The German Twitch streamer Erik “Gronkh” Range received a lot of support from the community in his first livestream after the “shitstorm” surrounding Hogwarts Legacy. During a stream on Friday, February 3, over 9,000 subscriptions came in for him.
Why was the stream special?
- Last week, a Twitch clip featuring Gronkh went viral on Twitter, where he said: J.K. Rowling didn’t matter to him. He asked: Am I a bad person if I don’t care about J.K. Rowling?
- For that statement, he was called “transphobic” by some people on Twitter, but the vast majority defended him and said he was open-minded, also advocating for trans people with Friendly Fire and was overall a good person.
- In the stream, Gronkh first spoke about the shitstorm and said: His statement was taken out of context and he had expressed himself poorly. He definitely didn’t mean that trans people didn’t matter to him. He should have said he thought J.K. Rowling was “crap.”
The community showers Gronkh with love and subscriptions on Twitch
How did the community react? Gronkh appeared somewhat shaken at the beginning of the stream and explained that he had hardly slept during the nights. At one point in the stream, when he wanted to open a tab, the streamer confessed that his hands were shaking.
The community showered the streamer with heart emotes and approval, but also with donations.
How much money did Gronkh receive from Twitch subs? According to statistics from the Twitch Tracker, Gronkh received 9,304 subscriptions alone in this stream, of which 6,641 were gifted subs.
For simplicity’s sake, if we assume that all these subs were Tier-1 subs, people donated €31,122.96. Depending on the contract with Twitch, Gronkh receives 50-70% of the revenue, the rest goes to Twitch.
Since Gronkh had already reached a peak of 18,347 active subs in January, which is the highest in the last 5 years (Twitch Tracker doesn’t keep data longer); he has now reached a new peak of 27,637 active subs on Twitch Tracker. This means he is after EliasN97 (38,000 subs) the German Twitch streamer with the most active subs.
Twitch had lowered subscription prices in Germany in 2021 from €5 to €4; also, the percentage that streamers can max receive will be capped at 50% in June 2023:
“I didn’t want to do this for so long today”
How did Gronkh react to this flood of subscriptions? He was visibly moved, but the subscriptions also threw him off balance. At one point, he was interrupted by a first flood of subscriptions during his statement.
However, most subscriptions came in after his statement, when he actually wanted to show “Land of the Vikings” – a calm game to wind down after all the excitement.
The problem for Gronkh: The many subscriptions repeatedly interrupted his stream. Because with 50 and 100 gifted subscriptions, OBS triggered two different effects.
Gronkh sat in silence in front of the camera while the effects rolled in.
Especially the Twitch streamer Tanzverbot repeatedly made high donations to enter the list of top donors.
At one point, Gronkh said: “I didn’t want to do this for so long today,” and at another, “I should have shitstorms more often.”
With 44,360 viewers peaking, it was also the most-watched stream for Gronkh in 2 years. The peak came only after his statement during the flood of subscriptions.
Gronkh felt the love of his community in the stream that seemed so difficult for him.
More about Gronkh’s stream:
