While it's very lucrative and exciting working as a popular content creator, it is no secret that top streamers endure serious drawbacks — a recent example was brought out by Imane "Pokimane" Anys. In a Twitter post and a follow-up up TikTok video, Pokimane — who is one of the largest Twitch streamers in the world — revealed that she was recently almost the victim of blackmail by an online scammer. 

In the TikTok video, Pokimane revealed details on the incident — stating her reasoning for sharing the story was to raise awareness of the scam in hopes that other creators would not fall for it. It began when Pokimane received an email purported to be from a representative of a loungewear and lingerie company Pokimane expressed fondness for in the past. "It all started a couple weeks ago when I got an email from this company called Neiwai," Pokimane stated.  "Afterwards, they sent me this PowerPoint of this new collection that they want to launch. And they said that just need my measurements and my address and that they'll send me three custom bras, whatever."

However, upon close examination of the email, the popular streamer realized the offer was suspicious, stating, "I realized that they weren't showing me how to take my measurements, they were asking me to put a tape measurer around me, and send them a photo of my bare chest." That's when Pokimane realized she had been speaking to a scammer the entire time. 

The video goes on to show screenshots of the email exchange — showing that the scammer created fake emails, an exchange between an employee and their boss, and even an entire multipage PowerPoint presentation. Pokimane expressed that the lengths the scammer went to were both comical and frightening.

"I don't even want to think about what they would've done if I actually sent them anything, whether it's extort me for money, blackmail me — if they have my address, it's even worse." The video concludes with Pokimane urging creators to always use a PO box instead of personal addresses, and revealed the manager of a streamer friend actually fell for a similar impersonation scam. The story is once again an important reminder of being careful in online interactions in the creator space.