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Pokimane says she left Twitch for YouTube because of male toxicity-Kenneth Andersen-Entertainment – Metro
Twitch star Pokimane has revealed she’s leaving Twitch to start a YouTube stream and seek more independence from the ‘manosphere’ community.
![Pokimane says she left Twitch for YouTube because of male toxicity-Kenneth Andersen-Entertainment – Metro](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/poki3-ezgif.com-webp-to-jpg-converter-4076.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=968)
Pokimane has left the building (Picture: Twitter)
Twitch star Pokimane has revealed she’s leaving Twitch to start a YouTube stream and seek more independence from the ‘manosphere’ community.
On Wednesday, one of Twitch’s most popular, and longest serving, streamers announced that they are leaving the platform after 10 years, but Pokimane didn’t say what she would do next.
Her goodbye tweet sparked debate about whether she was signing for rival Kick, moving to YouTube, or retiring entirely.
Less than 24 hours later, Pokimane has revealed that she is starting a new YouTube stream and her reasons why do not paint Twitch in a good light.
Pokimane announced the news on Twitter, saying, ‘Let’s explore something new together. No strings attached. First ever YouTube stream tomorrow.’
She then pointed people in the direction of her podcast, where she went into detail about why she left Twitch, saying she wanted to be more independent with her content and explore new things:
‘Over the last year I’ve been doing a lot of different things and, frankly, missing out on a lot of money I could have made. But that is 100% my choice that I’m making for myself, for my happiness, and for my long-term career growth,’ she said.
She added that exclusivity deals, which until recently she had with Twitch, are a double-edged sword, even if they provide a minimum amount of income as long as you ‘hit your targets’, such as hours streamed per month.
However, there’s a downside, Pokimane revealed, which is that ‘they do put you in this head space of prioritising hours streamed versus how good the content actually is. Or putting effort into other platforms, or doing other things.’
Pokimane quoted Twitch CEO Dan Clancy, who admitted the platform isn’t profitable, and that ‘putting all your eggs in on backet isn’t always great, especially once you start seeing that that basket isn’t doing as well as it was doing before.’
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She suggested the community landscape of Twitch, which remains dominated by male streamers,’ was also a factor in her leaving Twitch, saying:
‘For the last couple of years, is it just me or do you guys also feel like it has regressed a lot? Especially with the rise of so much manosphere, red pill, bulls***. I feel like that stuff has flourished within the male-dominated live streaming sphere. I can’t be surprised. It’s the online demographic that skews males the most, so of course manosphere stuff would perform better there.
‘But it was just disappointing seeing this community and industry that I have so much love for relish, almost, in this s***. So many of the things I see… figureheads in my industry, the most popular, well established, typically male, creators… some of the stuff I see them say and do breaks my heart. It’s hard for me to exist in a community and watch that happen.’
At the end of the day, leaving Twitch was never likely to be a big problem for Pokimane. She has 5.9 million followers on Instagram, 6.7 million followers on TikTok, and 6.6 million subscribers on her main YouTube channel and a large proportion will almost certainly follow her wherever she goes.
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