No one polarizes as much in Germany on Twitch right now as 25-year-old Pia Scholz alias Shurjoka. The streamer has faced heavy criticism for months. But what is really behind it, and why does it seem like there is no end in sight?
“I wish you all that is done to dogs in Asian countries.”
Such and similar comments can be found in abundance under the selfies and outfit checks of a young woman on Instagram. The woman is Pia “Shurjoka” Scholz, a Twitch streamer, political activist, and the center of an endless campaign of content on YouTube and social media that casts her in a negative light.
What started as a debate about the Harry Potter game Hogwarts Legacy has long since developed into a muddle of personal attacks, insults, and biased opinions about the streamer.
From Twitch Streamer to a “woke” enemy image
Where does the rejection come from? With her call to boycott Hogwarts Legacy, Shurjoka faced a lot of misunderstanding at the beginning of 2023. Many could not understand the criticism and found it exaggerated, not wanting to have their childhood memories belittled or a game banned.
The Twitch streamer described herself as “loud,” seemed convinced of her moral compass and the correctness of her views. This led to conflicts, but she also managed to attract a lot of attention to the subject. She wasn’t the only one speaking out against Hogwarts Legacy, but she was made the face of a leftist movement.
Some may forget that “Shurjoka” is not a concept, not an abstract enemy image, but a young woman who wanted to advocate for minorities and represent her ideals.
In hindsight, one could argue that it could have been handled better, that one could have acted more skillfully, bringing more people along instead of hitting them in the face with an aggressive tone.
Yet even months later, Shurjoka still faces ongoing criticism. In particular, the trio of content creators Tim “KuchenTV” Heldt, Marcel “MontanaBlack” Eris, and Theo “Scurrows” Bottländer have discovered how lucrative it is to repeatedly make the streamer the center of their content.
The content machine of reaction streamers
“I gladly take the clicks” – so says KuchenTV when it comes to dealing with Shurjoka. (via YouTube).
Every statement from Shurjoka is analyzed in a video, which other creators can then react to. Sometimes the reaction is also reacted to again. This creates an endless content loop about one and the same topic – one and the same person.
That three individuals, who have a multiple of Shurjoka’s reach and are often significantly older, are attacking a young woman seems neither questionable nor unfair to many.
The three content creators seem to feel justified because Shurjoka annoys them with her statements, because they cannot comprehend her views. Scurrows says: Shurjoka wanted to destroy his career. But she is the one who has been losing followers for months, while his career thrives.
According to the titles of KuchenTV’s videos, it is always others who are attacking him, spreading lies. He himself only exercises factual criticism. At the same time, he accuses Shurjoka of constantly putting herself in a victim role.
The actual motivation is also not hidden: Things are just going too well. KuchenTV boasts about how many views his videos suddenly get (via Twitter) and repays MontanaBlack by conspicuously placing his energy drink in the background of his videos.
MontanaBlack openly shows how much money he has already earned from his reactions to videos featuring Shurjoka. For him, these are the rates on the GLS, a Mercedes (via YouTube).
And Scurrows, who had long been known as a gambling streamer, can suddenly play along with the others again (via YouTube).
To give a sense of the reach: In 2023, Shurjoka had an average of 1,626 viewers on Twitch (via Twitchtracker). Alone, MontanaBlack had an impressive 25,183 average viewers (via Twitchtracker).
Shurjoka in a dilemma
Meanwhile, it seems that the streamer has hardly any options to break out of this vicious cycle. As she said in May, she cannot defend herself, as any reaction from her would only lead to more videos and reactions.
She has also had no success with ignoring, as she noticed someone spoke about her when she received a new wave of hate messages on her accounts.
The streamer then tried to take legal action, but that too does not seem to have developed to her advantage and led to further content on YouTube and social media.
By now, Shurjoka hardly speaks publicly about the topic any longer. She doesn’t even have to, because just mentioning her name is enough to unleash a new wave.
The moderator of a streamer with whom Shurjoka herself has not had much to do wrote in his chat, Gronkh is probably quite right-wing, the way he attacks Shurjoka. This resulted from a statement by Gronkh, one of Germany’s most famous YouTubers, that he felt unfairly treated after being criticized by Shurjoka.
The streamer herself had nothing to do with this accusation and even distanced herself (via Twitter). Nevertheless, on Twitter, the narrative of the “ridiculous Shurjoka bubble” was spread again, suggesting that everyone who has a different opinion is on the right.
She deactivated her Twitter account. Yet even days later, “Shurjoka” and “Gronkh” were trending on Twitter.
KuchenTV, MontanaBlack, and Scurrows also seem not yet ready to give up this “cash cow”: If there are no new contents from Shurjoka herself, an old video, an article about her, or a documentary from WDR is taken instead (via YouTube).
How Shurjoka is really dealing with the ongoing stream of negativity can only be speculated from the outside. In conversation with WDR, she said in May that she was sleeping poorly, placing her activism above her own mental health.
Currently, it seems she is at least holding back a bit. In her streams, she shows normality: There is a game of Baldur’s Gate 3, film recommendations are exchanged.
It remains to be seen whether this will finally bring about some peace. You can read how it all came to this point on the next page.
How did it come to this point? A chronological classification
On Twitch, Shurjoka became primarily known for the strategy game Crusader Kings 3. However, she also uses her platform to engage politically and advocates for the rights of women and queer people.
Although at this time she already belonged to the larger German streamers with more than 200,000 followers on Twitch, a broader audience only became aware of Shurjoka in early 2023 in the wake of the controversy surrounding the Harry Potter game Hogwarts Legacy.
Boycott of Hogwarts Legacy
Already in March 2022, Shurjoka called for a boycott of the game. With the upcoming release in February 2023, the debate around Hogwarts Legacy picked up steam again.
