Yesterday evening, while playing Apex Legends, Twitch star Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek got killed by a player who was using an aimbot to cheat. When you spend the majority of your waking hours playing video games, it’s not abnormal to encounter cheaters and stream snipers. This one, though, agreed to stick around and chat with Shroud.
Shroud, who has nearly 6.5 million followers on Twitch, is known for aim, reflexes, and split-second decision-making that surpass even most other streamers known for their aim, reflexes, and split-second decision-making.
So when an Apex Legends foe handled him like he was a newborn infant and delivered him straight to death’s door, he was surprised.
“He just destroyed me,” said Shroud. “Jesus Christ. Is this guy cheating?”
He proceeded to spectate the player who killed him and discovered that, yep, they were definitely cheating. Shroud went on to lament that this player was actually, on the merits of their own skills, too good to really need hacks.
“The sad part isn’t that he’s cheating,” said Shroud. “The sad part is that he’s actually not bad at the game, and he’s cheating. This guy could actually have a good time playing the game normally, but instead he’s just aimbotting. He has good movement. His movement’s pretty fucking good. If he just played normally, he could do pretty well.”
Shroud kept watching this player, and it didn’t take long for them to reveal that—in a magnificent demonstration of the nightmare panopticon that is modern society—they were watching Shroud too, via his stream.
So Shroud decided it was time for a (gun) fireside chat.
“Why do you cheat?” he asked.
The cheater proceeded to blast the letters “IDK” into a stone wall. In response, Shroud reiterated what he’d said earlier: He thought the cheater was actually a pretty decent player, and they could probably “feel better” about themselves if they just played without leaning on their ill-gotten crutch.
Upon hearing this, the cheater started blasting dollar signs into nearby walls.
Shroud then asked the cheater how old they were. They replied, again with their gun, that they were 25. At that point, Shroud quit spectating and joined another match.
“He’s a 25-year-old child,” said Shroud. “That’s all I needed to know. There’s no way he’s 25. That’s a lie. No 25-year-old would act like that.”
Shroud, it bears mentioning, is 24. However, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 30 full years of playing video games (and, I guess, living), it’s that cheating has no age limit.
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