Background and career
Imane Anys (born 14 May 1996), known by her online handle Pokimane, is a Moroccan and Canadian online streamer, YouTuber and influencer based in California. She is best known for gameplay and commentary livestreams on Twitch, most notably in Valorant and Fortnite. She is a co-founder of OfflineTV, an online social entertainment group of content creators. As of June 2026, with over 9.46 million followers, she is the most-followed female streamer on Twitch, and the 16th-most-followed overall.
Imane Anys was born in Morocco on 14 May 1996. Her mother has Berber ancestry. Her parents, two academics, immigrated to Quebec, Canada, when she was four years old. She grew up in Ontario, Canada. She stated she speaks "two and a half" languages: English, French and Moroccan Arabic. French is her first language as she studied in a French school and it is also a language spoken in Morocco.
While she described her Moroccan Arabic proficiency as "a little bit", she continues to improve. She learned English at school. In middle school, Anys began playing massively multiplayer online games such as MapleStory and Endless Online, where she focused on customization and socializing with other players. Anys studied chemical engineering at McMaster University but later dropped out to pursue her streaming career full-time.
Anys created her Twitch account in June 2013. She began streaming later that year with a $250 PC she bought on Kijiji after reaching Platinum rank in League of Legends. The name Pokimane is a portmanteau of Pokémon and her name, Imane.
She gained 450,000 followers on Twitch in 2017, earning her account a place within the 100 most followed on the platform. As a result of her account's rise on the platform in 2017, the Shorty Awards named her as the Best Twitch Streamer of the year. The Shorty Awards detailed that her gameplay and commentary on the popular game League of Legends propelled her to popularity on Twitch. Anys had a cameo appearance in a League of Legends trailer announcing a new game mode.
How Pokimane makes money
One four-pack of the company's midnight mini cookies product were sold for $28, drawing criticism from some, calling the cookies overpriced.
