Imane “Pokimane” Anys is one of the biggest female streamers on Twitch. Unfortunately, those in the public eye often receive many unpleasant comments. Now the streamer explains why she notices so little of it.
What is the deal with the comments? Anyone who has a large online reach eventually faces hate comments and trolls. As one of the few women at the top of Twitch, Pokimane is particularly often confronted with hostility.
During a stream on January 31, she briefly mentioned a tweet she had posted shortly before. In it, she called for people not to sexualize others against their will. Apparently in reference to a website with fake pornographic recordings of major female streamers that had come to light at the end of January.
Viewers speculated that the list of people she had muted on Twitter must be constantly growing with the responses under the tweet. Pokimane then revealed how she deals with hate online: That is one of her biggest secrets.
Out of sight, out of mind
What is Pokimane’s secret? The streamer explains that she “posts & ghosts” constantly. That means she makes posts, for example on Twitter, and often ignores them for hours, maybe because she has appointments.
The comments under such posts can sometimes get out of hand. But Pokimane is unaware of this:
If people post weird stuff in my comments, I don’t see it 90% of the time.
How does she manage that? Pokimane has a team that is logged into her Twitter account and blocks people who make inappropriate comments. This way, the streamer doesn’t have to look at the hate at all.
Pokimane is visibly amused by the idea that Twitter users might take pride in being blocked by her – because then they would probably have gotten through to her. In truth, it wasn’t her at all, and she doesn’t pay any attention to them.
We have embedded the relevant clip from the stream here:
Unfortunately part of the job
Is this something special? Actually not, because moderating comments is quite part of the job description of social media or community managers. Prominent people or those with a large reach often have a team that takes care of their accounts, but very few talk openly about it.
This can mean, for example, that content is strategically planned or reviewed by a PR team. With Pokimane, it seems that she is responsible for the posts on her Twitter account herself. She only lets her team sort out the unpleasant comments.
How is that received? On Reddit, where the clip circulated in r/LivestreamFail, the largest community for streaming, many comments showed understanding: Being constantly exposed to negativity must be quite burdensome for mental health, so it makes sense not to deal with it at all (via reddit).
Unfortunately, it is also part of the job. One person wrote: “I think this is a good example of something that goes ‘with the territory’. […] Public figures should be prepared to spend part of their wealth to protect themselves from a lot of sick stuff.” (via reddit).
Others provided examples with their criticism as to why such a team is necessary for someone like Pokimane: She lives in a bubble, censoring the world to protect her fragile ego: “The definition of privileged and soft.” (via reddit).
Some Reddit users also point out that the strategy is not so unusual: It’s not much different from the mods that almost every streamer needs from a certain size on Twitch. It remains to be seen whether other bigger streamers will expand the moderation to their other social media channels.
Pokimane seems to be doing well with her strategy. In 2022, the streamer already said she wanted to focus more on her mental health and even took a longer break from Twitch and social media altogether.
One of the largest Twitch streamers in the world explains why she wants to stream less
