Ninja is one of the top streamers on Twitch with nearly 4 million followers, owns a YouTube channel with over 5 million followers, and has more than a million followers on Twitter and Instagram. Two years ago, he broke his own Twitch record for the highest number of concurrent viewers (in a non-tournament environment) when he collaborated with rappers Drake and Travis Scott. During their broadcast, there were 600,000 viewers watching at the same time.
Some people see Ninja as a relatively “clean” idol compared to his peers. However, this guy also has his own dark sides, it’s just that not everyone knows about them.
Ninja Illegally “Doxxed” (Revealed the Identity of a Viewer)
Doxxing is the act of publishing private and identifying information about a person on online platforms. Back in 2016, when Ninja was a Halo streamer, he was donated a sum with racist remarks by a viewer. In retaliation, he revealed that person’s full address and other personal information.
Doxxing violates Twitch’s community guidelines. However, Ninja was only banned for 48 hours, leading many to speculate that he escaped punishment due to his fame. While the platform has a zero-tolerance policy for threats and violence such as attacks, DDoS, or SWATting, it seems that sharing someone’s personal information with malicious intent, clearly endangering that person’s safety, was taken lightly in this case.
While racism and discrimination are unforgivable, it is irresponsible for a public figure to use their influence to sway the crowd’s mentality and endanger others.
Ninja Wrongly Accused a Gamer
At the end of 2018, Ninja exploded in anger while playing Fortnite. The streamer falsely reported after being defeated by a sniper gamer. This term describes “playing in the same match as the streamer while watching the broadcast to gain an advantage.” Unfortunately, this is quite common and hard to prove.
In this case, Ninja and his friend Dr. Lupo were taken down by a player named IcyFive. After being taken down, they continued to watch IcyFive in spectator mode, with Dr. Lupo commenting, “Watch the emote.” Celebratory remarks are not unusual, and IcyFive did just that right after Dr. Lupo’s comment. Ninja saw this as evidence and reported the offense. He also called this player an idiot and threatened to use his influence to get him banned.
IcyFive did not plead guilty on Twitter, and while Dr. Lupo seemed to believe him, Ninja did not.
Ninja Believes Famous Gamers Should Be Held to Different Standards
According to Ninja, when Fortnite player Faze Jarvis used aimbot cheats in some of his videos, he was just “a stupid kid making a stupid decision,” and he “didn’t really think it through.” Therefore, Ninja believes that Epic Games’ lifetime ban for this 17-year-old player was very harsh and cruel. “What else can he play?” Ninja posed the question. Nevertheless, Ninja also made quite contradictory statements, saying he did not feel sorry for Jarvis and did not empathize at all.
Ninja asserted that content creators with millions of subscribers making money from streaming should be treated with more leniency than regular gamers who cheat, whom he described as “useless, no one follows them, no money coming from Fortnite, from gaming and hacking.”
Ninja’s remarks received backlash, and he later stated that “he thought more about it… and there certainly can’t be any exceptions.” However, he still insisted that the permanent ban was too extreme.