Shurjoka criticized the comments of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling regarding transgender people and accused her as well as the game’s creators of reproducing anti-Semitic stereotypes.
Many people, especially those who grew up with Harry Potter, did not want to let the joy of the game be taken away from them. To them, it came across as: Someone wants to ban a game for me; I am called transphobic because I want to play a game.
The Twitch streamer became for many the face of a leftist, “woke” movement that wanted to dictate what one could consume.
This narrative began to take on a life of its own when a clip from the Twitch streamer Erik “Gronkh” Range made the rounds on Twitter in early February. The 46-year-old had asked whether he should simply not care about J.K. Rowling.
The out-of-context statement was interpreted by some Twitter users as transphobia. One could apparently expect a clear statement against Hogwarts Legacy from a content creator with his reach.
On Twitter, there was a rain of criticism, but Gronkh’s supporters pushed back just as vehemently. A “culprit” was quickly found: Shurjoka or at least the “Shurjoka bubble” was trying to cancel Gronkh.
The Twitch streamer herself denied having anything to do with the shitstorm. She was on vacation and only learned about it on Twitter just like everyone else. She had nothing to do with the spread of the clip.
The stir over Hogwarts Legacy gradually subsided, but in many people’s minds, the image of the radical leftist Shurjoka remained, who wanted to ban their opinions and hobbies through violence.
Awarded “Player of the Year”
The atmosphere boiled over again when Shurjoka was awarded the German Computer Game Award as “Player of the Year” for her political engagement in connection with Hogwarts Legacy.
The opinion blogger Tim “KuchenTV” Heldt published several videos on YouTube arguing why, in his opinion, the streamer did not deserve the award. He had already released a six-hour reaction to her statements on Hogwarts Legacy in February, criticizing her alleged double standards.
He now said: She is toxic, would incite hatred, commit character assassination, allow no other opinions, and is also not a “real gamer.”
More background information can be found here:
Marcel “MontanaBlack” Eris reacted to these videos in his streams. He had previously clashed with KuchenTV, but with Shurjoka, the two seemed to agree so well that a new brotherly friendship blossomed.
This set off a vicious cycle: Shurjoka expressed herself in her streams, KuchenTV reacted in a stream and/or posted a video about it, and MontanaBlack then watched it with tens of thousands of viewers to add his two cents.
The Twitch streamer later stated that she always notices when a male influencer has said something about her because her personal accounts would suddenly be flooded with hate messages.
As Shurjoka noted in a stream, she cannot defend herself. Every comment, every statement from her led to new videos, new reactions, new hate comments.
However, simply doing her own thing didn’t stop the others from making content out of her. Maybe a complete withdrawal from the online world could have been an escape, but then there is the studio in Berlin and the employees who need to be paid. Shurjoka is a professional streamer, and their life depends on creating public content. This is her livelihood.
Accusations against Scurrows
However, Shurjoka did not want to let herself be defeated, she wanted to be loud, continue to advocate for her convictions. In this context, she also criticized Theo “Scurrows” Bottländer, a streamer known for roleplaying in GTA who later mainly showed gambling content.
When Twitch tightened its guidelines on gambling in October 2022, Scurrows and other “casino streamers” lost viewers and relevance.
However, Scurrows discovered a new niche for himself: Criticizing gender language and cancel culture. In a stream, Shurjoka spoke of “openly transphobic, queerphobic, and misogynistic” statements that would fill his Twitter feed.
She casually mentioned that accusations from various female influencers, including herself, were also being made against him. She hinted at allegations that Scurrows filmed her cleavage at Gamescom in 2017 and made inappropriate comments afterward.
The streamer primarily focused on the part about the harassment.
Scurrows claimed that these accusations could have endangered his entire career, while it seemed that no one had particularly taken notice of the statements until he brought them to the public.
The full allegations are not often recounted, instead, the focus is almost exclusively on the accusation of sexual harassment. (via YouTube) In a video, Scurrows wanted to prove his innocence by showing a clip of his stream from the meeting with Shurjoka at Gamescom 2017. (via YouTube)
There are various opinions on what the video actually shows. Because this video was also heavily discussed on social media.
The opinion was firmly established in the wider audience: It was said that you could see Shurjoka was a fan of Scurrows, that she had actively participated in his stream.
KuchenTV then released a video claiming that Shurjoka had destroyed her credibility. MontanaBlack reacted to that.
The content mills keep grinding.
Action and reaction
The 25-year-old positions herself publicly as a feminist, as an ally, as an activist who stands in front of marginalized groups like a shield, wanting to give them a voice, even to the point of self-neglect.
In doing so, she sometimes gets tangled, allowing herself to be carried away by thoughtless, emotional statements, and occasionally goes too far. Statements such as that KuchenTV’s videos could be embarrassing for his son (via YouTube) do not belong in such a dispute.
There are also contradictory statements from her. For example, she said she hadn’t spoken about KuchenTV for months. He reacted by showing timestamps of how often he had been part of her streams during these months (via YouTube).
But that shouldn’t distract from how disproportionate the response from the other side is. Her statements are unnecessarily inflated, taken out of context, and mocked.
Shurjoka continuously reports being subjected to massive threats of violence, especially sexualized violence. She faces constant hostility that goes beyond a political difference of opinion and extends into other areas of her life as well.
Shurjoka wanted to educate and play video games on the side, hold Pen & Paper sessions with her friends. In doing so, she clashed with her loud and sometimes aggressive opinions. What remains in the end:
“I wish you all that is done to dogs in Asian countries.”
How does that compare?
Update: August 19, 9:30 AM: The comments were temporarily closed overnight as we cannot ensure moderation here. We have now reopened the comments. We kindly ask you to remain respectful while commenting.
