Veronica Carmen Ripley
Veronica Carmen Ripley, better known by her online alias Nikatine, is an American streamer and Internet personality. She founded Transmission Gaming, a Discord community for transgender gamers, and currently owns tabletop game publisher Fablescraps.
In 2019, Ripley was inducted into the official Twitch Ambassador program.
Early life
Veronica Ripley was born on November 22, 1990, to a Latina mother and an American father. Born in the Monterey Bay area, she grew up attending theater classes and participating in community theater productions. As a child, Ripley often played Starcraft with her father. She pursued a career in acting, working in casting for a few years, before leaving Hollywood and returning home around early 2013. It was during this time she began her gender transition. After graduating with a Bachelor's degree in Music from CSUMB, she began to play games professionally on the livestreaming platform Twitch.Personal life
Ripley is transgender and a lesbian. She has cited video games as an escape and as a method of expression for her identity.Career
Ripley began streaming with Overwatch's release in 2016. She quickly shifted focus toward simulation games such as Kerbal Space Program and Cities: Skylines, and eventually began streaming Grand Theft Auto roleplay. She also does "Just Chatting" streams, where she discusses politics.In 2016, she founded Transmission Gaming, a community on the instant messaging Discord for transgender gamers to meet and play games together. It has since grown to include a 68 member group of Twitch streamers.
In addition to streaming, Ripley also owns the tabletop game publisher Fablescraps.
Activism
Ripley has been an outspoken critic of Twitch's content tag system, calling for the creation of a transgender tag. According to TechRadar, Ripley was quoted as saying: "I hear this argument a lot, that trans doesn't deserve to be a tag because tags are reserved for content not for identity. But I would posit to you that if I had a podcast, and my podcast was focused on trans issues, wouldn't that make it trans content?" To circumvent this issue, she encouraged other transgender streamers to use a keycap making tag, in an attempt to create a safe space. In May 2021, Twitch introduced the "Trans" tag.Ripley has done several charity streams, both independently and with Transmission Gaming, raising thousands of dollars for LGBTQ charities.