Twitch Streamer Ninja Draws Backlash For Using N-Word During ‘Fortnite’ Stream

Two weeks after his record-breaking stream with rapper Drake drew headlines across the world, Tyler Blevins has found himself in some hot water. Blevins, the streamer known online as Ninja, has received extensive social media backlash after he used the n-word while streaming the game Fortnite: Battle Royale.

During his stream, Blevins was rapping along to “44 More,” a song by Logic. The original does not contain the n-word, but in the middle of a verse, Ninja dropped it in anyway.

The online video gaming community has been here before. Last year, top gamer and YouTube star PewDiePie generated controversy of his own when he used the n-word as a slur during a live stream.

Blevins’ situation is not quite like that one, since his use of the word was not directed at another player, but his channel was previously noted for its family-friendly attitude. That appropriate-for-all-ages tone has helped Blevins secure 200,000 Twitch subscribers and $500,000 per month, but perhaps his channel is not as G-rated as we thought. Either way, his behavior has left some creators, including Kristopher London, feeling miffed:

The trickiness of Blevins’ situation has been laid out in an extensive Kotaku article, which explores the ins and outs of the controversy as it relates to Ninja’s personality, the online gaming community, and racial politics as a whole. Blevins, meanwhile, has offered up his own apology on Twitter:

While we wait to see how the internet responds to this response, we’ll be over here gawking at this tweet sent five days ago by someone who may very well be the modern-day Nostradamus: