Ice Poseidon

Paul Denino (born September 29, 1994),[1] also known by his online pseudonym Ice Poseidon, is an American internet personality and live streamer, primarily of the video game RuneScape and the IRL genre. His peak prominence was in 2017 when his IRL streams became popular. He is best known for his IRL streams, which he describes as "life streaming". Rolling Stone named Denino as a "pioneer 'life streamer'".[2]

Ice Poseidon
Denino in 2019
Personal information
BornPaul Denino
(1994-09-29) September 29, 1994
Palm Beach, Florida, U.S.
OccupationStreamer
Websiteiceposeidon.com
YouTube information
Also known asIce_Poseidon
Years active2015–present
Genre
IRL, comedy, gaming
Subscribers742,000
Total views78,110,330
100,000 subscribers 2017
1,000,000 subscribers
10,000,000 subscribers

Initially a streamer on Twitch, Denino was publicly banned from the platform for being swatted off an airplane at Phoenix airport after a viewer called in a bomb threat under Denino's name.[3] Following several years of streaming on YouTube, Denino moved to Mixer,[4] only for the streaming platform to shut down[5] the following July.

Streaming career

Twitch

Denino was a partnered streamer on Twitch.[6] He rose to prominence for his RuneScape streams in 2015 playing under the pseudonym "Ice Poseidon" which he created using a random-name generator when he was twelve years old.[7][8] He moved into streaming IRL, beginning by streaming himself playing Pokémon Go.[2] He was banned multiple times on Twitch. In late December 2016, Twitch announced the launch of the IRL section, allowing Denino to stream without the involvement of gaming for the first time. Denino was banned during the section's launch day because he revealed a phone number on stream. This was his third ban on the platform, this time resulting in a 45-day ban. During the ban, Denino decided to move to California to pursue his Twitch career full-time. He frequently traveled around the country IRL streaming, averaging ten to thirty thousand concurrent viewers.

Suspension from Twitch

Denino was banned from Twitch on April 28, 2017, after being swatted on American Airlines Flight 458 in Phoenix, where police officers removed Denino and another person. The incident made national news across the US[9] as a hoax bomb threat had been called in by one of Denino's viewers under his name.[10][11][12] While this was not the first time he had been swatted during a livestream it was the first on Twitch to lead to a permanent suspension.[13][14]

The decision to ban Ice Poseidon from Twitch sparked controversy with some believing his ban was unjustified, including Denino himself.[3] Some members of the community demanded that Twitch undo the ban citing complaints that the Twitch terms of service were too vague and with Denino stating "when you look at the [terms of service], there was no rules saying that you shouldn't leak your location".[15]

YouTube

Following his ban from Twitch in spring-2017, Denino went to YouTube, taking most of his fans (the "Purple Army") with him, a rarity for streamers.[2]

Denino's fan base are controversial with some describing the community as ‘toxic’ due to their frequent use of racial and sexual slurs, and harassment.[16] His community is largely based around his large Discord community and his Reddit subreddit /r/Ice_Poseidon which was initially placed under "quarantine" by Reddit, and subsequently banned in October 2019 along with its community-run sister Subreddit /r/Ice_Poseidon2.[2][17][18] Denino admits that it is nearly impossible to hide anything from the "Purple Army".[7]

Denino quickly became one of the most popular livestreamers in the world focusing primarily on the IRL genre using a mobile broadcasting rig of his own design.[2] His streams are known for their 'edgy' humor and interaction with viewers through text-to-speech and viewers meeting him in public by determining his location, a process known as 'stream sniping'.[3] Denino's openness about his life has led to multiple incidents in public due to viewers calling and harassing nearby store owners by making baseless threats and warning that Denino is a risk in order to provoke violence or have police called on Denino.[19]

During Denino's trip to Europe, he visited Zurich, Switzerland, and was featured in a tabloid magazine that discussed him being evicted out of multiple hotels for harassment and disobeying filming laws of the country.[20][21]

