After nearly two months out of action in the wake of an on-stream confession of infidelity to his wife, popular streamer Dr Disrespect returned to Twitch.
In the process, he pulled in hundreds of thousands of viewers, thousands of dollars in donations, as well as a chat that vomited memes with rabid excitement. He also made references to his wife, though she did not physically appear on stream.
In the end, however, he fell short of breaking the record for most concurrent viewers of a single streamer. The record, held by “reformed” League of Legends streamer Tyler1, stands at over 400,000 concurrent viewers.
The Doc came close, peaking at 389,000 concurrents shortly after winning a PUBG chicken dinner in his first game back. [Update – 10:37AM AEDT, 7 February 2018: Twitch has told Kotaku that Dr Disrespect now holds the record for most concurrent viewers of a single stream with “over 388,000”. A Twitch rep did not say where Tyler1 peaked.]
The game went almost comically well for him, with a crate falling from the sky and landing right in front of him at one point. “This is not a scripted game,” he said, laughing.
Dr Disrespect’s return was hotly anticipated. In 2017, the character, played by former game developer Guy Beahm, skyrocketed in popularity, to the point that his repeated claim of being “the face of Twitch” may not entirely be bullshit.
Before the stream began, Twitch went down, something many viewers and outlets are attributing solely to Dr Disrespect’s popularity. That explanation seems unlikely, however, given that Twitch’s Amazon-reinforced servers often host esports events that draw this many viewers or more.
That said, a similar thing happened when Tyler1 returned, so Dr Disrespect’s sudden surge of viewers could’ve played a role in Twitch’s belly flop.
After a drawn-out intro, the stream was largely business as usual, but with Doc leaning heavily into character-driven gimmicks like Robo Doc – where a robotic alter ego takes over the stream – and brief phone conversations with his wife, whose in-character name is Mrs Assassin.
She’s always been a presence on the stream, but her appearance in the trailer teasing Dr Disrespect’s return suggested that she might take on a more prominent role this time around. The fake phone calls could be building to something, or they might just be another gimmick. We’ll see.
Later in the stream, somebody asked Doc how things are going with Mrs Assassin. “It’s a learning process,” he replied. “It’s a rebuilding process. It’s a strengthening process. It’s like this, right? As we mature, as we increase our knowledge about each other as individuals and a group, we’re starting to understand some things.”
The only other reference he made to the circumstances that led to his extended hiatus, at least so far, was indirect. Dr Disrespect mentioned that he’s not having flesh-and-blood human beings moderate his stream anymore, instead opting to let bot mods – usually a supplement to human moderators – bear the weight of his hundreds of thousands-strong audience. “My mods were the best mods, and maybe in time we’ll introduce a few back, but for some reason, we like the challenge,” he said.
This is noteworthy because one of Doc’s mods ended up divulging details about his infidelity during a stream a few days after Doc’s public confession.
During the stream, Doc also shout-casted himself, which was legitimately funny, and made insensitive jokes at the expense of a couple non-English speaking groups, which was, you know, not. Pretty much all of Doc’s greatest hits were on show, from that weird tongue thing he does to trash talk at the expense of streamers like Tyler1 and Summit1g to frequent, boisterous complaints about how terrible of a game PUBG is. “This game has not improved at all,” he seethed after a quick death near the beginning of a match. “The numbers show it. It’s a joke.”
Money flowed freely, with multiple $US500 ($630) fan donations and an eye-popping $US5000 ($6299) donation prompting Doc to shout “ARE YOU KIDDING ME” at the top of his lungs. Thousands of people also joined his newly rechristened “Champion’s Club”.
It continues a trend that’s all but taken over YouTube and is seeping its way into Twitch: there’s monetary benefit to drama and so-called “reformation.” These big returns catapult people like Tyler1 and now Dr Disrespect to greater levels of notoriety (and profitability) than ever before.
Last time we saw Dr Disrespect, he was out of character and visibly in tears. Of late, however, he’s been nothing but bravado.
“2018, if I could talk to you about all the under-NDA deals I’m working on right now, well I’d probably end up in court and have to pay a lot of money to all these high-end corporations,” he said during the stream. “That said, 2018 – oh my god. I’m excited.”
“2018 is gonna be my year again,” he added.
As of writing, a lot of the fanfare had died down, but Doc had moved on to H1Z1 and continued to stream.
Comments
23 responses to “Dr Disrespect’s Return To Twitch Brings 389,000 Concurrent Viewers And Money [Updated]”
i just cant do it.
i cant let myself watch him again after a shit show of cheating on his wife.
it feels like hes being glorified even though he did one of the morally douchiest things around, and that doesnt sit right with me.
sure he deserves some form of grace and the right to be forgiven, but i dunno. when you are such a high profile gaming celeb with lots of younger fans, you have to be squeaky clean. i feel like those not mature enough are going to see it as – hey, you can cheat and still be awesome. and i feel like he needs to either address it more, or take a longer break.
maybe in time ill get over it, but for now i have to vote with my viewing power, which i know, in the grand scheme means not much at all to him, but i know ill feel better not supporting him.
Get over your self. Sweet you dont like him, get on with your life.
I don’t see any reason why you would leave such a stupid comment on someone’s personal opinion… They’re not dictating or trying to convince anyone to share their views, so why leave such a jerk reply? Grow up a bit mate
If his only problem is not watching someone who cheated on his wife. He’s got it pretty easy.
