Events
Tournaments, bans, subathons, acquisitions and the moments that moved the culture.
Mafiathon 3 announcement
Kai Cenat announced Mafiathon 3 via a Valentine's Day 2026 Twitch teaser. Reported production scope exceeds both prior events, with a purpose-built 40,000 sq ft studio complex in Queens and a guest list that his team has publicly said will include multiple A-list musicians and at least one sitting NBA All-Star.
Sidemen Charity Match 2025
The 2025 Sidemen Charity Match moved to Wembley Stadium — the first creator-produced sporting event to fill the ~90,000-capacity venue — with a YouTube Live peak of 3.2M concurrent viewers.
La Velada del Año V
Ibai's fifth annual creator boxing event was held at Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys in Barcelona on July 26, 2025, drawing approximately 70,000 in-venue attendees and a Twitch peak of 4.1M concurrent viewers — breaking the La Velada IV concurrent record it had set 12 months earlier.
Plaqueboymax Kick signing
Plaqueboymax signed a multi-year non-exclusive deal with Kick in May 2025, continuing the platform's 2023–2025 push to sign Twitch top-20 creators without requiring exclusivity.
Twitch paid-subscription tier restructure
Twitch announced a restructured subscription and ad-revenue framework in March 2025, raising baseline sub splits for mid-tier creators and introducing a "Plus" program to retain top-tier Partners at risk of migrating to Kick or YouTube Live.
Kai Cenat wins fourth consecutive Streamer of the Year
Kai Cenat won Streamer of the Year at the 2024 Streamer Awards (held March 2025), his fourth consecutive win in the category and a record within the award's short history.
IShowSpeed 2025 world tour
IShowSpeed's 2025 world tour spanned over 30 cities across 6 continents between March and September 2025, reportedly producing over $40M in creator revenue across livestreams, sponsorships, merchandise and branded activations.
OTK 2024 restructure
OTK announced a 2024 leadership and membership restructure following internal disputes about organizational direction, with several founding members transitioning to advisory roles.
Mafiathon 2
Kai Cenat's follow-up subathon set the all-time Twitch active-sub record at approximately 727,000 — more than doubling his own 2023 peak and cementing him as the most commercially dominant streamer in Twitch history.
Valkyrae increases 100 Thieves stake
Valkyrae and 100 Thieves announced an increased ownership stake for the creator in September 2024, positioning her as a more senior partner in the organization's creative direction.
Emiru TwitchCon incident
Emiru publicly disclosed being assaulted by a fan at TwitchCon San Diego in July 2024, prompting an industry-wide reckoning with creator-event safety protocols.
La Velada del Año IV
The 2024 edition of Ibai's annual Spanish-language creator boxing event at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium set the all-time single-channel Twitch concurrent-viewership record at over 3.8 million viewers.
Midnight Society parts with Dr Disrespect
Game studio Midnight Society parted ways with co-founder Dr Disrespect on June 24, 2024, following his acknowledgment of inappropriate messages referenced in the 2020 Twitch ban disclosures.
IShowSpeed meets Cristiano Ronaldo
After years of publicly declaring Cristiano Ronaldo his hero, IShowSpeed met Ronaldo in person in Saudi Arabia in June 2024 — a livestream moment that trended globally and became one of the defining images of creator/athlete convergence.
Hololive EN Justice debut
Hololive EN's fourth-generation branch "Justice" debuted in May 2024 — Elizabeth Rose Bloodflame, Gigi Murin, Cecilia Immergreen, Raora Panthera — marking Hololive EN's first new generation in over a year and setting new debut-viewership records within the EN branch.
Twitch shuts down in Korea
Twitch ceased operations in South Korea in February 2024, citing prohibitively high network-fee regulations — one of Twitch's largest regional withdrawals and a stark indicator of the platform's cost pressures.
Pokimane moves to YouTube Live
After a decade on Twitch, Imane "Pokimane" Anys signed an exclusive live-streaming deal with YouTube in January 2024 — a significant symbolic loss for Twitch and a continuation of YouTube's creator-acquisition strategy that began with Ludwig in 2021.
Twitch 2024 layoffs
Twitch cut approximately 35% of its workforce in January 2024 (~500 employees), part of a broader restructuring that followed the 2023 staff reductions and Korea exit.
Destiny YouTube permaban
Political streamer Destiny was permanently banned from YouTube in September 2023 for violating policy during a debate stream — one of the highest-profile political-streamer bans on the platform and the event that precipitated his move to Kick.
