Female Twitch streamers run into hostile stalker, during IRL stream

By Ineza Merci

With what could’ve been a nice ending to a week-long IRL (In Real Life) stream, things take a  terrifying turn when three female streamers, Valkyrae, Cinna and Emiru are confronted by a  hostile fan. 

The streaming marathon, known as their [Valkyrae and Cinna’s] Sis-a-Thon, was filled with  laughter, fun, challenges, and collaborations. Unfortunately, on March 2nd, the Sis-a-Thon would end with an unforeseen event that would leave the girls shaken up. As the girls began  leaving the Santa Monica pier, after enjoying their evening, they came across a young fan who  would ask Emiru for her number. Upon rejection, the young man would then follow the girls. In this clip, the young man states, “I’m gonna keep following her [Emiru].”  

Things get even worse as the man starts to get frustrated and violent, out of frame, while hurling  threatening comments.The man states, “I’ll kill you right now. I’ll kill you right now.” Security  then steps in to address the altercation and then the girls try to escape from the madman. 

On the next day, Valkyrae took to X to write, “We are all ok and have been with the police. We  decided we are done with the marathon and need time to process! Thank you for all the love and  support this past week, we had so much fun and hope you all enjoyed.” 

Just a minute later, Cinna also took to X to respond to the incident. She said, in part,  “unfortunately we have [to] end the marathon and [we] need time to process what happened as  we [are] shocked at the moment.” As for Emiru, after taking time to reflect on what happened, she writes, “I wish I could say this was some kind of one-in-a-million incident, but the truth is, it  is not. This is what life is like for girls. I hope, if anything, people see what happened and realize  how much of a reality it is for women and content creators as a whole.”

This whole incident shines light on the issues that female streamers and content creators alike.  IRL streaming does pose threats, like stream sniping, which refers to viewers purposefully inserting themselves into someone’s livestream, either in real life or while gaming online, to maliciously derail the livestream. With IRL streaming, stream sniping can occur when a viewer  finds the streamer in public and appears on the stream themselves. 

It’s possible that the threatening man was stream sniping Valkyrae, Cinna and Emiru, but as of  right now there isn’t much information on who the man is and where his mental state was on  the evening of March 2^nd.  

Thankfully the girls—and their cameraman and assistant—are now okay.

• entertainment
• gamer
• Twitch