In the online shooter Fortnite , 17-year-old Cody “Clix” Conrod was the biggest streamer on Twitch in 2022. However, he missed the mark three times last month, says our MeinMMO author Schuhmann. With the actions that Clix is currently drawing attention for, our author really wishes Tfue and Ninja would come back.
What was the problem with Ninja back in the day? The streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins was the biggest Fortnite streamer on Twitch at the height of Fortnite in 2018 and overall the biggest streamer in the world:
- Ninja was extremely ambitious and swore like a sailor. When he lost, it was generally because others had cheated or the world conspired against him. Words like “Fuck” were used by Ninja like punctuation.
- However, when he and Fortnite were successful and many kids were watching him, Blevins had to hold back and put on a facade. Many of his old fans found the “new Ninja” to be “inauthentic,” even though it was still clear that he was struggling when he lost.
- His omnipresence in the media and immense ambition were somewhat annoying. Ninja occasionally fell victim to delusions of grandeur and compared himself to “David Beckham”. He also stated that professional athletes have an incredibly easy job compared to his. The unforgettable moment remains when he thought he could get the entire Time Square in New York to perform a silly Fortnite dance.
Aside from his ambition, delusions of grandeur, and an unwavering desire to ride the Fortnite hype as hard as he could, one could hardly accuse Ninja of anything else.
He was certainly capable of self-irony and behaved correctly most of the time, unless he was completely high on Red Bull and lost in the moment.
How did Ninja’s reign end? Ninja discovered Fortnite early on when hardly anyone knew the game and even fewer had mastered it: He dominated many “normal players” and looked great when he took out 8 opponents at once. During this time, his channel grew to enormous proportions, and he is still the biggest Twitch streamer in terms of followers today.
But as it became about big money in Fortnite starting in 2019 and more young talents entered the game, Ninja’s star fell and younger players, who trained harder, like Tfue, overtook him.
Ninja then seized the opportunity to switch to Mixer for an insane sum and Twitch needed a new “star” in Fortnite.
Tfue looked like the clear successor to Ninja – But Clix surpassed him
Who became his successor?? There were several candidates for who would be the natural successor of Ninja as the “King of Fortnite” starting in 2020.
For a long time, it seemed that Turner “Tfue” Tenney (24), a younger and better player than Ninja (31), who competed with him in 2019 and quickly climbed into the tens of millions of followers.
In 2020, Tfue was also the biggest Fortnite streamer in the world. However, without Ninja as a rival, Tfue eventually dropped out, got muscular, and played Minecraft. Tfue seemed to never really be interested in the “business side” of Twitch, sued his own organization, and preferred to live away from the action with his father at the beach in Florida.
Another candidate for Ninja’s succession was Fortnite World Champion Bugha, but he somehow lacked charisma.
Myth, who competed with Ninja in 2017, has plenty of charisma, but he lacked the skill in Fortnite. He realized early on that Fortnite simply wasn’t his game.
Other young streamers like Benjifishy, who was taken out of school by his mom, or Mongraal, a boy with real anger issues, also didn’t make the jump to the top.
Clix has been a huge Fortnite streamer since 2020, the biggest in the world last year
Ultimately, Clix prevailed, who was only 14 years old in 2020. Clix was someone who succeeded at the World Cup, meaning he could play Fortnite really well, but he was also someone who could shine on camera at Twitch:
- Looking at the last year, the last 365 days, Clix was by far the world’s biggest Fortnite streamer on Twitch
- In the calendar year 2021, he was at least the biggest English-speaking Twitch streamer for Fortnite
- Even in 2020, at age 14, he was only narrowly behind Tfue.
At 16, Clix got into trouble with Fortnite and Twitch, was almost out
What stood out about Clix? Even at 14, Clix was a name in Fortnite, as he placed 18th in the Fortnite World Cup and earned around $112,500. From the prize money, he treated himself to a beefy Alienware PC with all the bells and whistles.
When he then launched as a Twitch streamer, it became clear that Clix would do anything for success and still seemed very immature, which one cannot blame him for at 16. Nevertheless, he had a huge audience and quickly found himself consistently in trouble with the authorities in his life:
- He managed to get permanently banned from Twitch in February 2021 because he accidentally showed pornographic images – but the outcry from fans was so great that Twitch lifted the ban.
- He clashed multiple times with Fortnite developer Epic: because Clix made money bets in Fortnite, and Epic didn’t like that.
- Epic even banned Clix’s money code in Fortnite because he told a really bad joke on Twitter.
So by 2021, Clix had already proven that he – unlike Ninja – had real issues staying relatively clean.
From all these problems, he always managed to get out again with the same tactic:
- He portrayed himself as an innocent victim
- referred to his young age and swore to take everything more seriously and improve
- additionally, he used his massive reach to put pressure on fans so that he could ultimately continue to stream on Twitch and play Fortnite.
