Streamer Asmongold has a sprawling audience with 3.5 million Twitch followers, 3 million YouTube subscribers, and a subreddit of 400,000 users. Last week, he was banned from Twitch for a fiery speech regarding the war in Gaza in which he considered them an “inferior culture” and said he did not understand the huge number of civilian deaths in the country. It’s a statement that goes far beyond even the past controversies he’s shown during a multi-year shift from gaming content to “commentary” on any online drama, woke video game controversies or hot news that was happening at any given time.

After an online firestorm where people pointed out that these statements broke hate speech portions of Twitch’s terms of service, his alternative channel (where he streams most of his streams) was banned for two weeks by Twitch. Asmongold initially posted a tweet saying he was wrong to say what he said, literally at one point saying “my bad,” but that wasn’t enough for many.

Asmongold released a full apology video shortly after, which was surprising in itself because often large-scale figures with right-wing audiences and views simply overlook these things. NickMercs lost his Call of Duty skin due to anti-trans statements, opinions he still adamantly defends. Dr. Disrespect defiantly returned to streaming after admitting to inappropriately contacting a minor, resulting in his ban from Twitch, and most of his fans celebrated.

There is of course no excuse for Asmongold’s comments, because they were horrible. His apology, however, is somewhat surprising. He details how his life is “in ruins” and that he recognizes how much the last few years have changed him:

“Over the last two years…I have slowly evolved into the meanest, rudest, meanest, most callous psychopathic version of myself.”

It’s a frank admission that reflects the strange turn his content has taken, once focused on games like World of Warcraft, now commenting on random videos or articles and offering political opinions, which has resulted in the latter situation. And from personal experience, being the subject of an Asmongold video (which happened to me at least three times) makes a large part of his audience come to you, even if it’s not something which he makes himself.

This audience must now reckon with Asmongold’s unpredictable and genuine excuses about working to do better and understanding the culture he was lambasting. Many of his fans, the right-wing base he has cultivated, think he should not apologized (this is the first post on his subreddit) and did it not said the wrong thing and should have doubled down, as we’ve seen with many other creators. Rather, he seems to be introspecting.

However.

There’s a difference between “I’m not going to say racist things anymore to get banned” and completely walking away from this long-term content change. On his subreddit, Asmongold has already promised his audience more of the usual:

“Don’t worry, I will react to a DEI=DIE gameplay video on the first day of broadcast.”

If it’s not sarcasm, it’s still wallowing in the “DEI/wokeness is ruining the game!!” type content that has invaded his channel for years now and served as red meat to his audience. Even if it moves away from a certain type of politics, it is still… politics, in a different form.

It’s not just about Asmongold, as we’ve seen situations like this happen in one form or another to many creators and many of their audiences, and the question always arises whether the radicalization can be reversed. But if he truly wants to change, it has to be more than just words in order to give him credit for transformation. We’ll see where things go from here. Maybe a reaction video to this article, if it doesn’t change much.

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