After opening up about the difficulties of communicating with other Valorant players as a woman in the past, Pokimane pretended to be a man and the outcome was absolutely hilarious.
In August 2021, Imane ‘Pokimane’ Anys told fans about how hard it was for her to climb ranks in Valorant because of the way some teammates respond to her once they realize she’s a woman or that she’s Pokimane.
It wasn’t the first time she opened up about the issue, either. But despite that, and despite the fact haters didn’t believe she had it in her, Poki managed to hit Immortal – a rank achieved only by one percent of players.
Despite that, the Twitch star still faces the same issues regularly.
However, she decided to do something about it on January 25 by getting her friend Kevin to speak on the microphone for her, and the outcome was hilarious.
“Wait. If I set my game microphone to that webcam and you’re there, you can pretend you’re the person playing. So I can pretend I’m a guy!” said Poki. “I can say stuff, and then I’ll push to talk, and you can just say it!”
As an example, she told him that if she’s pushing a bombsite, she’ll tell him to instruct the team on the microphone, and they’ll probably oblige. However, she was concerned that it might not work because Kevin is “too nice.”
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Eventually, the time came. But instead of asking him to bark instructions, she told him to simply say ‘hello.’ He did, and a teammate responded, which made her burst out laughing. Her fans called her a “genius.”
Then, she told him to ask everyone how they were doing, and it worked like a charm. “He said good, good!” said Poki as she squealed in laughter at the thought of her big brain plan going off without a hitch.
As funny as it was seeing her pretend to be a man in this instance, being harassed by other players on the microphone for being a woman is a serious issue and something she has experienced before.
Unfortunately, it’s also been the least of her problems so far in 2022 too. She’s also had to deal with hate raids, legal threats, viewers trying to make her look “inappropriate” in clips, and more.