Professional Fortnite player and world famous streamer Tyler "Ninja" Blevins has caused quite a stir online after telling players to not stop getting angry after losing games. Ninja is one of the most popular streamers in the world, and is widely regarded as a forefront face of Epic Games' Fortnite. He's also one of the most financially successful gamers in the world, evident by reports that Mixer paid him $20 $30 million to leave Twitch and join their streaming platform.
This isn't the first time that Ninja has stoked the ire of users on the internet, just a few months ago he was roasted for saying that he doesn't understand how NFL kickers miss kicks. Before that, he was widely criticized for refusing to stream games with female players. Ninja's defense for not playing with female gamers was that he hoped to avoid online harassment, an explanation that failed to satisfy critics. Despite all of the controversies, Ninja has continued to draw huge interest, and has eclipsed PewDiePie as the highest paid "gamer" in the world.
Ninja's latest hot take has incited lots of outrage on Twitter. In talking about the phrase "it's just a game" Ninja says that the term is a "weak mindset" and that gamers shouldn't be "ok" with losing. His advice to aspiring esports players is that "There’s always something to learn, and always room for improvement, never settle" which is admittedly a good willed sentiment.
Further down the thread, Ninja explains that he doesn't want players to react with physical violence like "throwing a keyboard" or "punching a wall" after a loss. Instead, he implies that gamers should use the act of losing as fuel to get better as a competitor. Still, Ninja's clarification did little to sway the opinion of a wide swath of Twitter users, many of whom responded with memes, and a smaller contingency with well-worded rebuttals.
It should be noted that there's some good advice hidden in Ninja's words, that is there's no harm in wanting to get better as a person and a competitor, in fact, it should be encouraged that everybody do so. But the problem with Ninja's wording is that the emphasis is placed on using anger as a motivator when that's not always the right thing to do, especially when considering that a large portion of his audience are kids. It's become increasingly difficult for streamers to balance their responsibility as entertainers, players and educators, because at the end of the day, the things that they say do have a profound impact on impressionable audiences. Considering this, perhaps Ninja should consider an alternate perspective, such as the saying goes, not everything is a competition.
Source: Ninja/Twitter