Jean Pormanove, real name Raphaël Graven died on August 18, 2025, in front of an audience. He was a 46 years old French livestreamer known for extreme “challenges.” His content drew more than a million followers on Kick, the streaming platform marketed as being edgier than Twitch.
The Stream That Ended in Death
His final marathon stream ran nearly 280 hours. Viewers saw him beaten, humiliated, and deprived of sleep. In one clip, he lay motionless as someone threw a bottle at him. One donor alerted one of the co-streamers Owen “Naruto” Cenazandotti that Pormanove wasn’t showing any signs of life. The stream ended immediately and news of Pormanove’s death slowly spread across the internet.
French authorities have opened a judicial investigation. Clara Chappaz, France’s digital affairs minister, called it “absolute horror,” saying Pormanove had endured “months of humiliation and mistreatment” on Kick. Several associates are now under investigation for violence, endangerment, and broadcasting violent images.
A Culture of Humiliation
Pormanove’s story isn’t about one man or one platform. It’s about a culture that has normalized watching people suffer for entertainment.
We’ve been training ourselves for decades. The Real World taught us to binge on drunken fights and breakdowns. The Challenge sold us gladiator-style competitions where injuries became ratings. The Swan literally tore women apart with plastic surgery, then paraded their “transformations” for an audience vote. Naked and Afraid made a spectacle of people struggling to survive in the wilderness, while wearing nothing but their birthday suits. Then there’s Japan’s infamous reality show The Contestant. It revolved around a man being locked alone in a room for over a year, stripped of clothes and surviving only on prizes he won from magazine sweepstakes. All while millions of viewers laughed at his isolation.
Each show pushed the envelope a little further. Softening our shock, normalizing the idea that watching people degrade themselves (or be degraded by others) is entertainment.
Viewers keep showing up for struggle, humiliation, and pain. Pormanove’s audience wasn’t watching despite his suffering. They were watching because of it.
Why We Watch
Strip away the shock, and this is about us, the viewers. Why are millions drawn to livestreams of pain?
Part of the answer lies in voyeurism. Livestreaming amplifies what reality TV started: making human breakdown into spectacle. Platforms like Kick offers the raw and the unfiltered, where there are no producers to yell “cut.”
The other part is darker: audience complicity. People kept tuning in, donating, commenting, sharing. Each view validated the abuse. Each cheer or tip blurred the line between performance and torture.
It’s a Black Mirror episode playing out in real life and it ended with a real man dead.
Kick and the Economics of Pain
Kick, launched in Australia in 2022, has built its brand around being the “anti-Twitch.” The platform has fewer rules, bigger creator payouts, and a reputation for letting edgier content slide. That freedom is also its flaw. The lax moderation created space where abuse became a form of content that drew clicks, tips, and attention.
Pormanove was trapped in that system. Reports say he messaged his mother before his death, saying he felt “kidnapped” and wanted out of a “death game.”
Kick has since banned the co-streamers involved and promised to review its French operations. The underlying truth is harder to face: the platform didn’t just host this content, it rewarded it.
Where Do We Draw the Line?
Jean Pormanove’s death isn’t just a tragedy. It’s a mirror held up to us. A man was humiliated, beaten, deprived of sleep, and left to die on camera because platforms allowed it and audiences wanted to see it.
French authorities will decide who faces charges. Kick may tighten its rules but the bigger reckoning is cultural. How much suffering are we willing to accept as “content”?
Because if Pormanove’s story tells us anything, it’s that the line between “entertainment” and “abuse” has already been crossed. The next question is whether we’ll keep watching.
