Pokimane Finally Explains Her Biggest Viral Tweet

Imane "Pokimane" Anys is probably one of the most famous streamers on Twitch. Her rise to fame started with streaming "League of Legends" and "Fortnite" but has grown increasingly well known in the "Animal Crossing," "Among Us," and "Pokemon" communities and was even featured in a minor role in the new Ryan Reynolds film, "Free Guy." For better or worse though, a side effect of that fame is the numerous fans with a deep interest in her personal life. In one of her latest YouTube videos, Pokimane shared her reactions to fans' attempting to slide into her DMs, and reflected on her own relationship status.

Pokimane justifiably keeps her personal life private. One tragic detail about Pokimane's streaming career is that she has had to deal with obsessive fans, banning an unbelievable number of Twitch users on her streams for their insults and toxic messages. She's tried to keep her love life under wraps to avoid fan commentary. In one of her YouTube videos, she stated that she didn't want to "put her relationships out there" because she didn't like the idea of any future troubles in the relationship having to be public as well. That's why it was so surprising when she decided to share her "single" relationship status in a tweet that went viral last March. This excited many fans who'd long held a flame for the popular streamer, but it also led many to wonder why she suddenly decided to share this detail from her personal life. Thanks to a new YouTube video she just released, now fans have their answer.

Pokimane's new video shows her reacting to several "thirst tweets" her fans have posted, (some of which are truly cringe-worthy.) The video involved producers showing Pokimane a tweet, then filming her reaction to what these fans wrote. When it was time to read the final thirst tweet, it turned out to be Pokimane's own "single btw" comment, which she had posted back in March. It had since accrued 6,935 retweets, 4,553 quote tweets and 278.4 thousand likes.

"There was this whole thing, like two years ago, where people were like Poki-boyfriend this, Poki-boyfriend that," she explained. "And I was like, you know what? I'm going to reclaim my power. Single by-the-way, and I'm making it clear. That doesn't mean that I need to talk about my relationship status all the time."

Pokimane acknowledged that Twitter is "partially a dating platform," and that many streamers initially meet and form bonds via Twitter. Even though Pokimane insisted that her tweet wasn't "super thirsty," she did laugh at her producers' attempt to "keep [her] grounded."