His continual swatting provoked a debate within the streamer community on whether such content should no longer be publicized due to the media contagion effect which may encourage more people to swat him and as a result many Twitch/streamer communities banned the posting of swatting clips.[22]

On the morning of March 21, 2019, Denino's residence in Los Angeles, was raided by the FBI, all electronics in the house belonging to Denino and the people living with him were seized.[23] Cx Network subsequently folded in March 2019.[24]

Mixer

On August 1, 2019, Denino started streaming on Microsoft's streaming-platform, Mixer.[25] He stated that he was trying out Mixer in comparison to YouTube and that Mixer's community and active staff-support made the community much more welcoming than YouTube.[26] Another reason given for the platform switch is "Youtube has only downgraded their streaming discoverability over the years which sucks for the streamers."[27] On the week of 01/20/20 to 1/24/20, Denino hosted Mixer's first 5-day long game show called Scuffed Brother featuring other Mixer streamers and partners. The reality event modeled CBS' Big Brother where contestants are locked in a house and compete for money. The event was a success, with the 5 days racking up 500,000,000 sparks from viewer voting and 350,000 views.[28] As of June 12, 2020, Ice Poseidon has 39,995 followers and 2,225,145 total views.[29]

On June 22, 2020, Mixer announced it was shutting down and partnering with Facebook Gaming.[30]

Esports

NRG

From September 2016 Denino was affiliated with the eSports organization NRG Esports as part of their RuneScape roster and as a content creator.[31] The sponsorship provided management services through team NRG's Brent Kaskel.[7] In June 2019, Denino announced he was no longer working with Kaskel after allegations of sexual abuse were made against Kaskel.[32][33] Denino earned about US$60,000 dollars per month through various sponsorships.[34]

Awards and nominations
Year Award Show Category Result Ref
2016Golden Gnome AwardsBest OSRS streamerNominated[35]
2017Esports Industry AwardsStreamer of the yearNominated[36]

