If you’ve frequented Félix “xQc” Lengyel’s Twitch channel recently, you’ll have noticed he’s doing a lot of Grand Theft Auto Online role-play and reactions to video content. That’s fine. It’s his channel, so he can do whatever he wants with it…or maybe not? A small but vocal portion of his millions-strong community hates this stuff to the point of harassing the streamer and a fan-run Twitter account nonstop for months.
Yesterday the xQcOWUpdates Twitter, a news source for anything related to xQc’s streams, tweeted about the “hostile complaints and targeted harassment” it’s been exposed to over the last few weeks or so. The abuse stems from a subset of xQc’s fanbase that is tired of both GTA Online role-play and reaction content. Just go through the replies and you’ll see a ton of complaints about how GTA RP is “dogshit,” with many expressing contempt with an overabundance of heist missions in particular.
Further, some in xQc’s community have taken it upon themselves to not only berate the streamer in his chat whenever he opens GTA RP—by spamming something like “PepeAgony,” a meme of the titular frog pulling on its face in sheer pain—but also to harass the xQcOWUpdates account for how often it tweets about xQc’s activity.
I understand feeling tired of a specific game, but it’s unacceptable to harass anyone for the games they play. It’s xQc’s channel. If folks don’t like what he streams, they can just leave. There’s certainly no shortage of content to watch on the platform. (Check out the new animals category.)
On top of that, there’s no reason to target an unaffiliated update account that’s simply providing news on what one particular individual is doing on Twitch. Haters don’t have to tweet. Hell, folks don’t even have to be online. Go outside. Touch some grass. Breathe in the fresh air. Do literally anything else if watching xQc’s GTA RP-dominated streams are too boring or whatever.
xQcOWUpdates’ maintainer told Kotaku that while it is a small minority of xQc’s community that’s spewing vitriol, most of the harassment is directed toward those who actually enjoy the frequent GTA RP streams.
“It is pretty ridiculous how terrible some people will get because their favorite streamer isn’t playing a game they like,” the account’s maintainer told Kotaku. “The replies on our tweets have really become a breeding ground for this, which is why we put out that statement yesterday. It seems like so many of these people are banned from xQc’s chat so they now just come here to spew their vitriol. We try our best to ignore the shitty comments, but when regular people in our community are also becoming victims of targeted harassment…because they like watching xQc play GTA RP, is when it bothers us.”
xQc has yet to comment on the toxicity in his community. He did say on stream a few days ago he isn’t playing too many games right now because games are “dogshit” and there isn’t much to play. xQcOWUpdates also shared screens from xQc’s January 24 Twitch chat in which xQc said the chat has “turned into literally only complaints” and he doesn’t “feel like rewarding that behavior these days.” It seems xQc’s tired of this shit, too.
Kotaku has reached out to xQc for comment.