The 10th TwitchCon is underway. The weekend’s opening keynote covered new features for streamers and some enforcement changes. As for the latter, Twitch is, in most cases, moving away from blanket bans and toward targeted enforcement. So, a chat violation may not affect an account’s ability to stream, or vice versa.
Dual-format streaming, which lets you go live in vertical and horizontal views at once, is getting a beta rollout. Twitch tested the feature with a small number of accounts beginning in August. The wider beta kicks off next week.
Of course, AI made an appearance at the keynote. First, Auto Clips is a new feature that automates highlight creation for streamers. Twitch also mentioned that Meta’s AI glasses will soon support Twitch live-streaming. (We first learned that feature was coming at Meta Connect in September.) An update to the Twitch mobile app will add that support within “the next few months.”
Streamers will be happy to learn that Twitch is adding ways for them to make money. It plans to increase the number of sponsorship deals on the platform. The company said this was due to growing advertiser enthusiasm for Twitch streamers. Twitch will begin rolling out the new offers to all monetizing streamers (including affiliates) in the coming months.
Twitch’s biggest streamer, Félix “xQc” Lengyel, is signing with the company’s newest rival, Kick, a streaming platform that offers better revenue splits and also appears to be centered around online gambling. The non-exclusive deal is valued at up to $100 million over two years, and is the latest and biggest blow to Twitch as creator discontent continues to mount.
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As first reported by The New York Times, the agreement will pay out $35 million per year, with $30 million in additional incentives available if xQc hits certain benchmarks. As Dexerto points out, this would make it the 12th biggest annual payout in all of sports, putting xQc right ahead of Kevin Durant.
Kick is a streaming platform startup funded by online gambling companies including Easygo Gaming and Stake.com. Following Twitch’s crackdown on gambling promotion last fall, the platform attracted big names like Adin Ross, BruceDropEmOff, and Trainwreckstv with its lax rules and 5/95 revenue split for creators. It’s not yet clear if Kick is profitable or how it plans to become so, but it has managed to benefit from a backlash against Twitch as the Amazon-owned platform has sought to more aggressively monetize the people making content for it.
A “child of Twitch” raised in its often-toxic chat, xQc started in the world of League of Legends before moving on to Overwatch, briefly competing in Blizzard’s Overwatch League before eventually being released from the Dallas Fuel after a series of suspensions for offensive comments. He pivoted to being a full-time content creator in 2018, with this mix of high-level play, unfiltered remarks, and an endless penchant for controversy turning him into Twitch’s most-watched streamer by 2021.
By 2022, leaks revealed that xQc had earned $8 million from subscriptions on the platform. That same year, he lost $1.8 million in a single month from online gambling. While his contract with Kick doesn’t preclude him from streaming on Twitch, the latter has a rule against simulcasting, making it unclear how much time, if any, xQc will still devote to the platform that helped turn him into a star in the first place.
“It’s time,” xQc tweeted on June 16, when his new partnership with Kick was announced. The post included a video promising his content would remain unchanged on the new platform. Directly below that was a retweet showing support for streamer Nickmercs, who’d recently come under fire for making anti-LGBTQ+ remarks.
Update 5/5/2023 1:30 p.m. ET: After just 24 hours, Kaitlyn “Amouranth” Siragusa’s Twitch channel has been reinstated, Dexerto reports. Don’t expect to watch previous livestreams, though, as all of her VODs have been nuked. All that’s left for now are clips clipped by her fans. Original story follows.
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Kaitlyn “Amouranth” Siragusa, one of Twitch’s top-performing and most popular female streamers, has been yeeted off the platform. She was hit with what appears to be a temporary ban on May 4, though the reason is unknown.
Amouranth is a household name on Amazon’s livestreaming platform. With over six million Twitch followers (and millions more across Instagram and YouTube), Amouranth is easily the purple streamer’s most recognizable female creator next to Imane “Pokimane” Anys. She’s been in hot water before, particularly for regularly streaming in skimpy bikinis, but that hasn’t stopped her from charting highly on Twitch. Despite receiving a few bans in the past that lasted no more than a couple of days, Amouranth consistently pulls in thousands of absolutely down-bad viewers. Yeah, she’s beautiful, but she’s also entertaining and wholesome, so it’s no wonder why folks create waiting rooms for and replays of her livestreams. Unfortunately, her main channel is currently unavailable on Twitch.
