Asmongold, one of the most popular streamers on Twitch for over half a decade, began his week with a racist rant against Palestinians and then evidently spent at least part of it doing some soul searching. On Wednesday, he announced that he plans to step away from leadership duties at OTK, a streamer organization he co-founded, as well as Starforge, a PC company he co-owns. He also intends on streaming less. His goal: self improvement.
"I've been an asshole,” he said in a YouTube video posted yesterday. “I think that I've devolved for the last two years. I think that I've negatively affected other people too, in ways that I hate– I don't even hate to say this. I think I need to say this. I need to say it more: I've negatively affected people in ways that I regret."
He also discussed his experience of the past few days, since his rant went viral.
"I'm getting all these people making negative comments toward me,” Asmongold said. “Everyone is telling me 'Oh, go kill yourself, I hate you' – everything like this. You know who reached out to me? And they wanted to talk and have a conversation and see if I was OK? People that were Islamic and people that had family in fucking Palestine. How humiliating is that? How absolutely humiliating is that? And these are the people I was trying to say were bad. I feel like such a fucking stupid asshole."
On a longer timescale, he hopes to visit the Middle East and “see it for myself.”
“The truth is, and this is the worst thing about what I said, some of the places I would want to visit, I might not be able to because of the internal strife,” he said. “The actual, literal wars that are going on – people being literally killed there – and I might not be able to [go there]. But I want to do it for myself, because I don't like believing what people tell me. I think that when I do, I end up being a fool. And I want to see it. I want to see it for myself and experience it.”
It is a whiplash-inducing about face for Asmongold, whose comments earlier this week got him suspended from Twitch and also prompted statements from OTK, Starforge, and affiliated indie publisher Mad Mushroom, as well as a lengthy missive from OTK CEO Tips Out, who is of Syrian descent. (OTK, which also includes other big names like Mizkif, Esfand, and Emiru, began in 2020 with a core crew of edgier streamers but has spent the intervening period chasing brand-friendly legitimacy via the aforementioned additional companies, as well as regular events like an annual award show. This is not its first controversy.)
“If you want to consider a genocide as a systematic killing of a group of people, they have genocide built into Sharia Law right now,” Asmongold said during his initial Monday stream. “So no I’m not going to cry a fucking river when people who have genocide that’s baked into their laws are getting genocided. I don’t give a fuck. They’re terrible people. It’s not even a question. It’s crazy people don’t see it that way. They’d be doing the same thing.”
He also insisted that Palestinian culture was “inferior” when compared to Western cultures. Negative reaction from the Twitch community was swift.
"Hey Asmongold, what about my 'culture' makes it okay to genocide my friends/family?" CapriSunnPapi, a Palestinian and Lebanese streamer, said on Twitter, echoing a sentiment shared by many others.
You know who reached out to me? And they wanted to talk and have a conversation and see if I was OK? People that were Islamic and people that had family in fucking Palestine. How humiliating is that?
Also on Monday, Asmongold proceeded to spend hours navigating the labyrinth of contradictions that is his worldview with leftist politics streamer Hasan “HasanAbi” Piker, who to his credit largely used the conversation as a teachable moment. In the face of Piker’s history lesson about Israel’s decades-long oppression of Palestine and how something like that can take people’s focus away from social progress, Asmongold repeatedly argued that Palestinian culture is nonetheless inferior because Hamas is incredibly regressive when it comes to issues like queer rights – never mind that Hamas is not Palestine and that Palestine’s people are not a monolith.
This is the same Asmongold who has spent the better part of a year crusading against perceived “DEI” initiatives in games, something that has involved whipping millions of viewers into a frenzy over so-called “woke” games, which often include queer characters or explore queer themes. During his conversation with Piker, Asmongold seemed to care more about people’s freedom to practice or express LGBTQ+ ideas than said people – something which, in fairness, he acknowledged has been eroded in the United States, potentially turning America’s culture “inferior” as well. Despite clear evidence that cultures change over time for good and for ill, however, Asmongold expressed skepticism that such a thing could happen in Palestine, even if its people were not under the threat of constant violence and oppression. He also spoke in the sorts of absolutes characteristic of somebody who spends too much time online and not enough time touching grass.
"I agree with you that [Palestinians cheering when those oppressing them are harmed] is understandable,” Asmongold said to Piker. “But I think that understandable bad behavior in a lot of cases is still, in fact, bad behavior. It's impossible to know what somebody else would do in a circumstance they're not part of, but what I do know is, when I see a group of people that are celebrating a bunch of innocent people getting killed, then I think that group of people is doing something that's wrong. And I think that it's universally wrong."
