Pokimane isn’t quitting streaming, but she’ll be on Twitch less in the future

Pokimane, one of Twitch’s top creators, has announced that she’ll be cutting down on the amount of time she spends streaming and playing video games on the platform. She’s not retiring from streaming completely — it’s more that she’ll be broadening the kinds of content she makes, by sharing more lifestyle content, and will only stream when she wants to. “I’ll see you guys when I see you,” she said in a YouTube video on Thursday.

In the nerve-filled video, Pokimane worked up the courage to talk about the change to her fans. She described her history as a creator and that she’s been on the content grind for roughly nine years since she started streaming at the age of 17. She talked about the “rat race” of Twitch streaming and how draining it can be to chase every trend. The announcement comes on the heels of an ongoing streaming break that Pokimane started in July.

“Whether you guys realize it or not there’s 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,” she said. “I’m just at a point in my life where it doesn’t feel creatively fulfilling to feed into that anymore.”

Instead, she says she’ll post more of what interests her, both inside and outside of games. She mentioned fans can expect more lifestyle content like vlogs, fit pics, and beauty videos across platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.

The creator also noted that she’s been enjoying her time on other social media platforms. For example, she’s able to connect with a predominately female audience on TikTok over interests outside of streaming. “I feel like other platforms fit into my lifestyle now a days, a little bit better. Streaming and gaming does fit in there, it just doesn’t have to be everything.”

The shift indicates a broadening of her brand, which has been one of the most recognizable figures in video games content creation, and a move away from Twitch. In a world where more and more big-name streamers are moving from Twitch to YouTube, her announcement is yet another content creator to distance themselves from the Amazon-owned platform.

Towards the end of the video, she got more sentimental with tears in her eyes. “It’s hard not to feel like it’s closing a chapter, but instead it’s really just opening more doors; Stepping into a new phase and chapter of my life.”