Gaming chair brand under fire for bad photoshop of DrLupo

Popular gaming retailer Newegg have been criticized after an image attached to a gaming chair on their website appeared to use a doctored photo of Twitch streamer Ben ‘DrLupo’ Lupo.

DrLupo is one of the biggest stars on Twitch, piggy-backing the success of Epic Games’ Fortnite Battle Royale. He is known for his frequent collaborations with other streaming powerhouses, such as Tim ‘TimTheTatman’ Betar and Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins. 

Lupo currently sits at over 3.6 million followers on Twitch, and is well known for his signature setup, involving a retro gaming headset. However, on November 30, one Twitter user noticed that Newegg may be doctoring one of his images without permission, and using it to sell chairs.

The listing for the chair, minus any DrLupo related images.

Its_TyK, an editor for esports organization Team Secret, explained that he was “casually scrolling on Newegg and I stumble across a gaming chair and they faked a Dr Lupo picture for their product.” Attached was a photo of DrLupo while streaming, showing his gaming chair, monitors and headset. 

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The photograph featured on Newegg seems to be the same image, with a number of identical features, including the microphone, headset, and even the gamer’s t-shirts. The only discernible differences are the chair in use, the face of the person at the setup, and the monitor in the background being blurred out. 

The tweet was quickly noticed by a number of Twitter users, including DrLupo himself. It currently stands at nearly 4,000 likes and over 200 retweets. DrLupo replied asking for a link to the website. Following the link now shows that the photo in question has been removed, but the posting for the chair remains.

There were a number of suggestions floating around Twitter, including that the likeness to DrLupo was intentional to increase the likelihood of people buying the chair. Others merely suggested the company saw potential in the image.

It is not clear whether the image belonged to Newegg or was supplied by the sellers of the chair itself. The chair comes from Homall, retailers of gaming chairs. Dexerto has reached out to Newegg for comment.

It is obviously unconfirmed whether or not the website/suppliers were intentionally using the image of Dr Lupo, but a number of Twitter users were quick to point out the obvious similarities. 

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No statement has been released by the website, and Dr Lupo has not made any further comment beyond his tweet.