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Kieran Press-Reynolds
- Amouranth began streaming on Twitch in 2016.
- Since then, she has risen to become one of the platform's most successful and beloved creators.
- Here's a timeline of Amouranth's journey to the top, from hot tub streams to her business ventures.
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Kaitlyn Siragusa, better known as Amouranth, began streaming on Twitch in 2016 and started posting videos to her YouTube channel the same year.
The 29-year-old's growth was modest at first — she didn't hit one million Twitch followers until April 2019, and then it took her almost two years to reach two million, according to the data analytics website Twitch Tracker. However, her popularity skyrocketed last year, and she now has over six million followers.
Amouranth became especially known for her gaming content, ASMR, and "hot tub" streams, a Twitch subgenre involving mostly women streamers sitting in a jacuzzi and chatting with viewers for hours.
The hot tub genre — often referred to as Twitch's "hot tub meta" — spiked in popularity and sparked conflicting discourse in 2021. Some people (including star streamers like xQc) criticized the platform for allowing the content to gain traction, while others lambasted those critiques as misogynistic.
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"I don't think it's particularly unique or new, just people decided to hyper-focus on it now due to a few girls having outsized success," Amouranth, who was one of the most popular and visible hot tub streamers, told Insider at the time. "People keep succumbing to recency bias as if this recent development has 'forever tarnished' the Twitch brand, or as if at some point in the distant future it's going to be just all hot tub streamers."
Here's how she's navigated her career, both in successes and hardships, over the last year.
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Amouranth became the top female streamer on Twitch for the first time.
For the first time, Amouranth became Twitch's most-viewed female streamer in March 2021. Users watched her content for almost 1.8 million hours during that month, according to data analytics website Stream Charts.
Amouranth also dethroned popular gaming streamer Pokimane at the time.
She remained the most-watched female streamer for the entire year in 2021, with over 38 million total watch hours.
In 2022, she continued her reign as the most-watched female streamer, with over 32 million hours watched.
Amouranth is still wildly popular. She recently became the only woman among the male-dominated list of the platform's top 100 most-viewed creators, according to The Gamer.
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Amouranth purchased a gas station, among other business ventures.
Amouranth has been pretty vocal about her business ventures on social media, often startling fans with her investments. In November 2021, she announced that she had bought a gas station and would lease it out to Circle K. She talked about the decision in a thread on Twitter, explaining that purchasing the gas station meant she would save money overall by having to pay fewer taxes.
—Kaitlyn (@wildkait) November 9, 2021
Later during the month, Amouranth said she bought another gas station for $10 million, this one owned by 7-Eleven.
In December 2021, she told her fans that she was investing $1 million into Visa for her birthday. A few months later, she said she made a "7-figure investment" in a plastic ball manufacturer.
"I'm creating a diversified stream of cashflow," Amouranth wrote in a Twitter thread about the business choice. "Defensible biz without much capital intensity that can throw off cash-passive income in our time."
In 2022, Amouranth purchased at least one more gas station in addition to her previous two.
"Before I started doing social media, I couldn't even afford to fill up my gas tank," Amouranth told YouTuber Antony Padilla in an interview in January 2022. "Now, I own a gas station."
Amouranth has also become very popular on OnlyFans. Since joining in 2021, she has over a million likes on the fan subscription platform.
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Amouranth revealed that she's married, and alleged her husband emotionally abused her.
In October 2022, Amouranth revealed in a stream to her fans that she had a husband, who she said is emotionally abusive. She alleged that he controls her finances and social media activities, and had once threatened to kill her dogs.
—GUARD Hunter (@HUN2R) October 16, 2022
The internet immediately lit up in support of the influencer, and fellow creators like Valkyrae and Ethan Klein rallied around her in support.
—RAE (@Valkyrae) October 16, 2022
After Amouranth spoke out, she logged off for a few days. She then came back online to tell her audience that she was "free" of her husband and had regained control of her finances.
"I didn't think that many people would give a shit, to be honest. It's kind of crazy," Amouranth told her viewers in a stream. "Even people who don't like me, even haters who are like, 'Damn, I fuckin' hate Amouranth, but you know what, I hope she's OK,' that's so nice."
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Amouranth returned to Twitch after taking a break.
After taking a break from the platform in October of last year, and only posting sporadically online, Amouranth returned a month later.
She posted a Twitter thread in late November explaining she's shifting her content since coming out with abuse allegations — specifically, deciding to do fewer hot tub streams. She said she played the game "Overwatch" on Twitch more than anything else.
"Not about rebrand, I literally don't care," she tweeted in response to someone saying her content shift was successful. "I get to do what I want, and I still make 7 fig money a month. Life is better."
Toward the end of December 2022, Amouranth announced a new show on her Twitch channel called "Pimp my S*mp," where viewers would enter for a chance to win a cash prize, and be flown out to her, where they'll receive a makeover.
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