Streamer Asmongold commands a sprawling audience with 3.5 million Twitch followers, 3 million YouTube subscribers and a 400,000 user subreddit. This past week he was banned from Twitch for a heated rant regarding the war in Gaza in which he deemed them an “inferior culture” and said he did not empathize with the tremendous amount of civilian deaths in the country. It was a statement that reached far beyond even past controversies he’s manifested during a years-long switch away from gaming content to “commentary” about whatever online drama, woke video game controversies or hot news items were happening at any given time.
After an online firestorm where people pointed out these statements were breaking hate speech parts of Twitch’s TOS, his alternate channel (where he does most of his streaming) was issued a two-week ban by Twitch. Asmongold initially issued a tweet where he said he said he was wrong to say what he said, at one point literally saying “my bad,” but that was not enough for many.
Asmongold issued a full apology video shortly after, which was itself surprising as oftentimes large-scale figures with right-leaning audiences and views simply push past these things. NickMercs lost his Call of Duty skin because of anti-trans statements, views he still emphatically holds. Dr. Disrespect defiantly came back to streaming after he admitted to inappropriately contacting a minor which resulted in his Twitch ban, and most of his fanbase celebrated.
There is of course no excusing Asmongold’s comments at all, as they were horrible. His apology is..somewhat surprising, however. He details how his life is in “shambles” and that he recognizes how the last few years have changed him:
“For the last two years…I’ve been slowly devolving into the most mean-spirited, rude, nasty, callous psychopathic version of myself.”
It’s a frank admission that reflects the strange turn his content has taken, once focused on games like the World of Warcraft, now commenting on random videos or articles and offering political opinions, which spiraled into this latest situation. And from personal experience, being the subject of an Asmongold video (which has happened to me at least three times) results in a lot of his audience coming for you, even if that’s not something he directs himself.
That audience now is reckoning with Asmongold’s unpredictably genuine-sounding apology about working to do better and understanding the culture he was lambasting. Many of his fans, the right-leaning base he cultivated, believe he should not have apologized (this is the top post on his subreddit) and did not say anything wrong and should have doubled down instead like we have seen with many other creators. He seems to be doing some self-reflection instead.
However.
There is a difference between “I’m not going to saying racist things to get me banned anymore” and leaning away entirely from this long-term content shift. On his subreddit, Asmongold already promised his audience more the usual:
“Don’t worry, I’ll react to a DEI=DIE gaming video first day back to stream.”
If that’s not sarcasm, that’s still just wallowing in the “DEI/wokeness is ruining gaming!!” type content that has taken over his channel for years now and served as red meat for his audience. Even if he steers away from a certain kind of politics this is…still politics, in a different form.
This isn’t just about Asmongold, as we have seen situations like this play out across many creators and many of their audiences in some form or another and there’s always a question of whether radicalization can be undone. But if he specifically really wants to change, this needs to be far more than just words in order to give him credit for a transformation. We’ll see where things go from here. Maybe a reaction video to this article, if he’s not changing that much at all.
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