Asmongold is the latest high-profile streamer backing out of TwitchCon San Diego over safety concerns as fear continues to mount among the site’s top broadcasters.
TwitchCon San Diego is scheduled from October 17-19, but despite being one of the year’s biggest events for American streamers, a large swath of the industry’s top talent won’t be in attendance.
Over the last two weeks, a handful of Twitch’s most popular content creators have publicly stated they will not attend or are considering backing out of the convention due to security worries.
To start, QTCinderella and Valkyrae voiced concerns for their physical safety, explaining that they decided against hosting a live episode of their podcast, ‘Wine About It,’ at TwitchCon.
“I’m kind of afraid to go to TwitchCon,” Rae admitted. “I’ve been so anxious and scared and sad this whole past week with everything that’s been going on. …Respectfully, I don’t feel irrational about it. I feel very scared.”
Pokimane echoed similar sentiments, telling viewers, “It does worry me that it might not be safe and it [would] be better to skip out on it.”
Later, she and co-host LilyPichu brought up the issue on their podcast, with Lily saying she was heavily considering canceling her artist booth. “I have an artist alley booth, I have to go. I might cancel my meeting. I think a lot of people are… I’m not in the mood to meet people lately.”
Hasan Piker also announced that he would not be attending TwitchCon, citing rising political tensions due to his status as a politically-focused broadcaster.
“There is, unfortunately, an obvious setback there. One, all the political incidents that have taken place. And two, how those political incidents have had pretty significant consequences in how much I can go out in the real world and socialize with other people,” he said.
Now, Asmongold is backing out of the event, as told during an October 2 broadcast shortly after returning from his streaming hiatus.
Asmongold backs out of TwitchCon, calling event a “zoo”
While he explained that he wasn’t worried about being physically harmed, referencing the assassination of political commentator Charlie Kirk, he brought up a past instance of sexual assault against streamer Nmplol that occurred during his live stream at TwitchCon 2024.
He also referenced an incident that took place at TwitchCon 2022, where a streamer broke her back after jumping into a ball pit at the event that was more shallow than she — and several other attendees — had initially thought.
“I’m thinking to myself, ‘Do I really wanna go to TwitchCon?’ …You got people breaking their backs. Bro, TwitchCon sounds like a BDSM event. So no, I’m not trying to get into that. F**k no, I’m not trying to go there.
“I’m staying home. They got the zoo over there. That is the zoo, and the streamers are the animals. Maybe the viewers are, too.”
These remarks follow Asmongold’s previous statement regarding the safety of women at TwitchCon events, where he again referenced Nmplol being assaulted by another streamer.
Pokemon Legends Z-A gives Gastly a third redesign in three generations