Last week, a 30-minute documentary about the German Twitch streamer Anissa Baddour (26), known as AnniTheDuck, was released. Growing up without much money but highly gifted, the 26-year-old dropped out of her computer science studies and worked as a princess that could be hired for children’s birthday parties. Today, she has 10 employees and is a successful influencer in the video game industry.
What kind of documentary is this?
- The ARD series “Moneymaker” presents people who have made money from being nobodies. It has already featured poker players or people who sell “legal LSD.” This week, one of the largest German Twitch streamers took the spotlight: AnniTheDuck.
- The ARD documentary covers AnniTheDuck’s childhood, youth, and present. It explains where she comes from, what she is currently doing, and touches on the topic of money. The documentary follows the streamer. Scenes from the past are reenacted in snippets.
- Most of the time, AnniTheDuck speaks for herself, but her mother also shares her thoughts on her daughter’s decisions. Additionally, streamer Mowky comments as her best friend.
In Germany, I was the foreigner
This is what you learn about AnniTheDuck’s childhood: She always felt like an outsider as a child and teenager. Due to her background, she felt like she didn’t truly belong anywhere:
“I am half Italian, half Moroccan, but born in Germany. In my Moroccan family, I was the Italian child. In my Italian family, I was the Moroccan child. In Germany, I was the foreigner.”
She wished she could fit into one of those categories that other people so vehemently reject.
But her intelligence also made her an outsider: The future influencer could already read and do math in the first grade. While the other children participated in class, she sat in the back corner of the classroom copying books about birds. A terrible time, as she says today.
She then skipped the second grade because she was bored, and became even more of an outsider, being bullied by her classmates, as her mother recounts:
“Shortly after, she was allowed to skip a grade. It’s not always the best thing, to be honest, because then you’re the one that has skipped a grade to the other kids. And then you get bullied: In the morning, they will call out: Here comes The Brain, The Brain.”
AnniTheDuck shares that as a child, she had many interests and would have loved to do ballet or sports, but the family lacked money, her parents had separated, and her father left behind large debts. Therefore, she was given a PlayStation to keep her quiet, and her love of video games ignited.
Dropped out of university, worked as a rental princess
How did it go for her? As the influencer shares, she was long an outsider in her childhood, with no one wanting to associate with her:
I think I was first too weird and then too quiet.
Only at 13 did she find some like-minded people and dedicated herself to her new hobby: cosplay. Her mother says: While others were partying, her daughter was at home with her friends sewing costumes.
She started studying computer science in Duisburg at 17, but dropped out after a professor publicly humiliated her. When she returned to the lecture hall after missing a class, the professor greeted her with:
“Oh, I thought you dropped out. Here you are again; you had a nail appointment last week, or why didn’t it work out?”
Instead of studying, she worked as a rental princess for an agency and focused more on cosplay and costumes.
When she was first asked in 2014 while cosplaying as the archer Ashe from League of Legends if they could take a photo with her because she looked so cool, it was a completely new experience. Because she had never been “cool” before.
I don’t earn well, I earn way too much
This is her career: From cosplays and appearances at conventions, social media posts quickly evolved into a Twitch career and a YouTube channel. Today, AnniTheDuck has 10 employees, is one of the biggest Twitch streamers in Germany, and is known in the gaming scene for her cosplay as video game characters.
She says that when she built her own company, she learned a lot from successful CEOs and took the lesson to delegate and outsource as much as possible.
Today she doesn’t earn just well, but “way too much.” However, it still isn’t enough for the millions in her account, as she is simply too nice and pays her employees too well.
The documentary suggests: From an outsider that no one wanted to play with, a widely popular and adored figure has emerged, who has built her own life.
Her mother is almost bursting with pride that everything has gone so well. Her daughter is not only successful, but also genuinely dedicated.
The Dark Sides of a Shining Career as an Influencer
So is everything wonderful? At the end of the 30 minutes, the documentary also addresses the negative sides of her career: Because in the business, it is clear that “more is better,” everyone around her tells her she is making too few videos, while she feels she is already making too many.
She herself struggles with constantly being watched and evaluated, having to dress up and pretend, has made surgical changes to her face in several places, and goes to therapy weekly.
Then you post a picture where you are less made up, and everyone says that you are sick and that you have gained weight. And all these things, and it is so awful because you already think all these things yourself and then you get told them. And that is totally burdensome for the head.
She doesn’t want to continue her career indefinitely, but a friend assures her that she will surely be successful in another field as well.
Here you can watch the ARD documentary about AnniTheDuck:
Is the documentary worth watching? Yes, the documentary is worth it because you see a different side of AnniTheDuck that partially contradicts her public persona.
AnniTheDuck sometimes flirts with the image of a “blonde bimbo.” There is a scene in the documentary where she creates a role-playing character with low intelligence points, joking that she has managed to get by without intelligence her whole life. When you watch the documentary, you know that the opposite is true.
Particularly the insights into her childhood and youth, as well as the dark sides of her career, are interesting. The Gamescom appearances or what Twitch is all about will surely be exciting for ARD viewers, but will reveal little new to regular readers of MeinMMO.
Madeira has such beautiful weather
What is there to criticize in the documentary? For a documentary called “Moneymaker,” the money aspect is only hinted at.
It shows how AnniTheDuck does advertising for “Immortals of Avenum” by participating in a role-playing session with the Rocket Beans. However, Immortals of Avenum flopped catastrophically and received practically no attention in Germany, even though it isn’t a bad game (via gamestar). This is not an example of how expensive influencer marketing helps a game gain more attention.
Also, the fact that AnniTheDuck lives in Madeira solely because of “the good weather” leaves a sour taste. They could have made it clearer to the ARD viewer that Madeira has more to offer than just “25 degrees year-round.”
Twitch streamer explains why rich influencers are urgently moving to Madeira now