References
  1. Ice_Poseidon [@REALIcePoseidon] (September 29, 2019). "Just landed in prague. We'll have a birthday stream today when i drop off stuff at hotel. Im 25 now so im starting to get up there i better start to settle down and pull out my non existent 401k lol. And what i want for my bday? To go to mars homie" (Tweet). Retrieved February 9, 2020 – via Twitter.
  2. "On Air With LA's Most Wanted Man, 'Life Streamer' Ice Poseidon". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 2018-07-01. Retrieved 2018-02-27.
  3. "For Twitch Streamer Who Got Swatted On A Plane, Notoriety Is A Double-Edged Sword". Kotaku. Retrieved 2018-01-31.
  4. Ice_Poseidon (2020-01-20). "SCUFFED BROTHER LIVE FIRST MIXER EVENT for 5 days straight". @REALIcePoseidon. Retrieved 2020-05-01.
  5. "Microsoft to shut down streaming service Mixer, will shift to Facebook Gaming". USA Today. Retrieved 2020-06-27.
  6. Kaser, Rachel (2017-05-01). "Twitch bans streamer targeted by malicious airport prank". The Next Web. Retrieved 2017-05-04.
  7. Chen, Adrian (2018-07-09). "Ice Poseidon's Lucrative, Stressful Life as a Live Streamer". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2018-07-02.
  8. Hernandez, Ivan (2018-03-11). "Live Streaming — The New Online Streaming Niche Still Has Its Fair Share of Problems". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2018-08-25.
  9. Erickson, Jon (2017-04-28). "Internet personality says he was target of prank threat at Sky Harbor". KNXV. Retrieved 2017-05-04.
  10. "Twitch Banned the Streamer Who Got Swatted Off a Plane". Motherboard - Vice. May 2017. Retrieved 2017-05-04.
  11. "Police Draw Guns On YouTube Star During Possible Internet Prank". CBSLA. 2017-06-02. Retrieved 2018-01-31.
  12. "ICE_Poseidon Permanently Banned from Twitch After Being Swatted on a Plane". Dexerto. Archived from the original on 7 October 2017. Retrieved 2018-06-13.
  13. "Ice Poseidon Banned From Twitch: What Happened?". International Business Times. Newsweek Media Group. 2017-04-30. Retrieved 2018-05-16.
  14. "IRL STREAMING: SPONTANEOUS ENTERTAINMENT FOR AN AUDIENCE THAT'S ALWAYS LIVE". Newsweek. 2017-10-28. Retrieved 2018-05-16.
  15. "Twitch's contentious IRL section sparked the platform's biggest debate in 2017". Polygon. 2018-01-03. Retrieved 2018-05-16.
  16. "Ice Poseidon Stream Numbers Drop As Community Flees". Player One. Newsweek Media Group. Retrieved 2018-05-16.
  17. Sommer, Will (2018-09-28). "Reddit 'Quarantines' White Nationalist Subreddits". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 2019-05-03.
  18. D, Billy (2019-10-01). "REDDIT UPDATES HARASSMENT POLICY, BANS DOZENS OF SUB-REDDITS". One Angry Gamer. Retrieved 2019-10-08.
  19. Naquin, Ryan (2017-04-25). "Livestream ends violently inside N.O. restaurant, owner blames trolls". FOX 8. Retrieved 2018-05-17.
  20. "Youtube-Star fliegt aus zwei Zürcher Hotels" (in German). 2018-10-17.
  21. "Youtube star annoys Zurich hotels".
  22. Alexander, Julia (2018-03-09). "Major Twitch subreddit debates whether swatting posts should be allowed". Polygon. Retrieved 2018-05-17.
  23. "Ice Poseidon Raided by FBI". 2019-03-21.
  24. "Why Ice Poseidon's CX Network is shutting down".
  25. "Mixer | Interactive Livestreaming". mixer.com. Retrieved 2019-08-12.
  26. Ice_Poseidon (2019-08-03). "the streamers on this site have been extremely nice and welcoming and thats really nice to see, instead of drama nonsense. its made me feel so happy to not be shunned". @REALIcePoseidon. Retrieved 2019-08-12.
  27. Ice_Poseidon (2019-08-01). "Might give @WatchMixer a try for chill or gaming streams and keep irl on youtube. I'm down to see where it goes with that because youtube has only downgraded their streaming discoverability over the years which sucks for the streamers unless u play fortnite exclusively. Opinions?". @REALIcePoseidon. Retrieved 2019-08-12.
  28. "https://twitter.com/realiceposeidon/status/1221192681138937857". Twitter. Retrieved 2020-06-12. External link in |title= (help)
  29. "Mixer | Interactive Livestreaming". mixer.com. Retrieved 2020-05-01.
  30. "Mixer | Interactive Livestreaming".
  31. "ICE_POSEIDON Hits Out at NRG Founder Andy Miller for Leaking DM Conversation". Dexerto. 2018-04-20. Archived from the original on 17 September 2018. Retrieved 2018-06-13.
  32. "ICE_POSEIDON's manager accused of sexually abusing his own 14-year-old daughter". Dexerto. Archived from the original on 2019-06-08. Retrieved 2019-06-08.
  33. @RealIcePoseidon (2019-06-08). "Just a reminder, after moving out of la I have no affiliation with MOST of the people I've streamed with in la anymore and I'm also NOT affiliated with SSJ anymore, nor do I have a manager. I dont condone anything that my old affiliates may or may not do" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  34. Grandi, Annalisa (2018-07-11). "Ice Poseidon, vita da live streamer: così guadagno 60 mila dollari al mese". Corriere della Sera (in Italian). Retrieved 2018-07-22.
  35. "Golden Gnome Poll". RuneScape. 30 August 2016. Retrieved 9 May 2018.
  36. "Esports Industry Awards 2017 – Nominees, Stream, Results from 1400/1900 EST/GMT". Dexerto. 13 November 2017. Archived from the original on 15 December 2018. Retrieved 9 May 2018.
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