Amouranth’s Twitch ban seems temporary for now
As spotted by Dexerto, Amouranth is now banned for the first time since October 2021. As is customary when a creator gets booted off the platform, their channel displays the standard text: “This channel is temporarily unavailable due to a violation of Twitch’s Community Guidelines or Terms of Service.” Interestingly, she hasn’t streamed since at least May 1, suggesting that perhaps something in one of her videos-on-demand (VODs) led to the ban. However, because her channel has been nuked, you can’t view her content, so there’s no way to determine, at least for now, why Twitch decided to ban her.
At the time of this writing, Amouranth and Twitch haven’t publicly said anything on the matter. Kotaku has reached out to Amouranth for comment. A Twitch representative told Kotaku that it doesn’t comment on specific individual streamer bans.
Despite this lack of explanation, Dexerto posited an interesting theory that might explain the ban. The publication speculated that the burgeoning drama between Amouranth and fellow streamer Adriana Chechik, which escalatedon April 27 as Amouranth responded to Chechik’s calling her “a fucking cunt” by saying she wanted to fight her in a ring—most likely a reference to Creator Clash, an annual charity boxing event that started in May 2022—could be the reason for Amouranth’s latest Twitch ban.
According to Twitch’s community guidelines revolving around violence and threats, any violations of its rules on or off the platform could result in a temporary suspension or a permanent ban depending on the severity.
“Acts and threats of violence are counterproductive to promoting a safe, inclusive, and friendly community,” the guidelines read. “Violence on Twitch is taken seriously and is considered a zero-tolerance violation, and all accounts associated with such activities on Twitch will be indefinitely suspended.”
Amouranth isn’t the only big-name creator to have been yeeted off the platform recently. GTA streamer Bruce “BruceDropEmOff” Ray was banned three times this year, with his latest exile happening on May 3. Internet personality Dalauan “LowTierGod” Sparrow was banned at the tail end of April. And both Cloud9 streamer Hans “Forsen” Fors and Kai Cenat, the new King of Twitch, were temporarily banned last month before their channels got reinstated a week later. Twitch seems to be clapping tons of popular streamers right now.
Things are looking dire for Syria and Turkey.Photo: Anadolu Agency (Getty Images)
Twitch isn’t just a place where artificial intelligence festers and drama proliferates. It’s also a useful organizational platform for raising awareness around and funds for various global causes, which is exactly what a handful of big-name streamers, like Ben “CohhCarnage” Cassell and Hasan “Hasanabi” Piker, are using it for in the wake of the calamitous earthquakes that have devastated Syria and Turkey in recent days.
In response to the destruction impacting both countries, popular Twitch and YouTube streamers, from Hasanabi to IShowSpeed to Ludwig and more, are raising funds to aid in the humanitarian crisis.
The fundraiser, which was started by Hasanabi and will benefit charities such as the nonprofit organization AKUT and Turkish rock star Haluk Levent’s organization Ahbap, has already brought in over $700,000. Scrubbing through the list of top donors to the effort reveals who else has joined the effort and donated money. This includes content creators like Seán “Jacksepticeye” McLoughlin ($10,000), Rachell “Valkyrae” Hofstetter (also $10,000), Ludwig “Ludwig” Ahgren ($5,000), CohhCarnage (also $5,000), Darren “IShowSpeed” Watkins Jr. ($2,000), and many more. Even notorious gambling streamer Tyler “Trainwreck” Niknam pledged to gift $150,000 in bitcoin to “legitimate humanitarian charities” that take the cryptocurrency. And, of course, Hasanabi donated $25,000 of his own money to the cause.
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Kotaku reached out to CohhCarnage, Hasanabi, IShowSpeed, and Trainwreck for comment but did not get a reply in time for publication.
