Out of the numerous personalities that have emerged from Twitch over the last few years, not many can boast the widespread appeal of Imane “Pokimane” Anys. The streaming mainstay has gathered an incredibly impressive following over the years, bringing her humor, bubbly personality, and passion for gaming to thousands of avid fans. As many of her followers will attest, she’s also an incredibly humble public figure, which can’t be seen anywhere better than in a recent conversation between Pokimane and fellow streamer Byron “Reckful” Bernstein.
In the clip, Reckful cites that he once came to Pokimane with a sponsorship deal that would net the streamer $3 million. Shockingly, Pokimane allegedly denied the deal, despite the fact that, as Reckful puts it, the offer was for something that’s “not even that bad a thing to do.”
Explaining why she made the decision to deny the offer, Pokimane explains that she’s “doing well enough to not want to do things for money that [she doesn’t] naturally want to do.” It’s clear whatever this mysterious sponsorship deal was, it didn’t fit the brand cultivated by the beloved streamer, and she chose to drop it as a result. As many would agree, it’s a particularly modest statement from the streamer that shows her genuine passion for streaming, her brand, and her channel as a whole. After all, as Reckful jokingly adds, he only had “$1300 in [his] bank account” when he was the same age as Pokimane, so a $3 million offer to promote a brand that might not have aligned with his channel and viewer base would’ve been tempting.
Now streaming has become such a popular form of online entertainment, it’s surprisingly rare to see an internet personality turn down such a lucrative sponsorship deal. With advertising revenue often being such an unpredictable means of income, it only makes sense for Twitch personalities to begin relying on major brand deals as a dependable means of compensation for their content. Pokimane is pure evidence, however, that content creators can still benefit from sponsorships by selecting brands that convey both the audience and their own interests.
It appears a number of streamers don’t even need to seek sponsorships anymore either, with a number of streaming sites paying large sums of money for major personalities to exclusively sign with their platform. Ninja was recently offered a major deal to stream exclusively on Mixer, while other streamers, including Disguised Toast, have been made similar offers by Facebook.
Source: Twitch
