Over the past half-decade, Ninja has reached incredible heights, becoming a huge name in the gaming world. He remains the most-followed person on Twitch, with almost 17 million followers, and recently landed a cameo in a major movie.
But there are downsides to being such a prominent figure in the gaming community. While having thousands of people tune into your content is the dream for many streamers, there’s also the risk of people trying to tear you down.
Ninja has revealed that people trying to twist his words has made him stream less.
During a couple’s Q&A video with his wife Jessica, one viewer asked Ninja how often he feels the things he says during live streams get taken out of context. The short answer? All the time. In fact, he’s now streaming less because of it.
“The reason I’m not streaming as much as I normally do right now, is because every time I stream, I feel like I’m getting a bunch of donations and questions and people in the chat trying to get me to say something, and then it ends up being twisted and it blows up in my face,” he said.
“It’s like, f**k this, I don’t need to be giving people chances to clickbait me and make me look bad, it’s stupid. You don’t become fake, but you [do] start answering things in non-serious ways.”
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Ninja’s wife Jessica also weighed in on the situation, explaining that “every time Tyler says something it gets twisted” and highlighting the huge amount of stress that comes with “knowing that every single second of what you’re doing is being looked at”.
This isn’t the first time Ninja has opened up about the downsides associated with modern internet fame: he recently admitted that the “pressure” of streaming gets to him sometimes, although he did argue that “if you’re a good person, you won’t have a problem”.