A French streamer, Raphael Graven, also known as Jean Pormanove, died in his sleep during a 10-day livestream marathon in his apartment in Contes, north of Nice, on Monday. He was 46 years old.
Graven was part of a specific type of ‘abuse content’ found on Kick, a streaming platform similar to Twitch but with fewer regulations.
Nice Police were called to his residence after his Kick livestream was suddenly ended by other participants in the stream. Videos posted on social media showed that Graven died while lying down.
Prosecutors are now investigating the cause of his death and have ordered an autopsy. His exact cause of death is unknown. Police in Nice had also been probing alleged deliberate violent acts against vulnerable people that were posted on the internet.
Who was Jean Pormanove?
The online streamer had over a million followers across various social media platforms and had a large community on the platform Kick.
Media reports in the south of France say that Graven died after being mistreated on a livestream for ‘ten days and nights’. The livestream had been running for more than 298 hours.
Reports say that he was found dead in his bed after he faced ‘ten days of torture, sleep deprivation, and ingestion of toxic products. Graven was usually the butt of the joke in the extreme livestreams.
In the video, Graven and the others lie on mattresses. When the other streamers started to wake up, they realised he was not responding, after which they cut off the livestream.
One of his co-creators, ‘Naruto,’ announced the streamer’s death on Instagram and asked people not to share clips from the stream that showed him dead or unconscious.
It is alleged that before Graven died, he was subject to ‘extreme violence’ in the stream, which was taken down immediately. His content involved him being subject to humiliating acts. His older content showed him being slapped, spat on, strangled, and having objects thrown at him.
Reports say that Jean left a message for his mother a few days before his death. He said that he felt like he was ‘being held hostage’ and that he was ‘fed up’ with the streaming. He had been streaming similar ‘humiliation livestreams’ for a period of four years.
Clara Chappaz, France’s minister for digital affairs and artificial intelligence, called the streamers’ death ‘an absolute horror.’
The streaming platform Kick is now ‘urgently reviewing’ its own community guidelines. A spokesperson for the platform told the BBC that it was “committed to upholding these standards across our platform.”
According to the platforms terms of service, it prohibits streamers from featuring content containing self-harm or excessive violence and illegal content, or content in furtherance of harmful or illegal activities.
Rapper Drake and popular American streamer Adin Ross, who both serve as ambassadors for Kick, have said that they will cover the costs of Graven’s funeral.
‘Torture, sleep deprivation, ingestion of toxic products’: What French Kick streamer Jean Pormanove went through before death on livestream
