Italian IRL streamer banned from Twitch after fans harass Cat Cafe

An Italian IRL streamer has been banned from Twitch after exhibiting unruly behavior in a Milan-based cat café, prompting his fanbase to harass the business with negative reviews.

IRL streams are often the cream of the crop of Twitch’s broadcasting content. There’s no telling what sort of hilarious and random shenanigans streamers will get themselves into while traveling abroad… but not every IRL stream is a positive one.

In the case of Italian streamer ‘ilGabbrone,’ the outcome was decidedly negative. In mid-June, Gabbrone visited a cat café — a coffee or tea shop whose main draw is its feline staff (which, in many cases, are up for adoption) — but instead of a purr-worthy relaxing experience, a veritable ‘catastrophe’ happened instead.

As evidenced by a YouTube upload of the broadcast (and a translation from a commenter), a staff member can be seen asking Gabbrone to behave properly while streaming, lest he be removed from the establishment.

Shortly afterwards, the streamer’s fans donated to the broadcast, triggering some unpleasant and rude sounds (such as a fart noise and other unpleasant effects) out of his speaker in the otherwise library-quiet venue.

Gabbrone himself was also speaking loudly during his time at the café… resulting in one customer purportedly berating him for his behavior, as well as the fact that he was not wearing a mask while indoors.

Seemingly as a result of this interaction, Garbbrone’s fanbase began calling the cafe’s phone line en masse to complain, which viewers can hear during the end of the YouTube re-upload of the stream.

It wasn’t long before Gabbrone was asked to leave — but that wasn’t the only consequence of the IRL stream. The Italian-based broadcaster was banned from Twitch on June 21 in wake of the café catastrophe, prompting satisfaction from critics across social media.

The cat café has also posted about the situation via their Instagram profile, claiming that Gabbrone’s fans purportedly review-bombed the establishment with a slew of negative comments. “Hitting in this way a small reality already brought to its knees (like many others) by the pandemic cannot be considered goliardic, but cruel,” the café wrote.

Gabbrone allegedly claimed in a separate stream after the situation went down that he was not at fault, but instead, some “bad apples” in his chat were to blame for the harassment of the café.

While this is far from the first time an IRL streamer has caused havoc at a business — who can forget the time someone called in a bomb threat at an airport Ice Poseidon was streaming from? — and it’s unclear if this was the exact reason for Gabbrone’s ban, it’s hopeful that Twitch is setting out a clear rule for such behavior with this latest suspension.