This is amazing to see. Too often, Twitch coverage focuses on the negativity of the platform. Sure, there’s always something absurd and strange happening on Amazon’s livestreaming service, like the AI Seinfeld show that was recently banned, but it’s beautiful to witness some of the biggest stars—and those who have since left the platform for greener pastures on YouTube—coming together to help those that need it. If you can donate, please consider lending a helping hand.
Spanish streamer TheGrefg is one of the biggest stars on Twitch, so much so that he recently held his own awards show that drew almost two million viewers. And everyone watching was, for a moment, treated to a big ol’ ASCII penis.
First, some background. TheGrefg has almost 20 million YouTube subscribers. Over 11 million Twitch followers. Even if you don’t know who he is because he doesn’t’ speak your language, the dude is one of the most popular streamers on the planet; we wrote about him in 2021 when he “obliterated the all-time Twitch viewership record” in a clip…revealing his own Fortnite skin:
For years now, Twitch’s record for most concurrent viewers on a single streamer’s channel has been hotly contested, with streamers topping each other in slow-building increments. Today, however, Spanish streamer TheGrefg made everybody else look like they’d been wrestling for discarded peanut shells. As of writing, he topped out at nearly 2.5 million—a new all-time record that beats not just individual channels, but entire games.
The event we’re talking about today—called Premios ESLAND—is actually the second year running that he’s been able to host his own awards show specifically for Spanish-speaking streamers, streaming and related events/stunts. And it’s quickly become a huge event; this year’s show drew 1.75 million viewers, and that’s not counting the folks in attendance watching it live.
Look at this crowd! That’s Mexico City’s famous Auditorio Nacional, and TheGrefg packed it out for the show:
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Anyway, being the second time he’s run one of these shows—and that he lives on the internet—you might think he or his producers would know not to cut to the live chat on the big screen up on stage. Yet this year he did just that, and as you can see in the video below, he regretted it about as quickly as a human can register the sensation:
In the interests of accuracy and truth in reporting, here is the NSFW image:
What would you do if a random stranger asked to see your feet? Probably chuckle awkwardly and start walking faster. Streamer Nyy did neither. She had a better idea, and her Twitch chat will never be the same again.
“Feet please,” asked Twitch user sissy6668. It’s a common refrain in online chats, but one that’s rarely answered. Internet DJ Nyy, formerly known as Nyykage, shockingly obliged mid-way through a set on yesterday’s livestream. The next thing the chat knew, Nyy had thrown a leg up on her desk with a foam lobster flip-flop on her foot. “This what you’re looking for?” she asked right before the beat dropped.
The Twitch chat went wild, and folks on Twitter did too once Nyy clipped the moment and set it loose into the briny waters of the internet. The nicknames quickly proliferated—lobster floppers, flopsters, crustacean 3000s—as did people’s amazement. “THIS WAS A MASTERPIECE!” responded one person. “The absolute definition of never let them know your next move, a plo[t] twist at every turn! IT SENT ME LMAO.”
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What can I say, people are weird about feet. Especially on Twitch. Searches for “Streamers’ feet” have a combined 73 billion views on TikTok. There are YouTube videos entirely about rating different streamers’ feet. Some streamers have even gotten banned for showing their feet.
That’s allegedly what happened to Thai Twitch streamer JustKethJustKeth. She claimed Twitch banned her for three days earlier this month for flashing her foot. She was letting viewers pay to spin a wheel that would make her do certain things, including show off her stumps. “It’s just a meme bruh,” she tweeted at the time.
Though as Dexerto points out, Twitch does have strict rules against things like “fetishizing behavior” and selling sexual content on the platform, which is vague as hell but, well, welcome to Twitch.
Nyy, on the other hand, managed to turn the entire thing on its head. “The Lobster Floppers gifted from my mod were not always loved but in the short span of one whole day they have become family,” she told Kotaku in an email. “Warding off bad vibes, feet inquiries, and most importantly, providing effortless fashion.”