What would he do if he found his boss had cheated on his wife? Would he tender his resignation and look for another job where his boss doesnt cheat on his wife? He doesnt watch any Brad Pitt Movies because of what he did to Jennifer Aniston?
GROW UP. Welcome to the real world.
Stuff like this happens daily.
ive had my fare share of growing up to do in this world. it kind of actually is the definition of growing up when you vote with your actions. all you have to do is look at the shit going down in hollywood at the moment – kevin spacey got the sack for the bullshit he pulled as have a few others, or look at the shit EA pulled with battlefront 2 and how many people voted with their actions by not playing. as @tastypaste mentioned, it’s merely my opinion about one topic, im not forcing it on anyone. no shit stuff happens like this daily, doesnt mean i have to accept it as the norm. fuck me for hoping for a better world with moral standards, right?
@bigboypants Im a dreamer and i would love the world to be perfect but for a perfect world you need balance. yin yang? i think it would be amazing if everyone was flawless and we all looked like barbie girls and kens and had no poverty and no school shootings….wake up though! he cheated on his wife and he was in tears and i think he gave the twitch community a good idea of what remorse is. He didnt feel like sorry was enough for his wife so he publicly humiliated himself in the hope of fixing his mistakes. if you can claim you have never made a mistake then im impressed and you are a fantastic person. otherwise get out of his love life and his carreer. i enjoy watching him as a streamer but i dont tune in often enough i must admit and i wish people would stop trying to ruin careers and livelihoods because of some sort of vendetta. You came off as a cunt and now will be treated in that way by the majority.
I personally don’t follow the opinion of those in a level of celebrity have to be squeaky clean, it shows they’re human like the rest of us and that their level of success is achievable by anyone because you don’t need to be a perfect super being to move up.
yeah i understand that and i’m not naive about it. i guess my concern like someone mentioned below is the example it sets for his viewers, that being a douche is passable and you can get money from it and from what we know, there really hasnt been any show of what it cost him on a personal level other than the video of him admitting it.
its a tough one, because i did enjoy watching his videos, but cheating is such a vile act in my opinion. i feel like his current reinforces that status that its ok to act like a asshole without any consequence and people will continue to spread that type of attitude to others.
Okay…cool.
…but really. Who is he?
1993 & 1994 Blockbuster Champion
4 times champion!
2 time!
The clear message to kids everywhere is to be a truly colossal wanker. If you can be cartoonishly obnoxious enough on camera, it can get you fame, (extra-marital) sex, and money. Also, there is no God. He’s dead. We killed him for the likes and subscribes.
And what kind of monstrous prick donates $5k to bullshit like this? I sure hope whoever’s responsible for that crime against decency is also donating millions to charities and this is just their idea of a ‘tip’…
1. He plays a character. Intentionally playing up these traits for comic effect.
2. So what if a person donates that money? It’s their money? What right do you have to demand what they do with it?
Seriously…
Demand, nothing. Just hope. If someone donates money to a wealthy streamer, but doesn’t donate it to doing something about the folks who are literally dying in gutters, unnoticed, then I’d say it’s a pretty fucking disturbing set of priorities on display. For the sake of all that is decent, I would just hope that anyone who has enough money to throw it away on scum like this would be spending just as much if not more on something less toxic.
No it isnt. You dont know that persons financial situation at all. Nor do you get to label someone as disturbing for not spending their money how you want. Charity is that, A charity that you make a Charitable donation to.
Not a tax as you seem to want it to be.
Then why buy anything for your own pleasure? He is entertainment for some people, people like to spend money on being entertained. It’s that fucking simple.
I dunno, you’re playing a pretty good role of God up there on your cloud of judgement.
Do you hate Bryan Cranston for playing Walter White (or any character that was involved with This guy just pretends to be a bit of a douchebag. I’m not really a fan of Dr Disrepect, but the dude is playing a character. He’s an actor. Every once in a while he breaks, and you see the real him, but who cares.
Sure, he cheated on his wife, and that sucks. But we don’t know the details, and weren’t not his family, not his personal friends, not his kids, not his parents, not anyone who really matter in the grand scheme of things. We’re not the ones who should be judging him for this so harshly. Besides, people are allowed to make mistakes in my books. If I was the wife, maybe I wouldn’t want him back, but as a viewer, that has nothing to do with me.
I always wonder what if he DIDNT cheat on his wife and it was all a plan for a mighty return…
Yeah. So it seems like I’m not the only one wondering whether perhaps this was all just a stunt…
It probably wasn’t, but it would appear that if it WAS, then it was quite the canny career move.
No such thing as bad publicity.
I dunno watching the trailer with his assassin wife and just his character in general, it suits Dr Disrespect. I’m not saying his wife is a liar, didn’t he come out and say he cheated? It just seems really bizzare. Maybe he wanted time off for christmas and worked out he could use it to his benefit. There’s not really any way to disappear genuinely and get such a huge amount of hype and interest. To be fair, if he did lie, I don’t think its a bad thing. Its silly entertainment.
That’d be the ultimate fucking long-con
Love the fact that Twitch was promoting him.
About time morality lost out to The All Ighty Ollar.
I feel the same people that idolise this bloke also love Logan Paul, Jake Paul and RiceGum?