Pokimane's $100k Scholarship Is Turning Heads

If anyone understands the difficulties of balancing gaming with real-life responsibilities, it's streamers. So, it makes sense that Pokimane, someone who has felt burnt out in the past, is looking to ease the burden of getting a college education for a few lucky individuals. Announced on Pokimane's Twitter, the $100,000 scholarship fund comes from a $50,000 contribution from AVGL (The American Video Game League) and $50,000 from Pokimane herself. The scholarship will be paid out in $10,000 chunks to 10 individuals. Pokimane's tweet read, "I know how difficult it is for students to manage classes + gaming, so I hope this will help with your studies!"

While making it easier for college students to game while taking classes might seem superficial to some, Pokimane's scholarship appears to have very few restrictions on who can apply, so nobody is locked out of getting college assistance. From the official website, the scholarship is open to people in the US and Canada and it seems as though as long as you will be attending college in Fall 2022, you can apply for the scholarship. According to the video on the site, Pokimane has helped fund two prior scholarships, but they were tied to specific schools and had more stringent rules. The new scholarship is not attached to any specific location and seems more lenient. Anyone can apply for the scholarship by submitting a short video explaining their goals, background, and how the money would impact their life. Applications are due by December 31, 2021. Other streamers spoke out to praise Pokimane for her project.

Other content creators had positive responses to Pokimane's scholarship, praising her for her generosity, or just showing off general excitement. It would probably be hard to find a negative angle on providing a scholarship, so even some of the more cynical content creators like Dr Disrespect shared their joy. Valkrae tweeted "good luck students!" in support of the announcement as well. A number of other streamers and content creators – like Zizaran, Aria, and Leena Xu — all tweeted in support of Pokimane's scholarship.

The tweet has gained a ton of traction with 2.6K retweets and 35K likes and most people seem pretty thrilled about it. Some people are frustrated that the scholarship fund is limited to the US and Canada, but it's possible that certain laws about giveaways prevented Pokimane from expanding the scholarship's reach. While this scholarship seems like a generally positive thing, Pokimane can be ruthless when she needs to be. She recently laid down the law on an obsessive viewer who would not stop spamming in her chat about her personal relationships with other streamers.