Is Twitch giving Alinity and Amouranth special treatment?
Twitch has continuously been accused of having inconsistent punishments, unfair suspensions, and generally playing favorites. Most of these accusations revolve around two of the biggest female streamers on the platform: Alinity and Amouranth.
Natalia “Alinity” Mogollon has more than 1 million followers on Twitch and has been viewed for more than 65 million hours. Kaitlyn “Amouranth” Siragusa also has over 1 million followers, including over 8,000 subscribers. Both popular streamers gained their massive followings by interacting with their fans in the Just Chatting section of Twitch, sometimes while wearing revealing outfits.
Over the past few years, both streamers have run into drama. This has included NSFW wardrobe malunfuctions and animal abuse allegations. But through it all, both women have faced very few consequences. Because of this, Alinity and Amouranth have become quite the controversial pair on Twitch, often brought up when other streamers get harsher punishments for less serious offenses.
For many in the streaming community, it seems like Alinity and Amouranth are getting special treatment from Twitch, and fans believe it’s because they make a lot of money for the streaming platform, or because members of Twitch staff allow personal feelings to cloud their judgment. While neither of those accusations against yet have any proof behind them, it does seem like Alinity and Amouranth get away with a lot more than the average streamer.
Amouranth becomes bigger on Twitch after accidental nudity
While innocently playing with her dog on the floor, Amouranth’s dress seemed to accidentally flap to the side, revealing her genitals live on stream. Later on, Amouranth claimed she forgot to wear underwear.
Whether the slip was intentional or not, it seemed as though Twitch was hesitant to make a move. Her account remained active for 12 hours following the incident. She was finally banned, but it only lasted all of three days.
When Amouranth returned she was greeted with more followers than ever before. In fact, she broke one of Twitch’s all-time records: the most followers gained in the shortest amount of time. She experienced a 50% increase in followers, gaining 410,568 followers in just seven days. This put her right behind Imane “Pokimane” Anys, the most followed female streamer at the time.
“It’s pretty cool actually, I feel antifragile,” Amouranth said of the massive influx of followers. “There’s nothing embarrassing or online drama wise that could make me feel bad at this point. It’s no big deal, and just makes my name go up cause when you’re a celebrity adios realittttyyyy.”
It’s literally impossible to predict what will blow up on the internet. This banning drama has made me more relevant that everything I’ve ever done combined.
LSF for the MVP. pic.twitter.com/uXj2IdP0le — Amouranth ???? @Patreon (@Amouranth) September 13, 2019
At this point, it seemed to some that Twitch favored the controversial ASMR streamer. The platform’s hesitation to suspend her for revealing her genitalia was already troubling enough. But the short three-day suspension and the warm welcome afterwards seemed to solidify the suspicions some had that Twitch gave Amouranth special treatment. Meanwhile, lewd artists were getting banned for their equitably or less revealing drawings, some even receiving permanent bans.
Some time later, Amouranth was banned for three days once again. This time it seemed like it was unwarranted, since Amouranth wasn’t even aware what the ban was for at the time. While some people felt that Twitch was being unfair by keeping the reason from her, others said this was her “eighth three-day ban.” Twitch’s own rules state that your account can get permanently banned after three strikes, but that hasn’t been the case for Amouranth.
It’s unclear if Twitch is playing favorites with Amouranth, but there’s no question that Amouranth’s racy behavior has only gained her more of a following on Twitch.
Twitch ignores public cries for Alinity to be permabanned
In December of 2019, PETA called on Twitch to take action against Alinity as allegations of animal abuse continued. The outcry came after a strange clip made its way around the web of Alinity not stopping her dog from uncomfortably invading her personal space while she was doing yoga. Instead of pushing her dog away or moving away from her dog, Alinity stays in the compromising yoga pose for an odd amount of time while her dog buries its head in her crotch.
Damn Alinity’s dog just ate her out live on cam. This girl is wild when it comes to pets and streaming pic.twitter.com/bzg9dluME7
— Troydan (@Troydan) December 1, 2019
This led to new allegations against Alinity, with many feeling that the dog was a little too comfortable with the popular streamer. Others hinted that it seemed like this was a common occurance, or even something Alinity actively encouraged.
hey guys I wont be streaming the next 7 days. I got banned for drawing @AlinityTwitch the lover of dogs and thrower of cats a silly picture. I totally deserve the ban and I’m even glad twitch took action, just wish @Twitch held everyone to the same rules. #stream pic.twitter.com/SnxllTxsba
— JON GRIM (@JONGRIM219) December 4, 2019
“People are, like, really mad about this. People think I should be banned for that. I think that’s so ridiculous,” Alinity said in response.
But people didn’t want Alinity banned just for the weird yoga clip. Most of the outrage was from an older clip of Alinity tossing her cat while on a live broadcast. She also spit vodka into her cat’s mouth, causing it to react with horror. There are many other clips of Alinity being rough, aggressive, and perhaps even mean to her animals on stream, including her kicking her dog. This has many people assuming she acts even more hashly towards her pets when off camera.
Twitch has never made a public statement about Alinity’s treatment of her pets during live broadcasts.
In the summer of 2019, Alinity seemed to avoid punishment once again. When she accidentally showed porn on stream, Twitch decided not to give her a suspension. Former Overwatch League pro xQc was suspended around the same time for accidentally showing part of a male penis while sharing a video where people color over scenes from pornographic videos. This furthered the idea that Twitch gave Alinity special treatment.
But Twitch did give Alinity a suspension for a NSFW wardrobe malfunction in April 2020. While trying to stuff a pillow under her shirt, Alinity appeared to accidentally expose her entire breast on stream. Many in the streaming community have debated if the flashing was accidental or not. Either way, Twitch didn’t seem too concerned about it.
Alinity told her Twitter followers she would issue herself a three-day ban. When Twitch finally decided to take action, they gave Alinity a mere12-hour suspension, which stood out for being quite short for accidental nudity when compared to other related incidents, even Amouranth’s.
Is Twitch really giving special treatment to Amouranth and Alinity?
On the surface it seems possible that Twitch has a soft spot for both Amouranth and Alinity. Or maybe just for female streamers in general.
Pokimane has also gotten away with a lot of things that others haven’t, including the time she received just a warning for accidentally showing porn while others tend to get suspended for the same offense.
warning is deserved, sorry to anyone who didn’t wanna see that on stream. i’ll be even more careful in the future, but i’m glad it made for a good meme lmao ???? pic.twitter.com/t2NxgxPEBM
— pokimane (@pokimanelol) May 23, 2020
But it could also be that Twitch is more lenient with their larger content creators, rather than to women specifically. Big streamers such as Turner “Tfue” Tenney have gotten away with a lot more than smaller broadcasters. Tfue has three strikes against him for using racial slurs and has yet to see any meaningful long-term punishment. That’s not the case for some other streamers who have used overly offensive language.
Whether it’s because of their gender or their prominence on the platform, most in the streaming community will agree that Amouranth and Alinity are given special treatment from Twitch. It’s posible that isn’t the case, but so far they’ve gotten away with a lot of behavior that would get other streamers suspended, or even permanently banned.
Olivia has worked in media ever since graduating from college, with her coverage ranging from traditional newspaper reporting to digital coverage of all things gaming, online betting, and nerd culture. She has traveled around the world pursuing that coverage, from the far coasts of the United States to the busy downtown core of Tokyo, Japan. Olivia’s favorite games include Overwatch and Super Smash Smash Bros, and she has been published at Esports Illustrated, Inven Global, EsportsInsider, Upcomer, and elsewhere.
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