Pokimane reveals she was catfished online, here's what happened
Even big influencers can get catfished these days, as popular streamer Imane “Pokimane” Anys recently found out.
Catfishing has become a pretty big phenomenon in the digital age, with people appearing very differently online from who they really are in real life — sometimes drastically so, with the intent of deceiving others. As one of the largest content creators of 2025, Pokimane is quite aware of how the internet works, but even she was catfished by someone she met online. She explained what happened on the latest episode of her Sweet n Sour podcast with Lily “LilyPichu” Ki.
Pokimane opens up on her catfish experience
Sweet n Sour is one of the new content pursuits that Pokimane has been trying out ever since she took a step back from gaming to explore other social media platforms, and she used the platform to discuss her own catfish experience. She now has 6.9 million followers on TikTok, where she does beauty, lip synching, and dancing videos. This more vlog style content has grown big, including Sweet n Sour, where she shares personal stories about herself and her life as a content creator.
On the February 8 episode of Sweet n Sour, Pokimane revealed that she had been catfished by a close friend online. She explained that she met this friend online a few years ago on Twitter, where the girl had a good amount of followers and had posted a number of selfies. She was also a talented artist, which led Pokimane to hire her as her new emote artist at the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eep1sXjK4h8
As they became closer, they’d talk about their families with each other and other very personal things. But Pokimane was starting to feel a little suspicious of her friend when her stories became increasingly far-fetched and she rarely showed her face.
“She was very very pretty, but never posted her face publicly. You can’t be a baddie to that extent and never have a single photo online,” Pokimane said.
Pokimane attempted to reverse search the available images of her friend on Google, but it led to no results. Her next step was talking to her moderators, who spent time digging for the true identity of the emote artist. They ultimately were able to trace the images back to an Instagram account that the artist was stealing selfies from.
Once she found this out, Pokimane asked her online friend about the findings and the person deleted their entire account in response. Pokimane said the situation made her “sad.”
She never said who exactly the person ended up being, but it looks like Pokimane was right to dive a bit deeper into her mysterious friend’s stories. It’s sadly not the first time that someone she hired ended up being a little off.
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.
View full profile