Hugely popular Twitch streamer Felix ‘xQc’ Lengyel came under fire recently as a number of his viewers began harassing others on the Amazon-owned platform, forcing him to come forward with a promise to fix toxicity in his chat.
Being one of the most viewed content creators on Twitch appears to come with its pros and cons. While xQc often streams on a near-daily basis for over three million followers, his explosive personality has seemingly influenced a handful of viewers to flame others on the platform.
The Canadian streamer was forced to respond to recent toxicity stemming from his channel on August 13. In the midst of his latest broadcast, he implored viewers not to “harass other streamers.” This comment was soon followed by a flurry of since-deleted tweets also addressing the issue.
“All I see is hatred and rage coming towards me these days, even on the brightest days,” he said on Twitter. “Some of them actually think I compute and put their comments to use. You have no power, you are like cancel culture, the biggest lie of our time. You think your opinion matters, it doesn’t.”
The thread came after viewers jumped over from his stream and allegedly harassed others on Twitch. xQc in turn, exploded at the response and explained how most of the backlash was “out of context trash, terrible advice, or even passive-aggressive insults disguised as criticism.”
“Our live content sphere is so fake and synthetic these days,” he continued in his August 13 tweets. “The lies and facades that I see, everyone turns a blind eye.”
While he soon deleted a majority of these tweets, the issue wasn’t quite dropped there. The conversation on Twitch toxicity continued on xQc’s broadcast too.
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates on Esports, Gaming and more.
Onstream, instead of deflecting the issue, this time around, the French-Canadian star seemed to take responsibility and addressed how he can help moving forward.
“It’s my fault because my viewers reflect me? I agree,” he said. “I take full accountability, I know that when I’m toxic, other people act toxic, they reflect me and that’s my fault.”
“I’m trying to fix that. It’ll take months, maybe even years but it’s a process and you can’t resolve it immediately.”
As to how exactly he’s planning on combating toxic behavior, it all starts with moderation, according to xQc. “The best I can do is moderate. Ask my mods to fix the chat a little bit as I get better.”