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Imane Anys aka Pokimane: Too much “Red Pill bullshit”

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Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Gucci/Getty Images

Pokimane recently had 9.3 million followers on Amazon's streaming platform Twitch. Imane Anys, as her real name is, was considered one of the most successful streamers in the world. On Tuesday, however, she announced her withdrawal from Twitch - and then explained the reasons for the decision in her podcast on Spotify on Wednesday. In the almost hour-long episode, the 27-year-old French-Canadian sharply criticized both what she saw as the "chaotic" management of Twitch and parts of the user base.

Twitch messed up rule changes, its marketing and content moderation. For years she has reported users who harassed or stalked streamers. But Twitch didn't do anything about it. The diversity on the platform has also decreased and has therefore “developed far backwards”. They note a rise of the Manosphere, a misogynistic and anti-feminist network, and too much “Red Pill bullshit.” What is meant are conspiracy ideologies; the metaphor goes back to the “Matrix” film, in which a red pill helps to recognize the truth about the world. Such things, Pokimane said, thrive in the male-dominated livestreaming sphere on Twitch.

“Many of them are prepubescent little boys,” she believes. She doesn't want an audience like that. Her “brain hurts” when she sees other streamers presenting such bad ideas to these young people.

Staying on Twitch, where she has had an exclusive contract until now, would have meant either fighting in vain against the "bigotry and shit-spewing" of other streamers, or appealing to their audience with content that she approves of. She rejects both.

Their withdrawal will be painful for Twitch. Pokimane had been streaming for more than ten years, including games like “League of Legends” and “Fortnite”. She was considered the flagship of the streaming service, which only announced the layoffs of 500 employees at the beginning of January.

Now that she is “free as a bird,” Pokimane announced that she wants to experiment with other platforms such as YouTube and TikTok. Your first livestream on YouTube is scheduled for Thursday, 9 p.m. German time.

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