more likely to have contact with her channel. The system of interpersonal interactions is shaped, in part, through negotiations like this one, and it continues to set power and intimacy norms for future interpersonal regulation.