For 8 years, there has been a unique phenomenon on German-speaking YouTube: the YouTuber Rainer “Drachenlord” Winkler (33) and the hate directed at him. A group of people known as “haters” want to take down the YouTuber, seeing it as a game, a “dragon game”, to harass and pressure the man until he loses control. Now they cheer: The Drachenlord is “defeated,” as YouTube has deleted his channels, but Winkler sees it differently. Meanwhile, there are alternative platforms to YouTube like TikTok.
What is this strange phenomenon?
- Rainer “Drachenlord” Winkler talked about many different topics at the beginning of his career. He did so with a strong accent, often hurtful and thoughtless. A group of people started openly mocking him online and expressing outrage.
- For years, a battle has developed between the Drachenlord and his “haters.” People drove to his home and harassed him in person. It led to conflicts, lawsuits, and court rulings. The haters see Drachenlord as a bad person. Some wish him prison, others even death. They themselves are criticized for having lost all sense of measure.
- The case of “Drachenlord” is no longer a small YouTube phenomenon. Experts see it as a phenomenon of our internet age. Sascha Lobo addressed the case of “Drachenlord” as a cultural phenomenon in a 2021 column for Spiegel. He sees the case as proof that the German legal system is too outdated to understand conflicts on the internet (via spiegel.de).
YouTube deletes Drachenlord’s accounts apparently due to “Ban Evasion”
Why are his enemies cheering now? YouTube has deleted the Drachenlord’s channels. The reason appears to be a violation of the platform’s guidelines. Exact details are not officially known.
It is suspected that it could be a penalty for “circumventing a content ban,” a so-called “Ban Evasion”:
- Winkler received a warning for a copyright infringement, which usually results in a suspension (via watson).
- The Drachenlord was then active on another YouTube channel. This is against the rules.
- It is quite possible that YouTube considered the context of the violation and decided to get rid of the chronic conflict source, Drachenlord.
In any case, the haters online are celebrating and declaring Drachenlord “defeated.”
Without the YouTube channel, he lost his main source of income and thus no longer has resources. Some seem to want to take credit for the ban as a personal achievement: They joke that they “reported” the channel to the ban.
This plays into the idea that platforms like YouTube and Twitch automatically ban any channel if enough people submit a report. However, platforms deny that the reporting algorithm can be abused this way.
“I am by no means defeated!”
How does Winkler see it himself? He reacts surprisingly calmly. In two videos on TikTok, Drachenlord explains in front of a greenscreen that he is not “defeated” at all – he considers the ban on YouTube to be a small problem that can soon be resolved. He has always gotten his channel back so far. That’s how it has been for years.
First of all: Yes, my YouTube account has been deleted. No, I am not worried, because it is still in review […] I am waiting for a response from YouTube, this may take a while. I receive billions of messages on WhatsApp: Haha defeated! – Do I look like someone who is worried?
Even if the YouTube account is gone, I am by no means defeated because of that. First of all, I still have more than 200,000 followers here on TikTok and even if not, I just have to rework my OnlyFans a bit.
He made a “small mistake” which is now being reviewed and then he will continue on YouTube.
Winkler believes that he will return to YouTube and even if not, “then he will just go to TikTok.” He is also considering OnlyFans as an alternative to YouTube, a platform where other types of creators can actually earn a lot of money:
From his perspective, everything is clear. He is now playing Fable 2 on the Xbox and not stressing about it.
Then I’ll just make TikTok videos in the future and only that. Then I’ll make 5 TikTok videos a day instead of 3 videos – screw it.
People on the internet want to abuse the next reporting system – See Drachenlord as an NPC
How will this continue? Unfortunately, apparently just like all the time. Immediately, calls are circulating on Twitter to abuse TikTok’s reporting system so that Drachenlord also loses his channel there.
What’s behind this: What stands out is that Winkler is now playing exactly the role assigned to him by the “haters.” This can be seen in how the vocabulary aligns. Where haters cheer that he is “defeated,” like an NPC in a video game, he proclaims himself to be “not defeated at all.”
The use of “defeated” regarding Drachenlord originally even comes from a shout from Winkler himself. In the early days of the entire case, he shouted in one of his live streams: “You will never defeat me!” Together with a shirt that said “Undefeated forever,” this created the demand from the haters to actually defeat the Drachenlord.
Even in earlier incidents, it was noticeable that haters see the Drachenlord as a kind of fictional character, like in a TV show:
- Some referred to the last court hearing as a “season finale.”
- Now people are already excited about the “TikTok season.”
In fact, there is not even a known popular case from the USA where a content creator has been harassed and demonized for such a long time as Winkler has been in Germany. But even in the USA, conflicts surrounding content creators have escalated before:
Stalker comes to the house of a YouTuber and insults him – He shoots