No doubt the flopster fan cams won’t be far behind. “Everyone needs a pair of Crustacean 3000’s in their closet come 2024,” Nyy wrote. “Lukewarm trolls can not thrive when you already possess the weirder arsenal.”
Hasan’s head looks normal-sized here, guys.Image: Hasanabi on Twitch / Kotaku
Hasan Piker is many things. He’s a hardcore himbo, an amateur gamer, and frequent heated moment haver. He speaks to legions of young men, women, and enbys on the internet almost every day via his wildly popular Twitch channel, and feeds their parasocial bond via his other social media accounts. Even though he spends most of his time on Twitch reacting to political clips, yelling at his chat, and eating, he’s currently the number 10 most-watched streamer on the platform. That’s because Hasan is the perfect mix of intelligence, sexiness, and bro-ness, through which he effortlessly courts legions of lovers and haters.
When Hasan buys a Porsche, the internet riots. When he crushes a watermelon with his thighs, they swoon. When he jokes about the Queen of England dying, they go catatonic. To the millions who know him or know of him he’s a champagne socialist, a hypocrite, an important political commentator, and the guy who fucks your mom. He is a prime example of the power of social media, the intricacies of parasocial relationships, and the importance of media literacy.
Like him or not, Hasan Piker is the reason many young folks know about politics today, and as an out-and-proud Hasanabi head—I watch his streams every day…notice me, Hasan—it only seems fitting that we look back at the year in Hasan Piker.
One of the biggest female streamers on Twitch wants to take a harder stance on revenge porn—nude photos that are posted online without their owners’ consent. Imane “Pokimane” Anys said in a recent Twitch stream that it should be “illegal” to possess nudes without their owners’ consent, and that she wanted to work towards “facilitating legislation” against it.
“There are some companies that I’m going to message…not companies. Organizations that are involved in certain causes. I’m going to be like…Listen: If you ever need someone to…” Pokimane made talking hand gestures on stream. “I’m your girl. Because I think if you wanna pass a bill, you usually go in front of a group of politicians and you explain your cause…I’ll do it.” Kotaku reached out to Pokimane to ask which organizations she planned to work with, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
Pokimane was initially vague about what she was taking a stance against, but she eventually clarified that she was talking about revenge porn. “I think it should be illegal to even have your phone, your PC, on your anything…having photos that someone doesn’t consent to you having.”
There are several reasons why she is taking this stance now. Pokimane talked about how her viewers would message her about how their former partners would leak their nudes. She felt that those individuals were rarely punished for “ruining” girls’ lives. “So many things online go without repercussions and they really shouldn’t,” she said.
The U.S. currently has laws against revenge porn in nearly every state. But as Hasan Piker pointed out in a recent stream about Pokimane’s comments, enforcement against revenge porn is complicated and murky. Cops are hardly the most empathetic or competent investigators of gendered violence. Besides that, surveilling every electronic device for revenge porn would be a massive privacy violation. “The only way you can tackle revenge porn is at the point of distribution,” he said.
Pokimane seemed optimistic about preventing revenge porn by stigmatizing it. “If [an ex] shares [nudes] with someone, that person should be so scared of having that photo because the person whose photo they have—didn’t consent to giving it to them.”
Like a lot of other people around the world, streamer xQc put a bet on the World Cup final earlier tonight. Unlike a lot of other people, however, he claims he threw down half a million dollars, then publicly bragged about it before kick-off.
His bravado was understandable! I loved the Messi narrative as much as the next football fan, but seeing France put both my teams (Australia and England) to the sword without breaking a sweat—and while missing stars like Benzema, Pogba and Kante—made their march to a second successive World Cup win feel somewhat inevitable.
But no! After one hell of a final, Argentina survived first a Kylian Mbappe-led comeback and then a nervy penalty shootout to emerge victorious, winning their third World Cup final, and first since 1986. Their side is full of great players, from wily veteran Angel Di Maria to beloved shithouser Emi Martinez, but the real star (and focus of the entire planet’s media) was of course on Lionel Messi. The best player in the world over the last 15 years, the one thing missing from his trophy cabinet—and for certain folks his place among the absolute all-time greats—had been a World Cup triumph, so it was wonderful to be able to see him close out what is surely his last campaign with a win.
