Ninja and Pokimane are two of Twitch’s most prominent creators, and their public feud has reignited debates about the misogyny that pervades Amazon’s streaming platform — and the gaming industry in general.
Twitch has long been dominated by men, and this latest incident demonstrates how hostile the platform can still be for women. Only three of the top 100 creators were women, according to a data leak of streamer earnings from October 2019 to October 2021. Pokimane came in at number 39 on the list, making her the platform’s highest-earning woman.
As a result, she’s become a target for would-be harassers, and the incident shows that Twitch needs to address these issues if it wants to be a more welcoming environment for all creators.
So Why Did Ninja Threaten Pokimane with a Lawsuit?
The beef between Ninja and Pokimane stemmed from a previous conflict, as is common on social media. Pokimane, who has over 8.9 million Twitch subscribers, abruptly shut down her stream on January 12 after receiving an unusually high amount of harassment from her chat in the form of a flood of messages with the phrase “L + ratio.”
The term comes from Twitter, and it describes when a critical comment receives more attention than the original post. JiDion allegedly sent many of the spammers to Pokimane’s stream.
At the same time, JiDion, who was wearing a shirt with the phrase “professional rawdogger” on it, pleaded with his audience to follow Pokimane in order to raid her stream.
A streamer can send their audience to another channel using Twitch’s raid feature. Raids can help creators gain attention, but they’ve also been used maliciously in “hate raids” to swarm and harass other creators.
JiDion may not be well-known on Twitch, but the 21-year-old has 3.6 million YouTube subscribers. (His real name isn’t revealed, but he goes by “Demarcus Cousins III” in his videos.) He interrupted Zoom calls, rolled a watermelon in a bowling alley, and asked strangers on the street to marry him.
There are plenty of videos of JiDion harassing women before the incident with Pokimane. He harasses a woman at a renaissance fair for her phone number until she asks him to leave in a November 2021 video. He responds “who cares” to a group of women who ask not to be recorded in a December 2021 Instagram live stream.
JiDion watched Ninja play the Amazon MMO New World after visiting Pokimane’s stream. He gave Ninja 100 subscribers, and Ninja responded by asking his viewers to help JiDion get unbanned from Twitch, despite the fact that JiDion had not yet been banned.
The next day, January 13, JiDion tweeted that he had been banned from Twitch for 14 days. He agitated Pokimane and her fans even more by changing his profile picture to a photo of Pokimane without make-up. For a day, she made her Twitter account private so that only her followers could see her messages.
That appears to be the case here, though Pokimane’s prominence in space is likely to have played a role in the ban’s implementation. It’s unlikely that JiDion would have faced such severe consequences if he raided a less prominent woman’s stream.
JiDion expressed regret for his actions on social media, but Twitch turned down his request to lift the ban.
It’s unlikely that the raid feature on Twitch will be reworked as a result of this incident. JiDion’s suspension will most likely serve as a high-profile deterrent. It’s unclear whether the ban will make a significant difference for smaller streamers who have been harassed on the platform.
Pokimane brought up Ninja’s “buddy-buddy” interactions with JiDion on a January 13th stream, accusing JiDion of “trying to evade a ban.” Pokimane said on her January 17th stream and shared a Twitter direct message from Tyler’s wife and manager, Jessica Blevins, saying that they are considering everything defamation of character at this point and are enlisting the help of their legal team.
Ninja allegedly direct-messaged Pokimane while she was streaming and discussing these messages, refuting her claims that he tried to pull strings behind the scenes at Twitch and telling her she was making a big mistake.
It’s unlikely that the raid feature on Twitch will be reworked as a result of this incident. JiDion’s suspension will most likely serve as a high-profile deterrent. It’s unclear whether the ban will make a significant difference for smaller streamers who have been harassed on the platform.
