Emiru is skipping the Streamer Awards, here’s why

Gaming streamer Emily “Emiru” Schunk was nominated in multiple categories for the 2024 Streamer Awards but has told fans that she won’t be attending the award show.

On November 11, Blaire “QTCinderella” revealed the nominees for the Streamer Awards, her annual content creator event. Emiru was nominated for two categories, Streamer of the Year and Best Just Chatting Streamer. Known for her content creator collabs and video game streams, Emiru has become one of the largest female streamers on Twitch with 1.6 million followers. She is also a member of OTK and partakes in many of their content series. It doesn’t seem all too shocking that Emiru would be nominated for a few awards but the streamer seems put off by the situation.

Despite being nominated for the event’s biggest award of the night, Emiru told her fans during a live stream on Twitch that she was not going to attend the show.

Why Emiru is boycotting the 2024 Streamer Awards

Emiru told fans that she feels tokenized by the 2024 Streamer Awards as the only woman nominated for Streamer of the Year.

While Emiru was nominated for Streamer of the Year and Best Just Chatting Streamer, she explained to her viewers that she wasn’t included as a Sapphire Award nominee. This category is for women and other marginalized gender streamers.

“Don’t you guys think it’s kind of funny how the token woman is in every big category but the ‘woman’ category?” Emiru questioned.

She continued to explain that the situation is “kinda weird,” noting that others have also wondered why she was nominated for Streamer of the Year but not mentioned in the female streamer category. For Emiru, it seemed like she was possibly being used as a “token” female streamer in the otherwise all-male categories and was then left out of the Sapphire Award to give space to other female streamers.

Fans agreed with Emiru’s concerns. On Reddit, one wrote: “Fair enough, felt like [QTCinderella] just wanted a girl in there and didn’t see the point in farming Ironmouse again.”

QTCinderella previously addressed people’s skepticism over the nominated streamers on X.

“My god people, if I wanted to give my friends awards I would have them over for Christmas dinner. I wouldn’t spend months out of my life to do it. Notice how none of the streamers nominated are upset. They are excited or flattered,” QTCinderella said a few days before Emiru’s stream. “Some of y’all just be making stuff up.”

The streamer explained that it was “fan voted” but Emiru’s nomination was chosen by the award show’s panel. This panel consists of “journalists, game devs, agencies, managers,” and other streaming industry insiders, according to QTCinderella earlier this month. With all the other nominees in the Streamer of the Year category being men, it felt suspicious to Emiru and her fans that she was voted in by the panel, almost like they wanted to add a woman to the category.