Pokimane is one of the most famous streamers on Twitch, known for her bubbly personality and easy rapport with her fans. But despite the fame and fortune she's accrued, it's not all sunshine and roses for the popular streamer. For every positive comment and word of encouragement from her fans, there's leagues of trolls and critics looking to send nasty messages. It's a downside for any celebrity, but the intimate nature of streaming makes it somewhat harder to ignore. Behind Pokimane's cheeriness and success is a young woman dealing with a lot of negativity in her professional life. Here are some of the tragic details about Pokimane.
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00:00Behind Pokimane's cheeriness and success is an ambitious young woman who faces overwhelming
00:05negativity on a daily basis. These are some of the most tragic details about Pokimane.
00:10Is that the Twitch girl?
00:13Let me get a picture!
00:17Many of the negative aspects concerning Pokimane's life and career
00:21revolve around her celebrity status and visibility online.
00:25While the internet has created new levels of accessibility for toxic people to target
00:29public figures, one of the most frustrating issues Pokimane has dealt with is one faced
00:34by many stars — a harasser who made it their mission to insult her for years.
00:39Pokimane opened up during a 2019 stream about the inappropriate and aggressive emails that
00:44she had received from one individual. The issue occurred for so long that the streamer
00:48wasn't sure how many years the viewer had sent her messages calling her vulgar names.
00:53In the stream, she estimated that she had dealt with the harasser for three or four years.
00:57While Pokimane may use her natural charisma to keep her audience tuning in,
01:01she is also a competent gamer who puts her skills on display
01:05by streaming popular competitive titles such as League of Legends and Fortnite.
01:09However, the open format of chat discussions on Twitch invites a truly disheartening amount
01:14of negativity, and the unending barrage of criticism the streamer faced while streaming
01:18Valorant led her to consider limiting the availability of chat functions while playing
01:23the game. Pokimane announced via Twitter that she was contemplating making the chat in her
01:28Valorant streaming sessions subs only, meaning that fans would need to become paid subscribers
01:33to post in the chats. Right off the bat, this would prevent random people from dropping into
01:37the stream just to troll Pokimane and her fans by leaving negative comments about her play.
01:42Considering that community engagement is one of the key draws of Twitch as a platform for many
01:47users, the fact that Pokimane needs to restrict access simply to stream without constant criticism
01:53is pretty disappointing. Still, she's never shied away from taking toxic viewers to task
01:58for their crappy behavior.
01:59It's like, it's not cringe just because you don't like it.
02:03You just don't have a great enough vocabulary to express your disinterest in something.
02:08Pokimane has been forced to ban hundreds of thousands of people from her Twitch streams,
02:12showing the tragic scale of online harassment she has to deal with,
02:15although she's also put a humorous spin on some of the bans,
02:19reacting to unbanned requests and justifiably mocking her former viewers.
02:23Oh, that was my brother. That was my cousin. It wasn't me, did I?
02:27During a conversation with the Twitch software engineer Robin Lemons,
02:30Pokimane casually asked how many Twitch accounts have been banned from her account.
02:34While Robin Lemons didn't reveal the total figure, they did estimate that about 350,000
02:40real Twitch accounts had been permanently barred from entering Pokimane's chat.
02:44Normal users, maybe 350k. That's not including bots? That's crazy.
02:52The fact that so many individuals have chosen to log on to Twitch with a real account to post
02:57offensive, vulgar, or demeaning comments to Pokimane's chat is a bit overwhelming.
03:02While the streamer certainly has plenty of admirers, considering that she has amassed
03:06over 8 million subscribers on Twitch alone, dealing with that level of negativity daily
03:11is a sobering reality for someone who has built a public identity
03:14on creating an inclusive, positive space for fans.
03:18Bye guys, see you next time!