Gaming Session with Pokimane Auction

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Overview

Gaming Session with Pokimane refers to an online charity auction in July 2024 in support of the Immune Deficiency Foundation in which the winner can enjoy a gaming session with Canadian-Moroccan Twitch streamer and YouTuber Pokimane. The event was organized by Twitch streamer and YouTuber CDawgVA, real name Connor Colquhoun, as part of his annual charity auction, which surpassed a $500,000 bid in just a few hours after the streamer posted about it on Twitter / X. However, some of the large amounts of donations like the half-million one were fake, with the auction currently holding the highest bid at $34,000. Word of the auction and the high price of bids quickly spread online in mid-July 2024, prompting reactions and memes from numerous social media users.

Background

On July 15th, 2024, Twitch streamer and YouTuber CDawgVA, hosted his annual charity auction, listing one of the prizes as a "Gaming Session with Pokimane,"^[1] with its proceeds sent to the Immune Deficiency Foundation that offers “resources, education, and support” for patients diagnosed with primary immunodeficiency.^[2]

That same day, Pokimane^[3] reposted @CDawgVA's tweet about the action, captioning it, "the only time you can pay to play w/ me lmao." The post (seen below) amassed over 14,000 likes and 276 reposts in a few hours.

Developments

Five hours after @CDawgVA announced Pokimane's auction, the top bid had already climbed to $500,000, as the streamer posted on X^[4] (seen below), amassing more than 16,000 likes and 724 reposts in a few hours.

As of 2 p.m. EST on July 16th, 2024, the "gaming session with Pokimane" auction was updated with the official highest bid currently at $34,100 by X user @haryvibes, with claims that fake or unverified bids were responsible for the $500,000 spikes that were removed.

Online Reactions

The "Gaming Session with Pokimane" auction sparked jokes and memes on social media as word spread, while also instigating other streamers to join in the bidding war to play video games with the streamer.

For instance, on July 15th, 2024, posts claiming that streamer Adin Ross had become the top bidder^[5] for a gaming session with Pokimane for a total of $500,000 began to spread, though the bids were later removed from the auction page. The tweet (seen below) amassed more than 510 likes and 43 reposts in a few hours.

Some of the bids on Pokimane's auction later proved to be fake and were made by fans of other popular streamers or trolls. For example, on July 15th, 2024, the X^[6] page @scubaryan_ posted a clip of streamer Duke Dennis reacting to someone bidding nearly $300,000 using his name on Pokimane's auction. The video (seen below) amassed over 1.3 million views and 15,000 likes in a day.