Imane ‘Pokimane’ Anys is one of the most popular Twitch streamers in the world, and with that level of Internet fame comes obsessive fans that don’t understand boundaries. Every top Twitch streamer is plagued with parasocial fans, and if you’re familiar with Pokimane streams, you’ll know this has been a problem for her for a long time, and recently the problem reared its head again.ย
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During a recent stream, Pokimane shared a brutally honest message to a fan who won’t leave the streamer alone, despite being banned on numerous occasions. Addressing the fan and their obsessive, smothering behavior, Pokimane made it clear that she will not tolerate fans trying to” psychoanalyze” and “micro-manage” her “friendships or relationships.”
“You’ve made so many accounts just to ask me the most weird and random questions about my friends,” Poki said. “‘Have you met this person? Why aren’t you following this person? Go do this, Go do that!’… Stop it. And your account is made on November 9 because I’ve banned you so many f*****g times before. Guys if you see someone behaving this way, please tell them to stop.”
Pokimane continued:
“It’s weird and it’s obnoxious. Like, I love all of my friends dearly but please stop trying to psychoanalyze or micro-manage my friendships or relationships with others. Or asking so many weird, repetitive, obsessive questions. I live my private life off-stream, okay.”
Unfortunately, there’s no effective way to eliminate this behavior other than through heavy moderation, but even then you will never completely stamp it out. In other words, this will continue to be a problem for Twitch streamers, just like it’s a problem for almost every famous person active on the Internet. That said, while parasocial fans aren’t anything new, it does seem like the problem is only getting bigger and bigger.
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