So Pokimane has returned to streaming and (yet again) has pissed off the internet. Earlier this year, she was under fire for “lying to her community” by having a “secret boyfriend” which “tricked” her followers into thinking that she was single and ready to mingle with any and all of her tens of thousands of subscriber simps.
Yes, you read that correctly.
Literally the entire month of July, that was her life: fighting off Leafy’s trolls and her own pissed off fans that clung to that one in a million chance that they could be “the one”. So she understandably took some time off from stream to let the situation die down and work on her mental health. And who can blame her right? 2020 has been an absolute shitshow for the entire world and many streamers have come forward talking about the tole it has taken on them.
Well, she came back on Friday to play Among Us with her Offline TV crew and a bunch of her other friends. Nothing weird, just a normal stream with all her friends and loyal followers.
Until yesterday, when she debuted this new spin on her channel and yeeted right back into a hurricane filled with typhoons.
But I mean that’s fine right? People don’t follow Pokimane because they want to look at her; they just like her gaming skills and personality.
Right???
I’m gonna say something controversial here: Pokimane is hot. Like very hot. Like hot enough to control an army of horny incel men to do whatever she asks if she wanted to, hot.
That’s not degrading her streaming career; it’s just a fact. And listen, there a shit ton of other hot girls on Twitch that are nowhere near close to reaching the levels of success because it takes way more than just being hot to become a millionaire on Twitch. You see it all the time: some hot girl thinks she’s all that, tries to stream on Twitch, but has no idea what the hell she’s doing and it ends up being a complete trainwreck. To reach the level of success Pokimane has reach takes dedication, creativity, personality, etc.
But there is a large portion of Pokimane’s community that just gets off (some literally) to logging onto Twitch and being able to pay money to see and talk to a hot and funny gamer girl. And that community is PISSED.
I’m not gonna lie, I had no idea that being a “vtuber” was a thing. Apparently, for like 5 years people on YouTube have been using these virtual anime avatars in their videos (hence the term “vtuber” being used) and growing their own little community on the internet. Well, guess what: they’re pissed off too.
So yea, that’s happening live on the internet as we speak. Personally, I think that’s a dumb argument. If anything, Pokimane participating in the “Vtuber movement” can only help the people who have been doing it for years to get exposure. And for those that are pissed off that she is “further saturating an already saturated market”, boo hoo for you buddy. I think LilyPichu is 100% right there seems to be gatekeeping on an idea that literally anyone could use. That’s like a bunch of long time Among Us streamers getting pissed about the big streamers taking over that category on Twitch. So what? It’s elevating the popularity of the game for a while and when they move onto the next hype title, it will return to how it was before but with a bigger fanbase.
So yea, I don’t really think Poki did anything wrong here. I think it’s kinda weird personally and would never do it unless I was trolling, but that’s me.
I will say this though: Pokimane is slowly reaching “can’t win” territory. Every single thing she does from here forward is going to be heavily critiqued and you have to wonder how much longer she will be willing to put up with this until she breaks.