"Referred to me as a 'nameless creator'" - When Pokimane and Linus Tech Tips got into a feud on Twitter

In April and May 2022, Linus Sebastian of Linus Tech Tips and Twitch streamer Imane "Pokimane" engaged in a brief period of feud online. While short-lived, it was certainly an eyebrow-raiser for the rest of the online community. For context, Linus highlighted that Twitch needs to integrate more advertisements if they hope to survive (implying that their current financial model is not as profitable).

Pokimane took to Twitter (April 27) to express her opinions. According to the streamer, adding more advertisements would only disrupt the overall viewing experience on Twitch. She suggested:

"Twitch should just implement ads that don’t directly interfere with a stream (sidebar, picture in picture, underlay, etc)."

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What sparked the back-and-forth between Pokimane and Linus Tech Tips?

Following Pokimane's brief update on Twitter, Linus Tech Tips responded by expressing his disagreement with her idea in a now-deleted tweet. He reportedly referred to her as a "nameless creator," which upset Pokimane. She retaliated by posting a lengthy statement on Twitter (May 5).

Addressing Linus, Pokimane wrote that she had seen his latest response and was unimpressed by it, as he seemed to be speaking in a mocking tone. She wrote:

"Wanted to let you know that I felt the way you read my tweet in a mocking tone + referred to me as a "nameless creator," albeit also replying to this tweet, was odd and hurtful."

She further elaborated on her ideas for improving the viewing experience on Twitch. One example she mentioned was implementing a rewind button, enabling viewers to go back and watch the parts they missed due to advertisements. She wrote:

"A rewind button that allows you to view the portion of the content you missed during an ad break, or promoting Twitch turbo, making it cheaper, adding more perks to it, etc."

She expressed that she had previously admired Linus Tech Tips' work and conveyed her desire to address him directly. She concluded:

"I've known of you and admired your channels/content for a long time, so I wanted to express this directly to you instead of just holding on to the bad impression I got from the clip I saw."

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How did Linus Tech Tips respond?

Following Pokimane's lengthy message, Linus Tech Tips took to the replies to say that he was rude to have acted in such a manner:

He also uploaded an eight-minute-long video titled "I'm sorry, Pokimane."

He owned up to his mistake, stating that he shouldn't have reacted as he did. He said:

"I do think that this was not an amazing take but I shouldn't have reacted to the way that I did because it's clear that there were multiple additional layers to her take which she actually, very graciously spelled out for me in a way that even I can understand, which is great."

He concluded, stating that he never had any intentions to start any kind of beef with Pokimane:

"The reality of it is, I didn't want to start a beef with her. It had nothing to do with her style or anything like that. That's just like my go-to like, Valley Girl voice and one of the reasons that I do the Valley Girl voice is that I will often do it as sort of an exaggeration of the way that I already talk."

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Recently, Linus Sebastian made an announcement that he has stepped down from his role as the CEO of the Linus Media Group. Despite this change, he continues to host live streams on his YouTube channel, Linus Tech Tips (15.5 million subscribers).