Twitch
Twitch
Pokimane calls for kid version of Twitch given rampant toxicity
Olivia Richman
Imane “Pokimane” Anys has a generally wholesome stream on Twitch, but she is aware of the more inappropriate that is spread content all throughout the streaming platform. Pokimane recently suggested that there should be a section on Twitch just for kids that filters out adult content. The kid version of Twitch would see content “go through a filter,” making sure it’s acceptable for children who perhaps shouldn’t be watching first-person …
Twitch
Mizkif loses $20K after bet with MrBeast in League of Legends
Olivia Richman
Sometimes the streaming community is shocked by the amount of money content creators make, but at least Matthew “Mizkif” Rinaudo and Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson have decided to use some of that cash towards a charitable cause. Mizkif wound up donating $20,000 to charity after losing a bet to MrBeast on January 25, making him the latest victim of MrBeast’s betting streams. Ludwig lost $25,000 during a poker game with MrBeast …
Twitch
xQc isn’t gaming on Twitch any time soon, criticizes viewers
Olivia Richman
It isn’t only Twitch that has a problem with the new MasterChef meta. Some viewers have called out Felix “xQc” Lengyel for continuing to react to television shows instead of gaming. xQc is one of the biggest names on Twitch, rising to fame due to his FPS skills and controversial behavior. Before Twitch, xQc was an Overwatch League pro. Since then, he has cycled through different games throughout his full-time …
Twitch
Pokimane responds to backlash over JiDion’s hate raid ban
Olivia Richman
Despite Jidon “JiDion” Adam being indefinitely banned from Twitch, the drama surrounding his hate raids continues. The target of his harassment, Imane “Pokimane” Anys, has apparently been receiving hate for being upset about the situation. Earlier in the month, Pokimane was forced to leave her stream early after JiDion sent his fans over to harass her. Even after the hate raid, JiDion made fun of Pokimane and made a mockery …
Twitch
Pokimane accuses Ninja of asking Twitch to unban JiDion
Olivia Richman
Twitch streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins may be threatening to sue Imane “Pokimane” Anys after drama erupted over a recent hate raid. Last week, JiDion sent his Twitch followers to go harass Pokimane’s chat during a live stream, causing her to end her broadcast early. Many big-name streamers later stood up for Pokimane, calling the situation sexist. It appears that Twitch agreed that the behavior was inappropriate, giving JiDion a permanent …
Twitch
Pokimane speaks on sexism regarding female streamers’ looks
Olivia Richman
Twitch streamer Imane “Pokimane” Anys has decided to call out sexist behavior after dealing with an abundance of backlash through the early days of 2022. It’s only been a couple of short weeks in the new year, but Pokimane has already encountered some difficulty in 2022. She canceled a stream on January 12 after being harassed by JiDion’s fanbase, leading other big content creators to speak up against misogyny, including …
Twitch
Twitch streamer faces indefinite ban over emotes, but which one?
Olivia Richman
Twitch streamer Jessica49 is trying to figure out which of her emotes led to a ban. Jessica49 is the latest streamer to face a questionable ban from Twitch. Hasan “HasanAbi” Piker was recently banned for using a questionable racial epithet, while another streamer was banned for saying he wanted to “destroy heterosexuals” at Mario Kart. Now, Jessica49’s ban has the streaming community raising its collective eyebrows once again. Twitch emailed …
Twitch
Disguised Toast claims he got himself banned to scare streamers
Olivia Richman
Twitch streamer Jeremy “Disguised Toast” Wang has now claimed that his recent DMCA suspension was apparently a publicity stunt. On January 10, Disguised Toast received a DMCA strike for watching Death Note. He was on the final episode of the popular anime when he was suspended, making for quite the cliffhanger. At the time, Disguised Toast joked that Twitch should have waited 20 minutes for the finale to end. It …
HasanAbi claims DMCA strike redacted by Twitch, but was it?
