Nadia Amine is currently considered “one of the fastest growing female streamers” in Call of Duty and Warzone. But her skill and visibility as a female Warzone player comes at a heavy cost. Regardless of how many Tiktok videos she uploads of herself kicking arse at Warzone, gamers won’t stop accusing her of cheating at the game. In late August, she uploaded a video of herself killing top Warzone players in Free-For-All mode, but the peanut gallery still isn’t impressed.
Amine recently ascended the charts for the most-watched Warzone streamers on Twitch. By mid-August, she had one million followers on Tiktok. The visibility came at a price, though. Warzone players have used her clips to make videos of her making a sandwich or washing dishes. And on August 13, she posted a video about how she had been swatted by the police.
Many of the cheating accusations have come in the heels of those messes, which boosted her prominence and notoriety in equal measure. The “issue” was her apparent skill. Warzone is still heavily male-dominated among the pros, so many audiences couldn’t believe that a woman could play at such a high level. If you search her name with “Warzone” on Google, all the YouTube videos that other people have made of her are about cheating, often closely examining her gameplay to point out potential discrepancies in the footage. All the while, Amine has continued posting videos of her stomping in Warzone.
Most recently, Amine uploaded a Tiktok video she hoped would settle matters because: “I never wanna hear bot lobby again.”
Although Amine dies a couple of times, the video shows her killing opponents that she identifies as Kris “Swagg” Lamberson, Diaz “Biffle,” and Aydan Conrad. These men are also some of the most watched Warzone streamers on Twitch, and all of them play the game professionally. Kotaku reached out to all parties identified in the match, but did not receive a response by the time of publication. Despite the opponent’s bonafides, the TikTok didn’t impress everyone.
“[I] like how they are just standing there,” said one Tiktok user. “Where are they? I only see bots and default skins,” said another. Another commenter summed up the overall sentiment of the comment section: “Bruh [she’s] playing bot lobby.”
Bot lobbies are Warzone lobbies that are filled with AI-controlled opponents. Warzone’s matchmaking system pairs players up with more skilled human players as they improve. However, players can use Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to enter easier lobbies. Amine is frequently accused of using VPNs to play against easier opponents. The newest video was made specifically to address the accusations that she plays against bots.
However, there are many Warzone players who think she’s the real deal. The most prolific among them is Faze Clan’s Brian “Rug” Awadis, who tweeted: “Dude [Amine’s] actually so good. I see her stuff on Tiktok all the time and it’s insane.”
While trash talk is a time-honoured tradition of playing for an audience of gamers, Amine has gotten a disproportionate amount of backlash that specifically targets her gender, some of which has bleeded into real life. And Kotaku reached out to Amine for a comment, but she did not respond by the time of publication.
“Nobody deserves to be swatted,” she said in the video that addresses the aftermath of the incident. “That was an intent to harm me and my family.”
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