3 gaming influencers are embroiled in a messy feud involving accusations of harassment, misogyny, and lies

• Three Twitch streamers are feuding after Pokemane said she was "harrassed" by JiDion's fans.
• JiDion apologized and denied accusations of misogyny, saying he was unfairly banned by Twitch.

Three of the biggest influencers on Twitch, the Amazon-owned live-streaming platform, are involved in a bitter and high-profile feud featuring accusations of harassment and misogyny.

It involves LA-based YouTuber and Twitch streamer Imane Anys, better known as Pokimane; YouTube star Jidon "JiDion" Adams who recently joined Twitch; and Twitch's most-followed streamer with almost 17 million followers, Tyler Blevins, who goes by Ninja and is known for his video-game content.

The feud began on January 12, when Anys' livestream was flooded with coded comments from people who said they were fans of Adams'. As a result, Adams said he was banned from Twitch for 14 days, but when his ban was made permanent, Blevins got involved, appearing to refer to streamers like Anys as "bitches."

Now, Anys is calling out misogyny on the platform, and taking on its biggest creator.

Here's how the dispute played out.

Anys' Twitch stream received an influx of comments, which were labeled a 'hate raid'

On January 12, Anys and a group of other streamers including the hugely popular Rachel Hofstetter, known on YouTube as Valkyrae, were live-streaming a game of Valorant, a team-based shooter video game, when they were flooded with an influx of comments reading "L + RATIO."

On social media, "ratio" refers to a post in which negative replies are more popular than the original content, suggesting the post was poorly received. "L" is internet shorthand for losing or "loser." The comments were broadly understood to be negative, and the incident was interpreted as a "hate raid," which The Verge describes as occurring "when a user on Twitch sends their viewers to another streamer," leading to their chat becoming "flooded with hateful messages from bot accounts."

Seemingly confused, Anys asked during the stream, "Do you guys think that's another streamer? Or just bots?" before ending her stream early.

A number of viewers then began to say the commenters had come from Adams' channel.

After Adams said he'd been suspended from Twitch, Anys called out misogyny on the platform

On January 13, just a day after being verified on Twitch, Adams — who changed his Twitter picture to a photograph of Anys — said he was banned from Twitch for 14 days.

On January 14, Anys tweeted, "the hate that women receive within gaming has become so normalized, but we need to make it clear to our communities & platforms that it is absolutely not okay. huge thank you to everyone who spoke up today (especially other streamers)."

Fellow streaming stars including Hofstetter, Disguised Toast, who has 2.4 million followers, and Myth, who has over 7 million followers, tweeted in support of Anys.

Adams denied accusations of misogyny, tweeting, "My dislike for her has nothing to do with her gender," and asking for "a feminist/expert in this field" to help him "become a better person."

Adams apologized and said his Twitch ban was made permanent, which he said was 'unfair'

On January 17, Adams posted a video on Twitter saying that Twitch had changed his ban to permanent after "other people reacted to my ban, and voiced their opinions on it not being severe enough."

He acknowledged he broke the platform's terms of service and said he deserved the two-week suspension, but added that he felt the permanent ban was "unfair."

"How am I supposed to do better next time, if I can never get a next time?" he said. He also asked his fans to use the hashtag #twitchfreejidion in an effort to get it trending.

On Twitter, fans of Adams and Anys continued to comment on the situation and debate around who was in the wrong.

On January 18, Adams posted another apology on Twitter and asked his fans to stand down, saying, "Throughout this whole situation I did a lot of corny shit, and I'm way funnier than the level I brought myself down to. Pokie I apologize and boys I'm dropping it so I'm asking you guys to as well. Will be streaming next week on YouTube and love you guys."

In a YouTube video posted on January 18 titled, "Dear Pokie," Adams again apologized to Anys, saying, "I apologize for the Twitch stuff, I wanna apologize for the Twitter stuff. I was wildin' on Twitter, I was."

Twitch's most-followed streamer Ninja appeared to support Adams

Following Adams' Twitch ban, the platform's most-followed creator, Tyler Blevins, more popularly known as Ninja, discussed the situation during his own livestream. The original footage is no longer available to view, but some purported segments were captured and re-uploaded by Anys in a YouTube video posted on January 19.

During the clip, Blevins can be heard responding to comments about the suspension, saying he "had a talk" with Adams following the hate raid.

Blevins initially said there was nothing he could do about Adams' ban, but then added, "I could send a text message to my representative and be like, 'JiDion says he's sorry.' All right, all right, I'll do it." A few moments later, Blevins said, "I sent the text. I don't promise a goddamn thing. At the end of the day what happened happened."

Appearing to speak directly to Adams, Blevins then said, "I'm going to do whatever I can."

In her video, Anys asked, "Why would Ninja help someone evade a ban for harassing me? I have no idea."

Another clip that appears to be from the same stream also circulated online. Blevins can be heard telling Adams, "In the future, nothing negative. No Ls, don't spam." He added, "If you're going to ratio bitches, stick to Twitter."

Anys said she'd been in contact with Blevins and his wife

In a Twitter thread posted on January 18, Anys shared a clip showing purported direct messages sent to her by Blevins, in which he appears to deny being in contact with Twitch to help Adams avoid the ban. Another purported message read, "And you are making a big mistake."

"I'm literally going to throw up," she said after showing the purported messages.

In a subsequent tweet that same day, Anys shared a screenshot of a purported direct message from Blevins' wife, Jessica.

"You are spewing lies to tens of thousands of people," it read. It also appeared to reiterate that Ninja never reached out to Twitch, and accused Anys of "defamation of character" and "bringing harassment" to the Blevinses.

Anys went on to tweet that she accepts the possibility that Blevins "pretended" to contact Twitch regarding Adams' ban, but said she "just wanted the clip out there to show what happened."

Some of the biggest streamers have shown support for Anys

A number of fellow streamers replied to Anys' tweets showing the purported messages, with reactions ranging from shock at the level escalation, to lawyer memes and jokes.

YouTuber Jacksepticeye wrote, "If only they cared about the original harassment to you as much as this."

Fellow Twitch star Mizkif, who has 1.8 million followers, tweeted in support of Anys, saying, "Sad how Pokimane still has to deal with misogyny and harassment in 2022."

On January 18, Anys appeared in a livestream with Mizkif, where she discussed the situation and said she shared the purported messages because it made her feel "not alone and scared."

"Being able to talk about it publicly and having you guys talk about it and support me however you can, it alleviates my stress so much," she said.

On January 19, Anys tweeted in response to people "minimizing the harassment" she said she received with a detailed list of accusations against Adams, including making sexual comments about her and telling the streamers to "go to war" with her.

Neither Anys, Blevin, nor Adams responded to Insider's request for comment.

In a statement to Insider, a spokesperson for Twitch said, "Our Community Guidelines are clear that we do not tolerate hateful or harassing behavior, or conduct that encourages or incites hate or harassment in any way. Our priority is to foster a safe, inclusive community, and we reserve the right to suspend any account for conduct that violates our rules, or that we determine to be inappropriate, harmful, or that puts our community at risk."

Twitch declined to comment on any of the specific claims made throughout the feud.

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