"You'd be the one teenager in Gaza being like 'Hold on, guys. Let's not celebrate the Iranian retaliation against this country that has, like, literally eviscerated my family,’" replied Piker.
“I would be cheering it on,” said Asmongold. “I’d be like ‘Yes! Fuck yes!’ But I wouldn’t be sitting on a soapbox, saying that I’m the good guy.”
“They’re not the good guys in this situation,” said Piker. “They’re the victims, and that’s the point.”
Perhaps seeing more of the world will help Asmongold recognize the complexity of these situations – and of the real human beings who’ve experienced them, rather than the hypothetical concepts of human beings. Disavowing some of his own preconceived notions, as he did in today’s video, is a solid first step. Demonstrations of contrition like this are rare on today’s internet – especially from big-time content creators with millions of followers who’ve espoused reactionary viewpoints – which means they’re more important than ever. There’s also evidence that they can move the needle for viewers. Stories of far-right radicalization via content creators are common, but de-radicalization happens too. Piker even used it as an example of people – and, as a result, cultures – changing during his conversation with Asmongold.
"There's a shit ton of people that are in my community that used to be right wing on one issue or many other issues that have, over time, understood and demonstrated empathy and have changed their minds on these issues – and no longer consider themselves to be conservative,” Piker said.
If Asmongold is curtailing some of his own worst behaviors, that could prove good for the many viewers who look up to him, too. In addition to pernicious reactionary stances, Asmongold has over the years become synonymous with a brand of messy degeneracy that even he, himself, has acknowledged. In his new video, he acknowledged that he’s over-prioritized his online life at the expense of all else.
"Streaming is my entire life,” he said. “Doing this is my entire existence, and I think that the process of that has been extremely unhealthy for me. It's allowed me to become such a one-dimensional person that I'm not even a person anymore. It's like in Dark Souls; I'm going Hollow or something. … I’m going to try to clean up part of my house, and I’m not going to hire a cleaner."
"I think I need to do this for myself,” he continued. “I need to take accountability for things that I've done and for letting my life get this out of control. ... I want to live for the idiots out there who are looking to me to be a role model. Not a good idea! But there are people that will see that and they'll think maybe to themselves 'Maybe I should do the same thing.' And if I can do that for one person, well, I've already done it for myself. I've already done a good thing, and so it can only get better."
Many viewers are excited to see Asmongold clean up his act, in some cases literally.
“Cleaning room stream would be the most viewed of all time,” reads one YouTube comment with over 7,000 upvotes.
If you think that means my first stream back is going to be playing Dustborn and promoting Sweet Baby, I think you'll be very disappointed.
But for these measures to be effective, they must be considered and consistent. Asmongold’s ability to stick with them remains in question. It doesn’t help that the audience Asmongold has built up by publishing anti-”woke” ragebait has, predictably, reacted to his apology with horror and shock.
“Never apologize to the mob,” reads one comment on his video with over 11,000 upvotes.
In the video, Asmongold urged viewers to hold him accountable – to drag him back onto the path to decency if he once again goes astray.
"I hope that this is the next part of the rest of my life, and I want you guys to hold me accountable to that,” Asmongold said. “So if I'm being a fucking asshole again – if I'm being mean, if I'm just being callous, acting like a psychopath, just treating people awfully, outside of a WoW raid when they get killed by fire, but really laughing at people's misfortune – try to say 'Man, just chill the fuck out. Stop it. Just stop.' And I'm gonna do my best to listen."
But the problem with Asmongold’s audience is that it is, well, Asmongold’s audience. Listening to them is, to some degree, how Asmongold got here in the first place. He acknowledged that issue earlier in the same video.
"When you get lost in the sauce and you get fixated around listening [to] and reading feedback – just getting hyper-fixated; this is, like, your entire life – you lose a perspective on reality," he said. "And you lose a perspective on the world."
Streamers are often emboldened by their own self-created echo chambers, and Asmongold has built a machine that’s at odds with his new goals. After reactions to the video flooded in on Wednesday, Asmongold published a post to his subreddit titled “Why Apologize?” In it, he further outlined why he felt he’d reached a breaking point, but also made sure to add that “if you think that means my first stream back is going to be playing Dustborn and promoting Sweet Baby, I think you'll be very disappointed.”
“Take a break,” one fan wrote in response. “Us Chuds will be here waiting for you to make streaming great again.”
“Don't worry, I'll react to a DEI=DIE gaming video first day back to stream,” Asmongold replied.
“Thank God,” replied another fan. “I hope this side of you never change[s].”
