Pokimane speaks out on Twitch payment leaks and lack of diversity



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Before playing VALUING on his Twitch stream yesterday, Pokimane took a while to respond to the Twitch data that leaked on top streamers payouts earlier on October 6.

On her stream, Pokimane said she wasn’t surprised by the alleged highest earnings on Twitch, especially xQc.

“It actually makes sense to me that xQc is at the top,” Poki said. “He is who he is, he streams long hours, he created such an xQcL community. He’s like the poster child of streaming.

Her cat also asked Pokimane if she thought it was fair to call Twitch on the lack of female representation and BIPOC in its highest paying streamers. She said that in her opinion, this is not Twitch’s fault because “these numbers only reflect the number of people subscribed to a certain channel… So it has a lot more to do with the demographics of Twitch, that is. ‘that is to say you at the moment, and which chains you decide to support.

Poki admitted that the whole issue should be a much longer conversation, and that there are many different reasons viewers choose to support the best Twitch streamers, but part of this is rooted in social issues.

“Twitch can’t force people to subscribe more to female streamers, or creators of color, or anything like that. It’s up to you guys,” Pokimane said, pointing directly at his camera.

Poki wasn’t afraid to call out the Twitch community as a whole. She asked her chat why Twitch viewers don’t subscribe to under-represented groups so much.

“When you think about it, of course there will be some misogynistic stuff or some sexist issues that could go into it… and obviously racism,” Poki said. She added that it is likely that many members of the Twitch community have been “influenced or brainwashed to some extent.”

Poki hopes the problem will improve over time, but believes “the demographics of Twitch must change as well” for more women and other diverse creators to be more successful on Twitch. But Pokimane affirmed his belief that viewers on Twitch, YouTube and other content creation platforms prefer to watch the creators they relate to the most.

“So as long as the majority of the gaming community is made up of white men, the majority of the best [earners] will also be white men, ”Poki said.

According to Poki, if people want to see change on Twitch, the gaming community has to change. Players need to be more welcoming and inclusive to all types of people. Once that happens, Twitch’s core employees will organically become a more diverse group over time.

After talking about the lack of diversity among key Twitch employees, Pokimane discussed creating Twitch content and working in the United States more generally. She believes that part of the reason people care about the high incomes of Twitch streamers is because of natural curiosity, but also because of jealousy and the inequality of national wealth.

“People in the United States deserve a much better basic quality of life and I think that would lead to a lot less frustration and anger towards anyone who earns more,” Poki said. In response to anyone who might be angry that one streamer can make millions while others can work harder for less pay, Poki said she doesn’t blame these people for feeling that way. . But she also took a moment to explain Twitch from a creator’s perspective.

“A lot of your favorite top streamers are putting their health and general well-being on the back burner just to maximize the hours they stream and the money they make,” she said. She added that over time, she is convinced that this will lead to serious health issues for some streamers. “We have an obsession with numbers which is really, really unhealthy.”

Twitch has confirmed that the data breach is real and is working to determine the extent of the leak. Twitch released an updated statement regarding the breach earlier today, explaining that it has reset all flow keys and that “data has been exposed to the internet due to an error in a configuration change of the Twitch server “.

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