Imane ‘Pokimane’ Anys has become one of the most recognisable names in streaming and is one of Twitch’s most followed livestreamers. Yet the 23-year-old has shared concerns with her fans over whether she is suited to the lifestyle that many of her fellow influencers and content creators live in Los Angeles.
The Moroccan-Canadian streamer posted a short vlog on her second YouTube channel, titled ‘Why I don’t belong in LA,’ in which she opens up about the social pressures and the values of people who live in the city. Pokimane begins by admitting that she would feel more comfortable in a city back in her native Canada, and says that the kind of people that live in LA “treat her differently” as soon as they see her follower count on social media.
“I’ve seen people treat me so differently as soon as they see how many Instagram followers I have, which should not be that important,” Pokimane says. She goes on to say that this has made her want to go out to socialise less as previous experiences have felt “lacklustre”.
“It feels like people just care about what you do and what value you bring them,” she explains, “and not so much about who you are, where you’re from, what’s going on in your life… The majority of them [people in LA] are friends of convenience, which really really sucks to say, but it feels like they’re people that – if I was to stop what I was doing and stopped streaming or whatever – they wouldn’t check up on me.”
Pokimane does point out that friends of convenience aren’t necessarily a bad thing, but that she has more real, lifelong friends at home in Canada.
Pokimane is a member of Offline TV -a group of content creators featuring the likes of Jeremy ‘Disguised Toast’ Wang and William ‘Scarra’ Li – and currently lives in a house along with some of the other members of the group. With her recent feelings about LA, however, that could soon all change.
