The big German Twitch streamer Simon “Ungespielt” Wiefels criticized one of the currently trending content creators: Darren “IShowSpeed” Watkins Jr. With the criticism, Wiefels attracted a huge wave of hate.
Who are the streamers?
- Ungespielt, or simply Unge, is one of the largest German streamers on Twitch. An average of 6,000 people watch his broadcasts, and he has around 1.3 million followers.
- He gained fame through the block game Minecraft and his Let’s Plays about it. For years, he has pursued his format “ungeklickt”, where he reacts to various content from social media and shares his opinions on it.
- IShowSpeed is a 17-year-old American streamer on YouTube, who has nearly 10 million subscribers on the platform. The recordings of his broadcasts usually receive over 1 million views.
- Watkins is known for being particularly loud in his streams. He often acts hyper and screams. The community thinks he is playing a character.
- In a previous YouTube stream, IShowSpeed played Fall Guys and screamed in his dog’s ear. Unge criticized the action and labeled him as an animal abuser.
Unge labeled IShowSpeed as an animal abuser
What is the situation? On July 15th, YouTuber IShowSpeed was live, playing Fall Guys, while his dog sat on his lap. When the streamer got eliminated just before the finish line, he yelled at his dog, held him firmly, and shouted several times: “Ew, your butt stinks!” Then he set him down.
Unge criticized Watkins’ behavior and stated that it was pure stress for the animal and labeled him as an animal abuser.
You can see Unge’s tweet along with the clip of IShowSpeed here:
Unge after the criticism: “I’ve rarely received so many hate messages”
What happened afterwards? Not even 24 hours later, Wiefels reported again on Twitter. He wrote that he had rarely received so many hate messages and had to block people.
He further stated that he would not be intimidated just because a “person is currently trending and has many blinded fans.” He was concerned that many people defended IShowSpeed’s behavior.
What did the community say? Under Unge’s criticism tweet, two factions actually formed: those who agreed with Wiefels and those who thought he was overreacting:
- Baso wrote: “Simply animal cruelty to hold the dog so tightly and scream at that volume. This is the guy who went viral before with a Valorant clip, where he insulted a female teammate. Some people should go back to nature and touch grass…”
- Kmx, however, thinks: “Well, I’m not sure if this qualifies as animal cruelty right off the bat.”
- Also, wave simply thinks: “You can turn a molehill into a mountain. He was just a bit louder for a moment. Everyone has been too loud around an animal at some point. But here it’s about Speed, whom you don’t like, and you immediately have to label him publicly as an animal abuser.”
- Arri said: “That this is completely unacceptable, that doesn’t need to be debated. But the comments here, in part. That shows that this tweet was exactly right. Just to educate. But it’s sad that it takes this.”
In the past, IShowSpeed already came under criticism for putting one of his other dogs into a panic while he was on his lap (via YouTube). Even in the current Fall Guys clip, some viewers of Watkins wrote in the chat that it was animal cruelty.
Unge partially responded to the commenters and blocked some people. He also sees this as clear animal cruelty and continues to stand by that opinion.
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