Pokimane Gives Support to Smash’s FreeMelee Movement

One of the most popular female streamers on Twitch, Imane Anys aka Pokimane expressed her support for the fighting game community and teased her support for bringing Smash Melee back to Evo.

Pokimane announced the launch of RTS, her new talent management and brand consultancy firm, on October 27th. She will act as the company’s chief creative officer. The company, which was revealed in March 2021, has also bought the popular yearly fighting game event Evolution Championship Series, often known as EVO.

Poki praised the fighting game community during a Twitch live, and hinted at her ambitions to bring Melee back to EVO for the first time since 2018. Poki spoke at length on the fighting game community and their complaints during a stream on October 29th.

She stated; “I really appreciate how welcoming and sweet the fighting game community has been. Not just me, towards RTS, towards this acquisition, towards everything.”

She then explained as to why she thinks they were so cordial, and noted; “But to be fair I also feel like they have been starved of not just attention, but any form of decency or respect for so long, that they’re like ‘Oh my God, someone being nice!’”

Poki then mentioned Melee by name and said, “Do you know the amount of friends that have messaged me and were like ‘Free Melee! Can you get it back on the main stage?’, and I was like, noted guys, noted.”

When Nintendo sent a cease and desist letter to the tournament series The Big House, which planned to stage an online Melee tournament using the software Slippi, the hashtag FreeMelee became popular.

Smash Melee hasn’t been seen at EVO since 2018, and bringing it back would be huge for the game’s devoted fanbase, which is still strong despite the game’s 20-year old.

Bringing Melee back to EVO would be a great boost for the game, and Pokimane’s acknowledgement of their problems would give them faith that Melee will return to the big stage again someday.