Update: Microsoft announced on Monday that Mixer would shut down on July 22. Thanks to a new partnership with Facebook Gaming. Mixer streamers will be able to transition to Facebook’s game streaming service, and Mixer Partners will also get to keep their partner status on Facebook Gaming. Our original story can be found below.
Microsoft has made big efforts to become more inclusive in recent years, but the company’s Mixer game streaming may be darkening the picture. The bad buzz started this weekend when “ZuneGirl,” a former Talent & Influencer Manager for Microsoft’s Mixer NYC Studio tweeted a long post accusing popular Mixer partner Kabby of sexual misconduct.
I can't stay quiet any longer…
This is my truth. pic.twitter.com/8U1zvA4DOF— Zune ???? NYC (@Zune_Girl) June 21, 2020
The tweet got a lot of responses and literally shook the entire Mixer partner community. Things got worse when Antitinkerbell, a female Mixer partner came forward a couple of hours later to make similar accusations.
https://twitter.com/Antitinkerbell/status/1274999858110308355
As of this writing, Kabby has lost his Partner status on Mixer, and his channel currently shows zero followers and past streams. While there’s still no statement from Mixer about these very serious allegations, we saw that Kabby has also deleted his Twitter and Instagram accounts.
While we’re writing this, it seems that the Mixer community is already pretty disappointed by the company’s lack of response so far. Moreover, it seems that Kabby may not be the only streamer who may have hurt other people in the community.
I give Mixer one week. ONE WEEK! To get the piece of shits partnerships taken away (Cudi, Supa, Hollywood, etc.) and the asshole who thinks its okay to make a disgusting racist comment inside Mixer. If this is not addressed and dealt with, streams will be on twitch. Thank you.
— TheLlamaGoddess ???? (@LlamaGoddess226) June 22, 2020
As if things couldn’t get any worse for Mixer, Milan Lee, a former Mixer employee also published a long post to explain that he left the company after management failed to act on racist comments from a manager.
“I was one of the only black people working at Mixer during my tenure. While at a conference I was pulled aside and told that the only reason I was hired is because I am ‘street smart’,” Lee wrote. But it wasn’t long before Lee’s manager gave him a shocking explanation of what his job was about.
“Time goes by and we are in an internal meeting discussing projects we wanted to execute. My manager decided to give us an analogy, that analogy was “I’m in between a rock and a hard place. What I mean is all the partners are my slaves, I own their content. I control their success on our platform. For me I am the slave master, I own partners”. Immediately I got angry, pissed off and honestly I didn’t want to work at Microsoft/Mixer anymore,” Lee explained.
Lee left Mixer in 2019 and learned that his manager was not penalized for his comments. However, Mixer somewhat apologized to Lee on Twitter a couple of hours ago, adding that “We’ll be vigilant in addressing this more diligently in the future.” Xbox head Phil Spencer also reached out to Lee on Twitter and offered to have a conversation, while also emphasizing that “Racism will not be tolerated on our teams or on our services.”
https://twitter.com/WatchMixer/status/1274967046384545793
Things are definitely not looking good for Mixer right now, and we hope the company will speak up soon to address these serious allegations. Due to its smaller size, Mixer used to be known as a more inclusive and friendly space for streamers, but it’s safe to say that the Mixer community has been pretty shaken by all these revelations. Mixer has a lot of other issues to deal with right now, and Microsoft will need to work hard to regain the confidence of the community.