Sidemen Charity Match 2023
The 2023 edition of the Sidemen's annual charity football match at London Stadium drew over 62,000 attendees and a peak YouTube Live audience of 2.8 million — including a viral IShowSpeed goal that trended globally.
Kai Cenat NYC Union Square incident
A spontaneous giveaway Kai Cenat announced live at NYC's Union Square on August 4, 2023 escalated into a crowd-control incident declared a riot by NYPD, resulting in his brief arrest on multiple charges later plea-bargained down.
xQc's Kick deal
Félix "xQc" Lengyel signed a non-exclusive multi-year deal with Kick reported to be worth up to $100 million, marking Kick's largest-ever creator signing and a watershed moment for simulcasting.
Adin Ross Twitch ban
Adin Ross was indefinitely suspended from Twitch in February 2023 following his seventh career ban — precipitating his move to Kick, where he became one of the platform's flagship creators.
Mafiathon (Kai Cenat's first subathon)
Kai Cenat's 30-day February 2023 subathon, during which he passed Ludwig's 2021 record with a peak of approximately 306,000 concurrent Twitch subscribers.
Atrioc deepfake incident
Twitch streamer Brandon "Atrioc" Ewing was caught with a paid non-consensual deepfake website open on stream featuring fellow female streamers — a moment that triggered global media coverage and accelerated platform and legal policy on AI-generated non-consensual imagery.
Twitch gambling restriction
Twitch announced in September 2022 that it would prohibit streams of unauthorized gambling sites, after a coordinated creator-led pressure campaign led by Pokimane, Mizkif and others reached a tipping point.
The Streamer Awards
An annual awards show for streamers and creators, founded by QTCinderella in 2022 and produced in partnership with OTK.
Kiryu Coco graduation
Hololive JP VTuber Kiryu Coco "graduated" (retired her avatar) on July 1, 2021 after months of targeted harassment following a Taiwan-related controversy. She later re-debuted as Kson under her own brand, co-founding VShojo Japan in 2024.
Ludwig's 2021 subathon
A 31-day Twitch subathon that broke the platform's concurrent-subscription record (282,191) and defined the modern subathon format.
TheGrefg's Fortnite skin reveal
TheGrefg's Fortnite Icon Series skin reveal stream on January 11, 2021 peaked at approximately 2.47 million concurrent Twitch viewers — then the all-time single-channel Twitch concurrent record.
Twitch DMCA wave
Twitch received a sudden surge of retroactive DMCA takedown notices in mid-2020 targeting years-old VODs and clips — its response (mass auto-deletion with no appeal) triggered widespread creator backlash and forced platform-wide changes to music handling.
Hololive EN Myth debut
Hololive English's first-generation "Myth" debuted in mid-September 2020 — introducing Gawr Gura, Mori Calliope, Watson Amelia, Takanashi Kiara and Ninomae Ina'nis — the moment widely credited with bringing VTubing into the English-language mainstream.
The Among Us streaming wave
A four-month period in late 2020 during which the party game Among Us dominated Twitch and YouTube Live viewership — launching Valkyrae, Corpse Husband and Sykkuno into top-tier creator status and establishing YouTube Live as a viable creator platform.
Dr Disrespect Twitch ban
Guy "Dr Disrespect" Beahm was permanently banned from Twitch on June 26, 2020 with no public explanation — one of the most consequential and opaque bans in platform history.
Mixer shutdown
Microsoft shut down its Mixer streaming platform in July 2020, roughly a year after paying ~$100M for exclusivity deals with Ninja and Shroud — the cautionary tale that still shapes how top creators negotiate platform contracts.
PogChamps
Chess.com's PogChamps series (2020–2021) pitted popular streamers against each other in chess tournaments with GM commentary — widely credited with igniting the 2020–2022 chess-streaming boom.
KSI vs Logan Paul 2
The 2019 professional boxing rematch between KSI and Logan Paul at the Staples Center — widely credited as the event that legitimized creator/influencer boxing as a commercial format.
Ninja & Drake Fortnite stream
Ninja's March 2018 Fortnite duo stream with Drake (and later Travis Scott and JuJu Smith-Schuster) peaked at over 628,000 concurrent Twitch viewers — briefly setting the platform's all-time single-channel record and marking the moment streaming crossed into mainstream celebrity culture.