Olivia Richman
Twitch
It’s now being speculated that Hasan “HasanAbi” Piker’s DMCA from the Fox Network was fake. On January 8, HasanAbi shared a tweet that showed an email from Twitch warning HasanAbi that he had received a copyright takedown for streaming MasterChef on his recent streams. In response, HasanAbi declared that the MasterChef meta was “over.” While fans were confused as to why HasanAbi received an email while other streamers received suspensions, …
DisguisedToast banned for streaming anime on Twitch, he responds
Olivia Richman
Twitch
Despite all of the backlash from Twitch against the MasterChef meta, streamers have continued to broadcast entire seasons of reality TV shows and anime series while streaming. This has led Jeremy “DisguisedToast” Wang to receive a ban from Twitch on Monday. DisguisedToast has been streaming a variety of anime series on Twitch over the past few weeks. The latest was Death Note, a dark anime based on a manga about …
xQc believes MasterChef meta on Twitch is not over just yet
Olivia Richman
Twitch
Hasan “HasanAbi” Piker and the MasterChef meta have been at the center of some drama in the streaming industry. Big names on Twitch and YouTube have continued to weigh in on streamers watching entire seasons of reality cooking shows while broadcasting to thousands of viewers. HasanAbi was confident that all streamers had to do was “be careful,” in response to Ludwig, who was critical of content creators who did so. …
Pokimane says she knew Twitch ban was coming, calls it “fair”
Olivia Richman
Twitch
Imane “Pokimane” Anys received her first-ever Twitch ban for streaming Avatar: Last Air Bender to thousands of viewers. But Pokimane isn’t upset about the outcome. Pokimane took to Twitter to open up a bit more about the situation with her fans. According to Pokimane, the suspension was not unfair and was, in fact, “inevitable.” The popular Twitch personality added that she would elaborate on the suspension Monday, reassuring followers that …
HasanAbi declares end of MasterChef meta after copyright claim
Olivia Richman
Twitch
Soon after calling out Ludwig Ahgren for “snitching” on Twitch streamers taking part in the MasterChef meta, Hasan “HasanAbi” Piker received a DMCA copyright claim from the Fox Network. Ludwig took to a recent YouTube stream to discuss the issues with streaming reality shows, prompting HasanAbi to criticize the way Ludwig went about the situation. HasanAbi said that making a video would just draw attention to the MasterChef meta, creating …
HasanAbi accuses Ludwig of “dry-snitching” on Twitch streamers
Olivia Richman
Twitch
Political content creator Hasan “HasanAbi” Piker has responded to Ludwig Ahgren’s recent rant about the MasterChef meta on Twitch. For the past month, big-name Twitch stars like Felix “xQc” Lengyel and Imane “Pokimane” Anys have been streaming reality shows, including many cooking dramas, while chatting with their viewers. For xQc, these have been his most-viewed streams yet, and he even got the attention of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay. But many …
Pokimane hit with first-ever Twitch ban, here’s why
Steven Rondina
Twitch
In a surprising turn of events, Imane “Pokimane” Anys has been banned from Twitch. To date, Pokimane has been one of Twitch’s best-behaved streamers. While many prominent personalities have had some dust-ups with moderators, landed in offline drama, or even been hit with permanent bans, that hasn’t been the case for Pokimane. Pokimane has been one of the least controversial big names on the platform, which makes her ban all …
Apex Legends streamer threatens teammate’s family on Twitch
Olivia Richman
Twitch
Competitive players are known for being a bit toxic online, but sometimes players take their behavior further than what is socially acceptable. That was the case when well-known Apex Legends streamer Captain Valenti ultimately was banned on Twitch after a disturbing incident was streaming live. The target of the abusive rant, Cirohsa, shared the clip on Twitter, asking for Twitch and Respawn Entertainment to respond. The clip showed Captain Valenti …
40 streamers arrested in Twitch money laundering scam
Olivia Richman
Twitch
A major money-laundering scam had some content creators making millions of dollars on Twitch by abusing the streaming platform’s monetization systems. 40 people involved in the scam have now been arrested. In November 2021, Twitch confirmed that the company was taking action against 150 streamers who had stolen over $10 million in laundered funds. The streamers, most of whom were based out of Turkey, were using fraudulent credit card transactions …
Amouranth gets banned from Just Dance, loses her high scores
Olivia Richman
Twitch
Katlyn “Amouranth” Siragusa is no stranger to getting banned, but this time around it’s on an unexpected platform: Just Dance. Amouranth was suspended from Twitch five times in 2021, thanks to her hot tub streams and suggestive ASMR sessions. Amouranth was also suspended from other social media platforms as well, including Instagram, which she is still banned from. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTFsUEh-txE Now Amouranth is also banned from Just Dance, and she may …
