Amouranth Is Twitch's Smartest Troll, But She's On Thin Ice

It’s past midnight on a Tuesday. Kaitlyn “Amouranth” Siragusa stands in her bedroom, which emanates a soothing purple glow. Clad in a fire engine-red top and a choker with a heart-shaped clasp, she appears neither bored nor tired, nor does her tongue seem to be pulsating in agony. This is pertinent information because, for 12 of the past 24 hours, Siragusa has been licking a microphone.Siragusa, 27, is doing this as part of—actually, all of—her July 2021 Twitch-based “licking ears subathon.” Each new viewer subscription she receives adds 30 seconds to the clock. Until the clock runs out, she will continue to lick. She rarely speaks. She makes frequent eye contact with the camera. Thousands of viewers are spellbound, even as others on Twitter describe what she’s doing as “disturbing.” But really, it’s no different from Siragusa’s standard shtick. Well, not the licking part. That’s relatively new, an extension of Twitch’s ear-licking ASMR meta, in which streamers seek to imitate the intimacy of gently sucking on somebody’s ear. Is it intended to be sensual verging on sexual? Absolutely. Is it inherently sexual? Debatable, but so far, Twitch has not blanket banned it in accordance with its rules against “sexual content.”…
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