As if Twitch wasn’t within the information sufficient already, the platform is once more making new headlines, following yesterday’s profitable marketing campaign by prime broadcasters to ban playing from the livestreaming service. Nonetheless, as a substitute of cash issues, we’re coping with problems with sexual assault and harassment, as personalities like Maya and Mizkif have been accused of encouraging the protecting up of an abuse sufferer’s traumatic expertise. Now, Mizkif is going through repercussions.
Content material Warning: Descriptions of sexual assault
AdrianahLee is a Simply Chatting streamer who sometimes performs Minecraft and Valorant. A calming content material creator, AdrianahLee got here ahead in June 2021 with a TwitLonger submit detailing a troubling expertise she says she had with gaming broadcaster CrazySlick, throughout a 2020 party. Whereas allegedly drunk, AdrianahLee recounted an incident during which CrazySlick adopted her round, tried to—and allegedly did—kiss her, and touched her “neck and chest” a number of instances to test her pulse after she handed out in one of many rooms.
Although AdrianahLee clarified within the preliminary submit—that she is now saying was considerably coerced—that CrazySlick didn’t “rape or assault” her, she famous that his actions did “make me really feel uncomfortable” all the identical. CrazySlick made a TwitLonger submit of his personal not lengthy afterward, apologizing for “making her really feel uncomfortable” and being drunk, however nothing got here of it. Extra not too long ago, the allegations resurfaced.
Now, AdrianahLee has taken to Twitch and Twitter to elaborate on the scenario, saying the unique TwitLonger submit was a “diluted model of the story that was proofread” by Simply Chatting streamer and wildlife conservationist Maya and others. In a two-hour livestream, AdrianahLee mentioned Maya and Mizkif pressured her to say one thing ASAP so the 2 didn’t need to kick CrazySlick out of the home. (CrazySlick is greatest buddies with Mizkif and lived with Maya and Mizkif; the latter duo had been supposedly relationship across the time AdrianahLee’s allegations first got here to gentle.) However in pressuring her to talk prematurely and requiring approval of her tweets earlier than they went stay, AdrianahLee mentioned Maya and Mizkif helped downplay the accusations by having her paint CrazySlick in a extra favorable gentle.
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Yesterday, as big-name streamers like Asmongold and Pokimane made statements on Twitch’s rampant playing points, playing broadcaster Trainwreck clapped back at Mizkif, stating that “mizkif didn’t assault the ladies, he orchestrated the cover-ups for his buddies” to “cowl up all these sexual assaults” towards CrazySlick. Concurrently, outdated movies and screenshots of Mizkif’s had been uncovered, during which he each undermined AdrianahLee’s expertise—calling it “probably not a giant deal”—and used a handful of slurs in a chat with a friend towards Black and LGBTQ+ folks.
Additional, some are alleging that CrazySlick has a historical past of comparable incidents with different girls. AdrianahLee is sustaining an ongoing Twitter thread to platform girls, each named and nameless, keen to come back ahead with details about how CrazySlick had assaulted or harassed them.
Maya has damaged her silence on the scenario. In a current Twitch stream, Maya mentioned that in a dialog she had with AdrianahLee concerning the encounter with CrazySlick, AdrianahLee informed Maya he didn’t rape or sexually assault her. As a result of Maya “didn’t consider it as a rape or a sexual assault” when it occurred, Maya had requested AdrianahLee to incorporate that element within the TwitLonger submit.
Nonetheless, Maya now says she acknowledges the unequal “energy dynamic” between herself and AdrianahLee, provided that Maya is a a lot greater streamer. So Maya apologized to AdrianahLee, noting that she “feels dangerous” and “wasn’t attempting to power [AdrianahLee] into saying one thing” that might downplay her traumatic expertise.
CrazySlick has additionally responded to the assault allegations, saying in some now-deleted tweets that he “by no means sexually assaulted anybody and by no means will” whereas claiming he checked AdrianahLee’s pulse by her “neck and wrist solely.” CrazySlick’s Twitch remains to be up, however he’s deactivated his Twitter.
AdrianahLee remains to be grappling with the aftermath of the scenario, expressing that your complete debacle has felt like one large gaslighting incident for her and her buddies.
“It was an assault,” AdrianahLee mentioned in a September 19 stream. “Effectively, I suppose, I don’t know…What’s assault outlined [as]? [CrazySlick] didn’t rape me. He didn’t stick a finger in me or no matter, however he did contact my chest space a number of instances when he was requested to cease a number of instances. Whether or not that’s harassment or assault that’s as much as you. I suppose it’s as much as me. It’s one thing that makes me fucking uncomfortable. It’s one thing that’s fucked up. It’s one thing that ought to not occur to any lady.”
Within the wake of those particulars resurfacing, Mizkif has been suspended from One True King (OTK), the content material creation and life-style group he co-founded with different streamers like Asmongold in October 2020. In an announcement on its official Twitter, OTK mentioned it’s within the strategy of “contacting a third-party authorized group” to research Mizkif’s habits and language.
“Mizkif has been positioned on depart and can be stepping away from his organizational duties pending the outcomes of the investigation,” the org mentioned. “OTK strongly condemns sexual harassment, assault, and bigotry of all varieties.”
Mizkif additionally made an announcement on the matter. In a TwitLonger submit, he mentioned CrazySlick “has been informed to vacate [the] home as quickly as attainable,” and apologized to “everybody affected by the scenario.” In a follow-up tweet, Mizkif clarified that CrazySlick had, actually, sexually assaulted AdrianahLee.
Kotaku reached out to AdrianahLee, CrazySlick, Maya, and Mizkif for remark.
Correction, 9/21/22, 10:55 a.m. ET: The story has been up to date to appropriate its description of the character of OTK as a corporation.
