Streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins still has the most followers on Twitch. But he misses the good old days when Twitch was more about playing and less about talking. He criticizes the developments over the past few years since May 2020, especially the amount of drama and cancel culture.
Who is Ninja?
- Tyler “Ninja” Blevins (33) was a typical shooter streamer on Twitch for a long time: Talented and extremely ambitious, but hot-tempered, he would curse vulgarity at anyone who dared to defeat him in a shooter. He played games like Halo, PUBG, or H1Z1.
- In 2017, he discovered Fortnite: Battle Royale. At that time, the main game, a kind of shooter-Minecraft, had just failed, and the developers of Unreal Tournament had created a blatant PUBG copy. Ninja dove into the game. As a talented shooter player, he was able to rampage in matches with 99 randomly selected players and dominate the early days of the shooter.
- A fairy-tale rise on Twitch began, lasting until 2019. Ninja stopped cursing, became rich, famous, a bit egotistical. To this day, Ninja still has the most followers on Twitch from that time: No one has yet come close to his 19 million – though it seems likely that Spanish Ibai will overtake him in the foreseeable future.
Ninja criticizes cancel culture on Twitch
This is what Ninja says now: Ninja laments the current state of streaming on Twitch in a stream:
- Some people are only focused on trying to cancel others or cause them trouble – as seen recently in the popular sketch. Every day, someone is either canceled or at least an attempt is made
- Ninja says streaming has become so stupid. He is so fed up with it. Someone does something suspicious, and a million people jump in to express their opinions that no one asked for
- People say things like “Win here” – “Loss there” – “I can’t support this”. He’s had enough of it all.
What does Ninja long for? Ninja wishes for a Twitch like in 2016, when everything revolved around video games.
He misses the days of PUBG; when clips were shared, people laughed and tagged each other.
Nowadays, millions of “drama channels” have taken over Twitch, pushing out the era of funny clips, and it’s getting worse.
“I’m too old for this shit”
What’s next? Ninja becomes a bit melancholic and says, “Maybe I’m getting too old for this shit.” He’s been doing this for 13, 14 years now.
He reminisces about the “good old days” when he was still streaming from his parents’ basement and becomes thoughtful when he sees young streamers starting their careers on Twitch with a $5 webcam from their parents’ basement.
He concludes with: “I don’t know how much longer I will do this – maybe 5 years, maybe just one more year.”
Twitch tilted away from gaming in May 2020 with Covid
What’s behind it: Many streamers who grew up with gaming realized they could earn more money and reach even more viewers by simply watching and reacting to other videos or content.
In Germany, MontanaBlack rose to fame with shooters like Call of Duty or Fortnite, later switched to gambling, and largely became a reaction streamer, watching other people’s videos while eating, or when necessary, even playing a SpiegelTV documentary:
- In 2018, MontanaBlack streamed 618 hours of Fortnite, 166 hours of CoD: Black Ops 4, and 39 hours of Just Chatting
- In 2020, he streamed 333 hours of Just Chatting and 284 hours of CoD: Warzone, 78 hours of Fortnite, and 62 hours of FIFA
- In 2022, he streamed 381 hours of Just Chatting, 97 hours of GTG 5, 96 hours of FIFA 23, and 64 hours of Fortnite
- In the last 365 days, MontanaBlack streamed 260 hours of Just Chatting, 100 hours of IRL, 87 hours of Special Events, and 72 hours of CS:GO (before he mainly focused on gambling and opening boxes)
MontanaBlack illustrates well the evolution from gaming to reacting and interacting with the chat in the last 4 to 6 years. Although lately, he has been going outside more, as he no longer feels so secure inside, and prefers to stream from “outside”.
The trend that “Just Chatting” became the dominant category on Twitch began in May 2020 with the Covid pandemic. At that time, there was a lot of complaining about “Hot Tub” streamers: women who bypassed Twitch’s dress code by placing a bathtub in their living room and streaming in a bikini.
Since at least the “Johnny Depp/Amber Heard” trial in 2022, quite a bit has shifted, and many male streamers, who grew up with gaming, have moved away from gaming and switched to reactions and drama. Here in Germany, where we imitate trends from the USA, the meta has long been established.
The “canceling” that Ninja laments has been even more pronounced here in the past weeks compared to the USA. What happened to DrDisrespect and the sketch, which turned out relatively mildly, has hit two well-known influencers in our country hard: How 2.50 € plunged the German Twitch into chaos and led to the career end of two influencers
