Trigger Warning: This article contains mentions of Sex Trafficking.
The controversial streamer, Fousey, has found himself under the almighty Twitch ban hammer for the second time in a month.
Sometimes, streaming platform, Twitch, can be a little too quick to pass a harsh sentence. The streaming site is notorious for shooting first and asking questions later. On the other hand, its zero-tolerance policy is good at weeding out the rotten eggs within the community. The question is, which of these categories does Fousey fall under?
The internet celebrity has been making content for well over a decade at this point, initially rising to fame creating prank videos that garnered controversy as far back as 2016 being called out by the likes of Ethan Klein, (aka H3H3). Of course, his content has evolved and adapted to the times; while his YouTube channel sits at 10 million subscribers, he’s also dipped his toe into the world of streaming. Although it’s safe to say that it’s not going too well for him so far as he’s already been banned twice.
His first ban came on the 21st of July — the reason behind it was not exactly clear, although the ban did come during a vital time in his channel’s growth. Fousey was partaking in a 24-hour subathon — he had been continually streaming for 21 days when his account was banned for three days for supposedly violating community guidelines.
Once he was allowed back on the platform, the subathon continued, however, the nonstop stream was marred with multiple controversies that may have been contributing factors in the latest ban. In one case on August 1st, whilst singing along to a rap song, Fousey repeated a racial slur. He did immediately apologize on stream and later issued another apology on Twitter, seemingly proving that he felt genuine remorse.
But less than a week later, he slipped up again, and this time it was much worse. A livestream from August 6th shows Fousey talking with an intoxicated woman at an airport where Fousey asks to take a picture of himself and the woman kissing to send to his Discord chat. He laughs, saying, “They’re gonna cancel me for this,” after which the woman admits to being a victim of sex trafficking.
The couple talks for a little while longer, and Fousey sends her $300 and makes a point of showing this to his audience while the woman is still recounting the details of her story to him. After this, Fousey and the woman disappear off-camera for around 20 minutes before he reappears, laughing as he tells his audience what just happened: “I just joined the mile-high club, in the airport, in the men’s bathroom.”
When the audience inevitably turned on him, he went back on his words pretty fast, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m lying, I’m lying by the way, it’s a joke.” Of course, for many fans of the YouTuber/streamer, this was the last straw. While it’s not confirmed as the reason for the ban, it seems pretty coincidental that his ban came less than 24 hours later.
Long-time viewers of his content claim that this is all too familiar behavior from the celebrity as they shared their own opinions regarding the matter on Reddit.
“Same cycle keeps just repeating over and over, he can’t seem to let go off the past and be a normal human being, it’s insane how fast this guy destroys everything that’s good for him by just being a [terrible person], it’s like he’s not fully conscious sometimes like some ego robot is just driving him.”
“What a [stupid] moron. Dude just couldn’t keep it to himself, he just HAD to tell the whole world everything he did. Even then he immediately realized and tried to say it was a joke.”
“This guy had a whirlwind 3 week career”
After this stream, Fousey announced that he would be stepping back from streaming for a while to focus on his mental health.
And then, he got banned anyway. The ban is temporary, but there’s no word on how long it will be as of yet. Twitch’s scorched earth policy regarding the breaking of community guidelines sometimes catches innocent streamers in the crossfire, but there’s no doubt that Fousey is exactly the kind of person that shouldn’t be allowed on the platform.
Of course, as I mentioned previously, the entertainer has a habit of getting himself into hot water online. His prank videos from several years ago were always drawing criticism and ire from the online community. It seems that although his content has changed somewhat over the years, the man himself has experienced next to no personal growth whatsoever.
