The streamer Imane “Pokimane” Anys (28) is one of the most popular women in gaming in the USA. For a long time, she was the biggest streamer on Twitch. This brought with it some unpleasant experiences. Once she received a text message from a man and a short time later an angry call from a wife.
Who is Pokimane on Twitch? The 28-year-old Pokimane was actually a League of Legends streamer until she discovered the shooter Fortnite in 2017, which made her famous.
Pokimane was able to professionalize thanks to the wave of Twitch Prime subscriptions that was going around at the time and dropped out of college. In the years that followed, she showed her business acumen and built a small company around her impeccable reputation and charisma.
At the same time, however, she was constantly being talked about as the only woman in Twitch’s top 10: In 2020, it was said that she was taking advantage of “lonely men” who only watch her because they want to get in touch with her. In January 2024, after a scandal about cookies, she had enough of Twitch, but still streams there sporadically.
In 2017, Prime subscriptions were the reason why many streamers’ careers took off and they were able to become more professional:
Prime Gaming, the secret behind Twitch’s success
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Jealous wife yells at Pokimane about her secret number
This is what she tells us now: Pokimane says in a podcast that she has a secret phone number that almost nobody knows. Everyone who can call her there is stored by name. But one time she received a message from an unknown number asking: “Hey, are you still awake?”
Pokimane ignored the message, but the Twitch streamer is surprised that someone unknown reached her in this way. This shouldn’t actually happen.
Two days later, she received a call from an angry woman: “Why are you writing to my husband? Why did he write to you?” Before Pokimane could answer, the woman screamed: “You don’t know what a terrible person she is.”
Pokimane says the angry wife verbally abused her over the phone and didn’t let her get a word in edgewise. Pokimane was so shocked that she couldn’t say anything and just hung up.
The parasocial danger for female streamers on Twitch
This is how it ended: Pokimane says that after the call, the woman formed a chat group with her and her husband and continued to talk to her there. She sent a photo of her husband and said: “Look at his stupid face. Is that the guy you were texting? Is that the guy you wanted to meet?”
Pokimane says that at first she was fascinated by the whole thing, but then it became too scary for her and she blocked them both.
This is what lies behind it: What sounds like a humorous story here is exactly the “parasocial behavior” that female streamers on Twitch have to be careful of. Some of their fans think they are really friends with a streamer and part of her life.
Streamers like Amouranth use this to their financial advantage. For other streamers, it is scary to play this role in the lives of their fans. This can sometimes lead to disgusting sites on the Internet or even stalking: A German Twitch streamer discovers a very disgusting forum about herself: “You make me sick”