Getting banned is usually supposed to be a bad thing, but for Twitch streamer Kaitlyn “Amouranth” Siragusa, it seems that getting banned may have been a good thing after all. After getting reinstated following a recent ban, Amouranth’s channel is now the fastest-growing one on Twitch.
Twitch banned Amouranth’s account on September 9 reportedly due to an unfortunate wardrobe malfunction, that led to her unknowingly exposing herself a few times. The Amazon-owned game streaming service was quick to respond with a ban. However, it soon reinstated the channel three days after on September 12.
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According SullyGnome, a site that keeps track of Twitch statistics, Amouranth’s channel grew by an impressive 410,568 followers in the week after the ban. In comparison, the second-most followed channel from the same time period, that of Spanish streamer of Raul “AuronPlay” Alvarez Genes, only gained 107,399 new followers.
With the ban, and the clip of the video that caused it going viral on social media, it seems that many were quick to check out her channel once she came back on. That said, the boost may have been helped by the fact that Amouranth’s channel now requires viewers to follow her before they can post messages on the chat.
The increase in followers means that Amouranth is now the second-most followed female streamer on Twitch, with only Imane “Pokimane” Anys having more followers than her. Prior to this, she was ranked third behind Kristen “KittyPlays” Michaela.
In a recent tweet, Amourant acknowledged the positive effect the ban has had on her popularity. “It’s literally impossible to predict what will blow up on the internet,” she stated. “This banning drama has made me more relevant that everything I’ve ever done combined.” As part of this, she also shared a graphic showing an increase in Google searches for her name.
While Twitch only made the ban a temporary one due to the incident’s accidental nature, more than a few were probably hoping for something more permanent. Amouranth, who focuses mostly on doing ASMR and Just Dance streams, has been criticized by some Twitch viewers for being intentionally sexually exploitative, often dressing in revealing clothing, to rack up views. This is on top of portraying herself as being single, when in fact she’s actually married.
Meanwhile, the ban itself has some folks questioning whether or not the incident was really an accident. Fellow streamers Felix ‘xQc’ Lengyel and Tyler ‘Trainwrecks’ Niknam actually participated in a debate about the incident in a recent stream, with Trainwrecks arguing that Amouranth may have done it on purpose as a way to boost her popularity.
Regardless, the unbanning may likely play into a larger controversy regarding Twitch’s supposed double standards when it comes to implementing their rules on sexual content. Recently, the Twitch community reacted with outrage when it learned that a streamer, who was a known Amazon employee, had gotten away with drawing NSFW art on a stream, supposedly violating Twitch’s community guidelines. People in the the Reddit thread that spawned this have pointed out the subjective nature of Twitch enforcement of it’s community guidelines, prompting many to call for a change.
With Amouranth now being more popular than ever, it’s likely that some will see this as a reason for Twitch to be lenient with her. The service runs on advertiser revenue, after all. As such, banning a streamer who pulls in a lot of views may not be seen as being to the company’s best interest. One streamer, scarycheese62, has already expressed anger at Twitch’s seemingly preferential treatment of her, pointing out that yet another streamer, Gen. G’s Overwatch content creator Fareeha Anderson, recently got hit with a 90-day probation for simply wearing workout clothes on a stream.
