Imane “Pokimane” Anys is one of the biggest faces on Twitch, having renewed her partnership with the platform in early March — and just a week later, she was set to reach a massive follower milestone, but she needed her fans’ help.
Pokimane has continued to grow a steady audience on her Twitch channel, boasting around 3.9 million followers on the platform for a long while.
However, her re-signing with Twitch brought a slew of attention to the streamer, who was already on the cusp of breaking four million followers.
— pokimane (@pokimanelol) March 5, 2020
Thus, she gave her fans a unique challenge to up the ante and incentivize any viewers who weren’t already following her to hit Twitch’s signature heart button.
To do this, Pokimane used a cake purchased specifically for celebrating the upcoming milestone — but rather than digging into the treat preemptively, the star instead played a hilarious game with her audience, refusing to eat the confection until she’d reached four million followers.
“I’m changing my title [of the stream],” she explained. “To, ‘Pokimane waits for you to hit the follow button so she can eat the cake.’”
To prove her point, the broadcaster sat and stared at her camera, slowly blinking as she waited for her follower count to rise while keeping the cake held in full view.
However, her staredown challenge resulted in a humorous snafu — since she was focused on the task at hand, she actually missed the moment she reached her four million milestone, which was surpassed by well over two thousand followers by the time she clicked back on her live follower count.
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates on Esports, Gaming and more.
The broadcaster’s mouth opened in shock as she switched over to the live count screen, openly floored by the number of followers she’d gained in response to her humorous, cake-related challenge.
“What?” she cried out in disbelief, laughing. “I didn’t think that would work so fast! We jumped 3k! Oh my god!”
However, Anys later speculated that the count had risen so high due to botting, which she pleaded with the anonymous booster to take down.
“Dude, I got four million followers on my own,” she explained. “You don’t need to bot me 7k.”
Despite the botting, Pokimane’s milestone stands as a testament to her popularity on the platform, which will see much more of the streamer in the days to come, thanks to her renewed contract with the site.