It can be tough to make it as a streamer. The space is so saturated and commercialized that even the biggest broadcasters are still constantly trying to get ahead—but even superstar Pokimane has now gone on record turning down any future association with lucrative but controversial streaming service Kick.
On the surface, it’s not hard to see why Kick has gotten popular. It markets itself as the cool younger cousin to Twitch, where moderation standards that can sometimes be seen as draconian are relaxed and where anything goes. Unfortunately, anything means anything, and Kick has rapidly become defined by those who take advantage of its lax rules.
Perhaps the most famous of these is Johnny Somali (who is actually Ethiopian, but I guess that doesn’t roll off the tongue as well.) He spearheaded a trend known as “nuisance streaming,” which essentially consists of harassing random people on the street—sometimes physically—for views, and eventually led to Somali’s arrest and the implementation of an official report button on Kick. The fact that one wasn’t there from the start sums up Kick’s approach to content moderation.
With all this controversy, one might wonder how Kick still manages to attract big-name streamers—and the answer is, of course, money. The revenue split on Kick is weighed heavily in the streamers’ favor compared to Twitch, and many streamers have been brought over by multi-million dollar contracts on top of that. Not everyone seems tempted by that siren song, however.
Twitch streamer Pokimane has never been one to shy away from making a buck—remember her cookie controversy?—but Kick has become a bridge too far for her. In a recent stream, she reacted to an exposé on prolific Kick streamer Tomer Lawton, which alleges that he has made a career out of sexually harassing women in front of a live audience.
Per the reporting, not only does Lawton try to get these women to expose themselves (while not disclosing that they’re on a stream,) but he’s also not exactly choosy. Even underage girls aren’t safe—one highlighted victim insisted that she was 17 repeatedly, which did nothing to dissuade him.
Obviously, Pokimane took issue—not just with Lawton himself, but with Kick, who implicitly endorsed his behavior for years and gave him a platform. Lawton was banned from the service after the exposé was released, but the fact that Kick condoned his presence for any period of time was enough for Pokimane to vow never to work with them no matter how many millions they dangled in front of her, calling it “straight-to-jail behavior.” In a world of Johnny Somalis, it’s nice that some streamers still have something resembling morals.