Clix makes big mistakes 3 times in 31 days
What is now Clix’s problem? The older Clix gets, the more difficult his decisions seem. Clix has now managed to get himself into hot water three times in 31 days.
That was the matter with Andrew Tate: On July 24, Clix got photographed on Twitter with Andrew Tate and the phrase “Bros before hoes”. The viewers were apparently supposed to witness live how Clix, with the help of “macho Tate,” becomes a real man.
He staged a talk with the extremely controversial Tate, in which Clix planned to lose his innocence. For that, he wanted to get tips from the kickboxer Tate, who clearly has experience in such matters as a “real man.”
Clix assembled Tate, a friend of the same age, and his flame, a young blonde woman, for a virtual conversation that was broadcast on Twitch.
The discussion did not go very well. Tate, after all, offered to take the young woman himself once she turns 18 if Clix wasn’t able to.
A young woman, whom Clix supposedly had a crush on, sat in during the talk and smiled nicely – her role didn’t grow any larger.
In the days that followed, drama ensued on Twitter over the young woman, who supposedly cheated on him and from whom he broke up or somehow not. For Clix, the supposed love affair quickly turned into a soap opera that he staged for the fans.
Tate, who was already controversial a month ago, is now a complete “persona non grata” who has been banned from all social platforms. Clix apparently used the interim popularity of Tate to create “personal relationship content” for his followers.
Clix plays a promotional tournament in problematic Saudi Arabia
That was the matter with Saudi Arabia: Shortly thereafter, on July 25, Clix posted a tweet showing him hanging out in a hotel pool in Saudi Arabia. There he took the opportunity to participate in a highly lucrative show tournament: Fortnite was played for $2 million.
This event was critically regarded beforehand:
- Epic emphasized that they are not hosting this tournament and have nothing to do with it.
- Other Twitch streamers consciously withdrew from the event because they did not want to contribute to improving the PR of an unjust state like Saudi Arabia.
- The event was suspected of being a propaganda event to recommend Saudi Arabia as a cool travel destination and the Mecca of e-sports to a young generation.
Even Twitch streamer Mizkif, who is considered quite shameless, withdrew his participation from the event when he realized what kind of country Saudi Arabia is and what was behind this apparently harmless invitation.
For Clix, this apparently wasn’t an issue at all.
He proudly showed off a freshly painted BMW M5 afterwards. He called the trip to Saudi Arabia “fantastic.”
Clix is now somehow involved in racism in rap, quickly deletes everything
This is the latest incident: Now, on August 23, Clix somehow managed to get involved in an incident regarding racism in rap, although he himself did not rap (via nyt). However, Clix promoted the song “Florida Water” by FN Meka and Gunna so much that he positioned himself as one of the artists behind the song.
The Fortnite professional had managed to present himself as the maker of the song even though he has no lines in the song’s video (via youtube).
The song is problematic because the character “FN Meka” is a virtually black rapper who addresses issues like police brutality in his lyrics and also uses the N-word. A group of black activists in the music industry, Industry Blackout, stated that this character is a caricature and a direct insult to Black people, a mix of disgusting stereotypes. They demanded that the label distribute the profits from the project to charitable causes and to black artists on their label.
The label distanced itself afterward from the rapper (via kotaku):
We offer our deepest apologies to the Black community for our insensitivity in committing to this project without first asking questions regarding the capital involvement and the creative process behind it.
They accused the company behind the rapper of “digital blackfacing.” The comments on YouTube for the song are, in any case, terrible.
For Fortnite, this is also problematic because the game has been accused for years of making money from the works of black artists without involving them in the profits.
The scandal seemed to even reach Clix himself. He has since deleted all indications on his social media channels that he promoted the song and was involved.
Clix’s management told Kotaku: Clix had chosen the track, meaning he had acquired the rights to it, while Gunna was already rapping the song. However, the label Capital Records insisted on involving the virtual rapper FN Meka. That was not the decision Twix wanted.
The most surprising part of the story seems to be that Clix actually has a manager who thought that the situations with Andrew Tate and Saudi Arabia were good ideas beforehand.
With all that one can accuse Ninja of, he had a sensible manager by his side, who always had the “long-term impact” of his brand in mind.
Tfue always seemed to be completely indifferent to such considerations.
Tfue is back – Maybe he’ll take up his legacy
Is there hope? Yes, indeed. If one looks at the last 30 days to see who had the most watched hours on Twitch for Fortnite, one can see that Clix ranks only 5th worldwide. The 17-year-old apparently has so much going on that he hardly finds time to stream Fortnite on Twitch.
In front of him, in 4th place worldwide, is actually Ninja. In 1st place in the last 30 days is Tfue.
When looking at the last 90 days, Tfue is even significantly ahead of Clix in 1st place worldwide.
Perhaps there is still a chance that Tfue will take over the legacy that Ninja left behind in 2020. I never thought I would look forward to the day when Tfue is back and the biggest Fortnite streamer in the world.
Tfue defeats 3 of the best Fortnite players in the world solo – then freaks out.
