Pokimane explains why she took a break from Twitch for a month and announces her new streaming schedule.
Imane “Pokimane” Anys made her return to Twitch after a month-long break with a video called, “why I took a break + what’s next for me.”
A quick recap
On July 19th, Pokimane announced via notes app that she would be taking a break from streaming to focus on herself and her life offline:
After over a month-long break from Twitch, Pokimane returned to the internet with a video that explained the reason for her hiatus and what the future of her content would look like.
This video comes only a couple of months after Pokimane announced her decision to remain on Twitch after her contract expired.
Pokimane's new video on September 1st
The 14-minute video opens with a clip of 20-year-old Pokimane answering the question of whether she wanted to be a streamer or engineer. Pokimane from 2016 responds, “I wanna be happy…Whatever can make me happy.”
The throwback clip sets the tone for the rest of the video as she discusses the future of her streaming career.
She explained that she started streaming as a hobby when she was 17 and became a full-time streamer at the age of 21. Pokimane expressed her struggles with being “out there” on the internet for 8 years:
Pokimane went on to state:
“I feel like especially as content creators, whether we want to admit it or not, obviously we want people to like what we do. But I also feel like, as an adult in their formative years, you’re figuring out who you are, discovering yourself. I feel like when I'm constantly putting myself out there, I'm not taking the time to actually reflect or grow as an individual or think about what I like.”
Burnout and Mental Health
Pokimane explained that she needed to take a break from Twitch because she was burnt out and she had been putting off real-life tasks like decorating her new house or finding a nearby gym she liked.
She expressed that she felt a lack of creative fulfillment feeding into the “rat race” of streaming: “There is such a pressure on streamers to follow every trend, to capitalize on viewership, to stream longer than the guy next to them or the guy that they share similar viewership with…It's just a hyper competitive industry but ultimately the reason I say this is because I’m just at a point in my life where it doesn’t feel creatively fulfilling to feed into that anymore.”
Pokimane returns to Twitch but states her streams will be less frequent
Shortly after posting the video, Pokimane turned on her stream for the first time since announcing the break from Twitch.
In the stream, she confirmed the frequency of her streams would decrease to 2-3 times per week, a decision she did not take lightly:
“When you think a ‘top streamer’, you do imagine someone who’s clocking at least 100 hours a month, someone who’s streaming multiple times a week, like someone who’s doing all of these things, right? And I used to do that. And that’s totally fine…I was just struggling with the fact that I wanted something different until I realized, like, maybe that’s okay and maybe all I need to do is communicate that to you guys.”
The Future of Pokimane’s Content
Despite decreasing her streams to 2-3 times per week, Pokimane expressed excitement for her future content across all platforms.
She promised more travel and beauty vlogs as well as more IRL streams.
With this new schedule, Pokimane also announced the end of her ASMR channel, expressing that she wanted her content to “be more related to who I feel like I am now.”
Additionally, she announced that she would be appearing on the H3 Podcast on September 2nd.