Today, out of the blue, Twitch suspended massively popular streamer Guy “Dr Disrespect” Beahm, a ban that multiple sources tell Kotaku is permanent.
Initially, people suspected that he’d tripped a wire in Twitch’s increasingly aggressive DMCA detection system, but that does not appear to be the case. Industry insider and journalist Rod “Slasher” Breslau said on Twitter that, according to his sources, the ban is permanent. Streamer Shannon “ShannonZKiller” Plante said she’d heard the same from her own sources, adding that the issue is “serious.” Three sources close to Twitch have told Kotaku that the ban is permanent as well.
When reached for more information on why Dr Disrespect has been suspended and for how long, a Twitch representative told Kotaku in an email, “As is our process, we take appropriate action when we have evidence that a streamer has acted in violation of our Community Guidelines or Terms of Service. These apply to all streamers regardless of status or prominence in the community.”
Twitch is refunding viewers’ subscriptions to Dr Disrespect’s channel and removing his emotes, as well. It appears that the platform has revoked his partner status as well.
Last year, Dr Disrespect was temporarily suspended from Twitch after broadcasting from a public bathroom during E3. That was the only prior time his channel had been removed from the site.
However, over the years, Dr Disrespect has gained a reputation for toeing the line and getting away with stunts that other streamers would likely receive punishment for. Most recently, he spread and endorsed baseless coronavirus conspiracy theories. He received no public punishment for this, even after another streamer, Kaceytron, got suspended over coronavirus jokes. More broadly, he has made a habit of engaging in various sorts of toxicity while leaning on his Dr Disrespect character to give himself plausible deniability any time he takes things too far.
Despite that and because of his knack for over-the-top humour, he’s became one of Twitch’s biggest, most well-promoted stars. Late last year, he secured a TV show development deal. Earlier this year, he announced that he signed a multiyear deal to stream exclusively on Twitch. Sources have told Kotaku the deal was worth as much as $10 million per year.
Now, though, the future of his whole career appears very much up in the air.
Comments
31 responses to “Twitch Bans Dr Disrespect”
wonder what he did this time considering the last time he actually broke local law…?
Word on the street is he was spreading dangerous covid conspiracy theories.
I’d doubt that is why he was banned, since he’s been doing that for weeks/months at this point I believe.
Yeah but Mixer is shut down now 😛
Yeah, Twitch must have been really concerned about Mixer rocketing up by -1% market share.
Nobody is talking but it will only be a matter of time until the reason leaks, until then the rumour mill is on overdrive.
I’m putting my tinfoil hat on and saying they were too scared to ban him before cause he’d have gone to Mixer and that might have been the critical mass it needed to actually start being competitive.
Pure conspiracy theory, but maybe..
With a lot of the sexual harrassment/@assault stories coming out the last few days around twitch streamers.. I’ve assume it’s along those lines.
The most popular rumours at the moment are.
1. Sexual misconduct allegations.
2. Marketing strategy to distract from all the sexual misconduct allegations plaguing the platform. (Seems unlikely)
3. Some kind of contract breach.
4. That all the big name streamers from Twitch and Mixer are secretly starting their own streaming service.
If the woman he had that affair with had ever thought about streaming or becoming involved in games in any way, a large segment of Twitter would like to see him cancelled for abuse of power dynamics.
Mixer had 2% market share, a lot less than they had in August. There’s a reason the service was shuttered. Twitch wasn’t basing any decisions on what Mixer was doing.
Never heard of this guy but he looks like Pornstache Mendez from Orange Is the New Black, so I dislike him already.
For what it’s worth, his hair is a wig.
Big off for Dr D. And right after Mixer dies. It’ll be interesting to see where this goes or if Twitch reneges, I imagine he was pulling in a lot of moolah for them via subs and bits.
“You’re banned from Twitch! You and your children and your children’s children. For 3 months.”
Good, dude is a massive tool, not funny, not good, he’s like the human embodiment of a pile of trash.
That applies to nearly all streamers in my opinion. Most are obnoxious arseholes. I don’t know how or why people watch Twitch streamers.
The only time I look at Twitch is to get an idea of gameplay for a game I’m interested in, and even then, most of the time whoever is playing is pretty insufferable to actually watch and makes watching the game more difficult.
I try to keep my opinions to myself but do feel the same way about streaming as a “career”. Perhaps it’s not the job itself but it’s the lengths people will go to in order to attack new viewers, and how they keep amping crap up to stay “relevant”.
I mean, I really like JackFrags for example. He’s entertaining, but also intelligent and funny. The polar opposite is someome like “CouRAGE” who just yells all the time. It’s like nails on a chalkboard.
Somewhere in the middle is “Faze Testy” who in my view flip-flops between being an interesting person and fun to watch, over to calling people “bitch” and dissing all the people he’s killing in Warzone.
When I say “attack” above I meant “attract”.
Jack is great and I still watch a decent amount of his videos. I miss his time playing with the ‘squad up’ crew though.
I don’t watch any of these guys. I watch Twitch to watch competitive tournament play or sometimes speedruns for games I’m interested in, but never once felt the need to tune into any of these full-time streamers. Just doesn’t appeal to me.
I don’t even understand how sitting there playing games can be a career when you aren’t even good at the games you’re playing. Esports, I can understand that. Those guys train hard to be able to play at the top level. But douchebags like this guy, who just sit there yelling while they play a game (badly), I don’t see the point of it. It’s just one step above reaction videos because they are actually playing the game, but it’s not much better.
They do it because thousands upon thousands of people pay them for it which is more a statement about the viewers than the streamers themselves.
Watching the wrong streams then. The most popular one I watch is Northernlion who is pretty wholseome these days. His community was at the start of a toxicity spiral and he’s managed to mostly pull them out of it. Community aside, he’s a great entertainer and is actively trying to improve everything he can month by month.
Other than that I watch some small streamers. My favorite one averages 100 viewers at a time and doesn’t have any moderators because the community is really nice. He’s been going for 10 months but it feels like being part of a large family, chat is mostly regulars with newcomers popping in along the way.
I’m in 100% agreement with you there. The toilet-filming thing was just downright creepy, which says volumes about this guy.
“Twitch Bans Dr Disrespect”
Good.
I only ever saw a little bit of DR’s content, but this guy was like a living Facebook meme. Just what you expect all those idiots that spread misinformation, pseudoscience, and silly drama, to be like IRL; Loud, obnoxious and believing everything they read on FB.
… And nothing of value was lost.
And this would appear to be the moment he must’ve found out: https://twitter.com/Slasher/status/1276803590258962432?s=20
The most baffling thing about that video which no-one is talking about is: Roblox??!
Hmm, looking at that he seems shocked but I get the feeling he knew why the ban came. As if he knew he’d screwed up and crossed the line too far this time and was waiting for the hammer to land.
Just basing that on his body language and…well…actual language.
The latest theory is that he was actively working with a competitor possibly voiding whatever contract he had.