All you need to know about JustaMinx, the Irish streaming star
William Davis
Twitch
Streamer and YouTuber JustaMinx has gone from small-time streaming to pulling in thousands of viewers in just two short years. If you’re a big fan of Minecraft content, you’ve probably heard her name before. JustaMinx, often just called Minx, has quickly climbed the ladder of popularity over the last few years. Her content includes podcasts, streaming, online videos, and more. If you want to learn more about the Irish streamer, …
Andrea Botez talks potential ADHD diagnosis on Twitch
Olivia Richman
Twitch
Some in the Twitch community are concerned with the Botez sisters’ choice of words once again after chess streamer Andrea Botez opened up about her ADHD. Andrea and her sister are popular due to their high-level chess playing skills and relatable personalities displayed on stream. Many fans have noticed that Andrea is hyperactive and sometimes seems easily distracted. It’s something that Andrea has touched upon as well, even casually diagnosing …
Twitch is the largest of all the major livestreaming platforms in and around the gaming world, but it wasn’t always that way. Th platform’s history dates back over many years and to a form of the service that had little to do with gaming. So how did it arrive to the top of the gaming marketplace from those humble beginnings?
Twitch transcends justin.tv, is acquired by Amazon
Twitch was originally born out of justin.tv, an early livestreaming website that focus more on general lifestyle streaming than on any one particular niche, gaming included. justin.tv, named after co-founder Justin Kan, was launched in 2007 and went on to feature multiple categories of streaming options. Among these was gaming, a category which quickly outpaced the growth of platform’s other categories.
Responding to this growth, justin.tv spun out its gaming section in 2011 into a new service called Twitch.tv, and that is the true starting point of Twitch as it exists today.
It would still be some time before Twitch would resemble its modern-day operation. The biggest move towards that progression came in 2014, when the streaming platform was purchased for just shy of $1 billion in cash by services and technology giant Amazon. That move transitioned the company being a private operation largely funded by private investment and internal revenues to one of many arms of one of the world’s largest and richest companies.
Twitch dominates gaming livestreaming
The growth of Twitch largely coincided with the growth of livestreaming the world over, and gaming was a key driver of that growth as audiences flocked in droves to watch charismatic personalities play through their favorite games both new and old. Some of those personalities would become so popular that they would rival mainstream celebrities in notoriety with younger audiences, from Tyler “Ninja” Blevins to Imane “Pokimane” Anys.
Some of those personalities would be poached by rival streaming platforms that cropped up in response to the runaway popularity of Twitch. Microsoft’s Mixer and YouTube’s YouTube Gaming both signed streamers with massive audiences to exclusive streaming deals via big-money contracts. But Twitch proved resilient; no matter how popular the streamers were when they were signed away, someone else seemed prime to fill their spot. Twitch had become more than just a vehicle through which popular personalities could stream. It was itself a destination for its audience.
Twitch does still continue to compete with rival platforms. Kick is perhaps its biggest competition today, offering generous
subscription revenue splits
in an effort to sway streamers away from Twitch. But Amazon’s platform remains the most popular.
Twitch finds controversy over moderation, censorship
Given the nature of the Twitch platform, one that is entirely reliant on user-generated content, it should come as no surprise that moderation and censorship have long been hot topics of conversation. Consistency, or lack thereof, is often cited as Twitch’s biggest issue as its moderation team struggles to pass judgments across a litany of streamers producing a great variety of content.
Those content types have only grown over time. While Twitch found massive popularity by moving away from the greater variety of justin.tv and focusing specifically on gaming, the platform has ironically pushed back into other categories in more recent years, attempting to find additional growth by emphasizing the streaming of art, music, and its popular “just chatting” content that sees streamers talking directly to their audience without any particular activity driving their engagement.
But while Twitch is now a lightning rod for controversy and discussion given its great size and breadth, that controversy has shown no real risk to lessening its grip on the livestreaming industry. Twitch has become the dominant name in its category, and with its biggest streamers continuing to
set new records, all signs point to that dominance continuing for the foreseeable future.
