Streamer Kiapiaa gains thousands of followers after Artesian Builds giveaway scandal

Mar 1, 2022

Small Twitch streamer Kiapiaa exploded in popularity on Tuesday, gaining over 8,000 followers on Twitter and breaking 7000 followers on Twitch, after she called out Artesian Builds for refusing to give her a PC after she won their giveaway, with the company citing the fact that she was too small to win. She later rejected Artesian Builds' late offer to finally honor their giveaway, saying she did not want to not support a company that doesn't support small streamers like her self.

Following Artesian Builds' second apology of the day, in which they finally admitted she was the rightful winner of the PC, Kia stated on Twitter: "Okay just to clarify: They emailed me offering a PC. I denied it. I am not supporting a company that doesn’t support small streamers AKA THE backbone of their company. My email back to them was a simple two-sentence reply. No ty. Take me off your ambassador list :) heh ok gn"

Kia won the initial giveaway, after serving as an ambassador to the company on her Twitch channel, only to be denied the victory because, according to the CEO, she didn't provide enough link clicks to be eligible, something reportedly not stated in the original rules. The CEO also made multiple comments that Kia interpreted as belittling her for being a small streamer with less than 5000 followers at the time. This prompted the 23-year-old streamer to call the company out on Twitter, which picked up significant traction throughout the day, including drawing condemnation for Artesian Builds from streamers like Nick Mercs, who is sponsored by the company.

Following her original Tweet, Artesian Builds eventually responded to the situation with an apology of sorts. However, in their first apology they did not admit to wrongdoing when it came to rejecting Kia's giveaway win, beyond apologizing for how they did "parts of the giveaway." It wasn't until several more hours of negative online attention that they took a second swing at their apology, admitting that Kia was the rightful winner, but by then Kia was already insulted enough to reject the prize.

While Kia isn't getting out with a new PC, due to her moral stand against the company, she did gain nearly 8000 followers on Twitter in a day as a result of the whole debacle. Her follower count is also now over 7,000 people on Twitch. So maybe she won't be a small streamer much longer, who knows.