Streamer Guy “Dr Disrespect” Beahm lost some advertising partners when it came to light a few months ago as to why he was banned from Twitch in 2020. However, one partner that he particularly cared about dropped him earlier, as he now reveals: The football team San Francisco 49ers let him go because he chuckled at the pronouns in the SF game Starfield .
Why did Dr Disrespect lose the advertising partner? In 2023, Dr Disrespect played the then-new SF game Starfield. During character creation, he was asked which pronouns he wanted to use. This makes it possible to play a character that may look male but prefers female pronouns. The inquiry about pronouns in Starfield was a big topic for some back then.
Dr Disrespect sighed audibly and chuckled at the inquiry about the pronouns.
Then he looked at Twitter at the bios of managers at Bethesda, the developers of Starfield, and saw that manager Pete Hines had listed his pronouns:
Dr Disrespect said: Now he understands why Bethesda didn’t want to work with him, despite him speaking so highly of Starfield.
But Bethesda, he suggested, is probably too politically correct to work with him. They had mentioned “previous controversies.” Thus, he did not even receive early access to Starfield (via X).
Football club immediately parts ways with Dr Disrespect
What consequences did this have? As Dr Disrespect announced in a stream on November 19, this interaction led to the football club San Francisco 49ers contacting him and terminating the partnership (via YouTube).
The collaboration of Dr Disrespect with the football team began in August 2022. Essentially, the partnership was based on the fact that Dr Disrespect was a huge fan of the team and was then involved in some promotional activities. In 2022 he was even allowed to announce the draft pick (via IGN).
In 2024, all of Dr Disrespect’s advertising partners were asked whether they still wanted to work with him after the details about the Twitch ban became known. The football team had stated at the time that they took the allegations seriously and would not work with Dr Disrespect.
But actually, at that time, according to Dr Disrespect, the collaboration had already ended a long time ago:
In the middle of last year, this is a true story. Do you remember the stream – what was the Bethesda game? Starfield? Do you remember when we created our character? We were presented with the pronouns line. And we didn’t really say much. We just looked at it. […]
That’s why we didn’t work with them for the rest of the year. And that’s why it makes sense for them to give a PR response to the bullsh*t from a few months ago.
However, Dr Disrespect says: He is still a fan of the team and wishes them only the best.
Pronouns: Politically charged little words
What it’s about: An inquiry about “pronouns” in video games is actually a trivial matter that most players overlook – just like the option to specify ear shape or eye color. However, pronouns become politically charged when they are specifically asked for or specified.
Anyone who lists pronouns in their Twitter bio signals: The issue of “transgender” is important to me. The idea behind it is that specifying pronouns is normalized, even if one is not transgender themselves.
In doing so, one positions oneself clearly on one side of the raging culture war in the USA. Dr Disrespect also positioned himself with his criticism of these pronouns and thus apparently became an unacceptable advertising partner for the football team.
What an incredibly sensitive topic pronouns can be in the USA when the country is as divided as it has been in recent years had to be realized by a 17-year-old who just wanted to play Pokémon: 17-year-old flies 4 hours to Pokémon tournament – Gets disqualified for laughing when asked about pronouns
