The life of streaming is such that every so often the streamer feels the need to speak some truth into the chat. Shroud, one of Twitch’s most popular streamers, recently had to slam his viewers for toxic behavior that he simply doesn’t want as a part of his community.
The internet can be a cruel place. it is incredibly easy to comment hateful, rude, and indecent things in an online forum that would never be said in person. While playing Fall Guys, the insanely popular last-man-standing game, Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek took notice of this and decided he needed to step in.
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With Shroud having just returned to Twitch, he has been playing games with the community and enjoying his time. He became popular for being a CS:GO pro, and continues to dominate in shooters like Apex Legends, but certainly plays more casual experiences like Fall Guys. While playing Fall Guys, Shroud noticed that fans were saying extremely negative things both in his chat and in the chat of the players/streamers he was joining up with, and he took offense to this.
Shroud, not one to be afraid of speaking his mind on game balance, gaming-related issues, and to his community, told his “ruthless” chat that they were playing Fall Guys. They weren’t playing high-end competitive games, they were playing a fun round of Fall Guys and blaming teammates for losing made no sense in that format. It’s not okay to be rude regardless, but when goofing off in a more casual game it’s even less forgivable.
The only thing that sucks when it’s any sort of competition, chat is ruthless. The people playing are having a great time, and the chat is ruining everything.
Shroud told his viewers, and the video can be seen here, that they needed to do better, that they needed to have fun, watch, and not be rude to others. “Don’t go over to someone’s stream and call them sh**ty for bringing the team down or something. Like, who the f**k cares? We’re playing Fall Guys,” he told his viewers.
Video game culture has the unfortunate reuptation of being toxic, and communities that call out players for being bad at games when they are simply trying to have fun certainly provides evidence of that claim. There are plenty of gamers who play with grace, openness, and kindness overall. But moments like toxicity in streams can overshadow. Whether it is in a goofy game of Mario Party or the Call of Duty League Championship, the community needs to do better and be kind to one another.
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