Anyway! I’m not here to give you a game recap, I’m just providing context as to why putting $500,000 down on France to win is called a bet, and not a sure thing.
Here’s the chaser.
At least he took it well! It was indeed a good game all around, and a fun watch. Especially for those of us who watched it for free.
Streamer, YouTuber and all-round internet celebrity IShowSpeed has recently been helping one of the biggest TV stations in Europe, Sky Sports, with its broadcasts of English Premier League matches. That was, reportedly, until the executives at the channel found out about a video that went viral back in April.
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IShowSpeed—more commonly known as simply ‘Speed’—had been in the stands earlier this month to watch his team Manchester United play Fulham in the league (and then my beloved Aston Villa for the League Cup). While there, he helped present segments for the channel and appeared on their social media feeds. Here’s one (surviving) example:
And here’s another (uploaded independently by someone who had saved the footage), showing him failing to recognise either Jamie Redknapp or Louis Saha:
Ishowspeed in SKY SPORTS STUDIO reacting to no RONALDO
Speed, who got famous streaming games like Fortnite, NBA 2K and FIFA, was presumably brought in by Sky to leverage his internet following and supposed appeal to younger football fans, which at time of posting stands at 13 million YouTube subscribers and 5.4 million Instagram followers (he is permanently banned from Twitch).
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As of today, though, nearly all of Speed’s promotional material on Sky’s social media has been deleted (with the exception of that single Tweet above), with The Athletic reporting that Sky made the decision after they were made aware of a video that did the rounds in April—one that became so notorious we reported on it—in which Speed made incredibly hostile and misogynistic comments to his teammates:
While Speed later apologised for those comments, they were so bad that Riot Games banned him from not just Valorant, but League of Legends as well. His Twitch ban, meanwhile, was also for misogyny, just a different video. It’s weird—given that it was so widely reported, the tweet above having 180,000 likes and 11.7 million views and it was only 7 months ago—that nobody at Sky thought to even Google his name before putting him in the spotlight like this!
Image: Microsoft / Twitch / Kotaku / NurPhoto (Getty Images)
Here’s something you might want to know: For the next week, Twitch is partnering up with Microsoft and offering three-month PC Game Pass trials to Twitch users who purchase two subscriptions.
From November 3 until November 11, Twitch viewers who purchase two subscriptions or gift subs from their preferred streamers (usually $4.99 a pop, so about $10) will receive a three-month trial for Microsoft’s wildly popular games-on-demand service. Note, though, that the three-month trial is only good for the PC version of Game Pass.
If you do the thing, you’ll get a code sent to your Twitch notification inbox to redeem for the three-month Game Pass trial on Xbox’s website. Fair warning, the offer is only valid for new Game Pass members, and won’t be available for Twitch viewers in every county. To see if your spawn point makes you eligible for this free trial, as well as other nitty-gritty details, be sure to check out Twitch’s official blog post about the promotion.
“This is just one of the ways we’re experimenting with giving you more for watching and streaming on Twitch,” Twitch wrote in the blog. “This is an added benefit to everything you already receive from subbing to your favorite streamers, including custom emotes, badges, Channel Points multipliers, as well as ad-free viewing and sub-only chat—when enabled.”
For those still feeling the Halloween spirit, Twitch’s giveaway comes at an opportune time considering this month’s Game Pass offerings will include the likes of Ebb Software’s Cronenberg-esque first-person horror adventure Scorn, the rat-infested puzzle game, A Plague Tale: Requiem, and the first two seasons of Telltale Games and Skybound Games’ The Walking Dead. It also probably doesn’t hurt to show your favorite streamers some love by throwing them a couple of bucks ahead of Twitch’s parent company, Amazon, taking a bigger cut out of streamers’ ad revenue. (Twitch president Dan Clancy attributes the coming pay nerf to increased server costs.)
Twitch’s Game Pass three-month trial codes will expire at midnight on November 18, so if you get one, don’t waste any time before redeeming.
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