Streamers Who Have Dealt With Terrifying Stalkers

The following article includes allegations of stalking and threats of violence.

Whether it be video games, cosplay, workout routines, or simply just chatting with friends, streaming provides a great way for content creators to spread their work throughout the internet. Through websites such as Twitch and YouTube, streamers have been provided platforms dedicated displaying their content, with each streamer providing hours of entertainment for those who have grown to love and respect them. It is also through these platforms that fans are able to show their love for their favorite streamers, often showing it through monetary donations, subscriptions, buying their merchandise, or even just a simple show of praise in the chats they set up.

Through these services, the streaming industry has created a space for both the streamers and fans to enjoy themselves and feel comfortable. But what happens when this love and respect that fans have turns into something more dark and dangerous? What happens when a single fan's donations number in the thousands of dollars, and those messages of encouragement turn to declarations of love, demands for attention, and threats of violence, ultimately bleeding out from the comfort of the streams and into the personal life of the streamer. Due to this type of obsession, many streamers have faced abuse, threats, confrontations, and even acts of violence at the hands of fans who've turned into terrifying stalkers.

For any professional streamer, monitoring your chat can be no easy feat, especially when you're the owner of a channel with hundreds of fans watching at any given time. That's where moderators come in, assisting with monitoring the chat and making sure that a creator's stream is a safe and welcoming place for fans. Unfortunately for Nalipls, she was put into a situation in which one of her own Twitch moderators went from being a defender of her channel to an obsessed fan.

On January 27, 2022, Nalipls recounted how she had been stalked and harassed for 2 years by a former moderator for her Twitch channel. The stalker, who went by the handle "Propain," had initially met her at the 2019 Blizzcon and began to employ worrying methods to get her attention. According to Nalipls, "After that meeting, his behavior started to become concerning. It started with his increasing need for attention in my stream, increasing donations, and continued attempts to get me to speak with him privately in discord." This obsession eventually turned into aggression, the stalker creating fake accounts to harass Nalipls and driving the streamer to quit streaming in 2021.

Fortunately for Nalipls, the moderator, later identified as Evan Baltierra, was taken into custody by California law enforcement and charged with one count of stalking. Nalipls made sure to let her fans on Twitter know as soon as the news broke:

my stalker plead guilty today https://t.co/coCNVnC1fb

— nali (@nalipls) July 12, 2022

BrookeAB has been experiencing harassment from various users on Twitch over the last few years. While none of their identities have been shared, BrookeAB has told her fans of the horrific acts and messages that have been issued by several stalkers. In a post on TwitLonger, BrookeAB explained that she, her friends, and her family have received threats of murder, arson, and many other obscene acts. BrookeAB harassers even went so far as to threaten people unaffiliated with her, simply acting on the assumption that they might be.

This abuse from her stalkers had a negative effect on the streamer's career and social activity, causing BrookeAB to take breaks from social media and skip TwitchCon in 2022. The streamer alerted her fans of the sad decision to miss the convention in a tweet on May 27, 2022.

been getting asked this question a lot recently so just wanted to give a heads up â€" I will not be going to twitchcon this year! nothing wrong on Twitch end they do a great job with security, I just don’t feel safe with my stalkers and constant death threats.

I’M SORRY :( ❤️

— brooke (@brookeab) May 27, 2022

Given the severity of her stalkers' actions, BrookeAB has been searching for ways to permanently ban those who have been stalking her, as well as prevent them from making new accounts.

In 2022, Amouranth dealt with a particularly obsessed fan. This fan, as Amouranth recounts in an interview on the H3 Podcast, flew to Texas and expected her to meet with him. This stalker had been a longtime fan of Amouranth, his obsession building to the point that he would set up his own streams dedicated to watching and mimicking the streamer, even bathing in a barrel while the streamer was lounging in her hot tub. According to Amouranth, this was due to a believe that he was engaged to the streamer, which led the fan to sell his house and other possessions so he could go to her.

On March 3, 2023, Amouranth posted a tweet showing that her stalker had struck once more. In an image attached to the post, the stalker can be seen attempting to break in. He apparently tried to gain access to Amouranth's home by following a housekeeper inside, later leaving a package and key on Amouranth's doorstep when this attempt failed.

While I was on the boxing press conference Mondayâ€" my team notified me that my stalker from last year (the one from Estonia) was back and was trying to break in again. 

He started by trying to sneak in behind one of my house staff â€" but had the door shut in his face.  He then pic.twitter.com/LK9xbbXjGa

— Kaitlyn (@wildkait) March 2, 2023

Fortunately, this would apparently be the last time her stalker would have a chance to torment the streamer. In a more recent interview with the YouTube channel CyberNews, Amouranth revealed that the police had finally arrested him. As Amouranth explained, she thinks that these online stalkers genuinely confuse seeing streamers online everyday with some form of intimacy, which leads them to believe they have special privileges.

Sweet Anita has unfortunately had to deal with multiple stalkers over the course of her streaming career, with one in particular causing her both psychological and physical harm. On November 8, 2019, Sweet Anita post on Twitter to tell her fans that a stalker had been sitting outside of her house and had actually attacked her on one occasion. Despite police involvement, her stalker was released and continued to bother her, making multiple threats during her livestreams that he was going to kill her.

He has also gone from planning a short visit my town, to moving to a place 4 minutes from me permanently. I'm very used to the lack of protection from the police at this point, I guess I'll have to get used to seeing him around too.

— Sweet Anita (@sweetanita) November 8, 2019

This continued until April 8, 2020, when Sweet Anita disclosed to her fans that her stalker had been detained by police after trying to accost her once more outside of a shop. Her stalker is now legally unable to come into contact with Sweet Anita and has even been banned from visiting the town where she lives.

However, Sweet Anita later had to deal with another obsessed fan. On May 22, 2022, Sweet Anita went to Twitter and asked her fans how to book security for TwitchCon events. As she explained in the tweet, the streamer had been bombarded with messages from a viewer confessing their love for the streamer. Perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of the situation was that her fans had crowdfunded tickets so that the obsessed fan could attend, not realizing how dangerous this person might be.

STREAMERS how and where do you book security for twitchcon events? I had a crazed homeless guy join my discord and my comunity is full of really kind people so they all crowdfunded for his living expenses and twitch tickets etc not realizing he's sending messages like these pic.twitter.com/jyvRg4LiIb

— Sweet Anita (@sweetanita) May 23, 2022