Kaitlyn “Amouranth” Siragusa is one of the largest streamers on Twitch, mostly known for her cosplaying talents, ASMR and IRL streams, and the occasional run-in with controversy.
Since beginning her channel in 2016, the 25-year old American streamer has consistently gained popularity. Right now, she’s the 102nd most-followed Twitch channel with over 972,000 followers, according to SocialBlade.
A self-labeled variety streamer, Amouranth spends most of her time creating non-gaming content. Her top-four streamed categories are IRL (7,876 hours), ASMR (6,109 hours), Just Chatting (1,815), and Creative (330), according to Twitch Tracker. Her most-played video game is Just Dance 2018, which she streams in exchange for hitting subscription and donation goals.
A large part of her online brand is her NSFW cosplay content. Posted on a “premium Snapchat,” Amouranth shares photoshoots and videos of herself in costume for anyone who pays for access.
Prior to her streaming career, Amouranth co-founded Houston-based company A Charmed Affair, which schedules actresses in Disney character costumes to appear at special events and birthday parties. On A Charmed Affair’s Instagram, fans can find old photos of Amouranth cosplaying as Anna from Frozen, Rapunzel from Tangled, Rey from Star Wars, and many other characters.
In comparison to the issues she probably had to address when dressing up as a princess for a little kid’s birthday, Amouranth’s streaming career has almost certainly proved to be far more contentious.
Amouranth’s controversies
Many of Amouranth’s controversies stem from her either receiving suspensions due to her breaking Twitch’s rules or people in the community believing that she should’ve received a suspension for apparent ToS violations.
While doing an ASMR stream in September, her skirt slipped and she accidentally exposed herself on stream, causing her to receive a temporary ban.
During a June stream, she appeared to violate Twitch’s ToS by streaming in a store after being told by an employee that she wasn’t allowed to do so. In this instance, Amouranth didn’t receive any type of punishment.
For a very similar infraction, Amouranth was dealt a 24-hour ban in May 2018 for streaming from inside a gym without getting permission from the staff, who she consequently lied to when confronted about her stream by saying she was Skyping a personal trainer.
Some users were calling for Twitch to ban her around the same time as the gym stream that she was actually banned for because she put another patron on camera without their consent and appeared to mock them from behind.
Amouranth’s name also pops up a lot whenever the community debates the alleged double standard held by Twitch staff. So viewers believe that the platform holds female streamers to a much more lenient rulebook than men.
The cosplayer regularly appears on stream in revealing costumes, sometimes donning them only after her viewers earn them in some way, typically with subscription thresholds. People in the community point to the section of Twitch’s ToS regarding sexual content, which says “attire intended to be sexually suggestive and nudity are prohibited.”
While Amouranth isn’t the only streamer to offer an NSFW Snapchat account in exchange for subscriptions, she’s one of the most high-profile. Some argue that Twitch should close this loophole that allows primarily female streamers to advertise their pornographic content—which is explicitly prohibited according to the platform’s rules—and using it as an incentive to subscribe to their channel.
In November 2017, Amouranth received a seven-day ban for advertising her mature Patreon content on her Twitch stream. But she still promotes that same content on her streams, so it’s unclear to critics why she can continue the behavior that previously got her punished.
Perhaps the controversy that had the largest impact on the Twitch universe was the one sparked by YouTuber L OF THE DAY’s 2018 video revealing that Amouranth appeared to be secretly married. Many of her viewers were upset to learn that Amouranth, who had maintained that she was single whenever asked on stream, had been lying about her relationship. They believed she had been dishonest in order to make money off of viewers who hoped to gain her affection.
The controversy eventually grew into a controversy of its own. A lot community members defended Amouranth by arguing that it was far more offensive for viewers to assume a sense of love interest or ownership of her simply because they made a monetary contribution or supported her content. In a way, it led to a greater conversation about how female streamers are viewed and treated on Twitch.
In a viral response to the marriage controversy, Amouranth famously said, “Haven’t you heard the news? Every female on the internet is eligible to be dated by people who see her… No matter where she lives, no matter what their compatibility might be, no matter what their sexual preferences are, anything. If she’s on the internet, ‘bobs and vagena,’ you can date her.”
Even with controversy finding Amouranth more often than she’d like, she has always returned from her bans to a growing, loyal fanbase that welcomes her back with open arms and generous donations.
How much does Amouranth make?
As of her last stream before her most recent ban, Amouranth had 7,904 subscribers. Two days after that ban, website Twitch Analysis put her subscriber count at 7,845.
Of that total, 5,941 (74.3 percent) of those subscriptions are $4.99 tier-one subscriptions, 66 (0.8 percent) are $9.99 tier-two subs, and 138 (1.7 percent) are $24.99 tier-three subs. The remaining 1,848 (23.1 percent) are via Twitch Prime.
Twitch and its partners split the income from subscriptions. For lesser-known partners, Twitch will split the bounty right down the middle at 50/50 and send $2.50 per sub to the broadcaster. As the channel grows, so does the streamer’s split.
The biggest streamers are rumored to procure 80 percent of the total or $4 per sub. Using both conservative (60/40) and generous (80/20) estimates since Amouranth’s split isn’t public, the streamer is likely making between $25,000 to $34,000 monthly purely off of Twitch subs. That total doesn’t include YouTube or Twitch ad revenue, brand partnerships, or the income from her 750 Patreon patrons.
