The Untold Truth Of Summit1g

Summit1g, born into the world as Jaryd Lazar, is a popular Twitch streamer who previously made his living as a professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player. He's known best these days for streaming games like PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, along with a smattering of other titles. And he's also known for the huge social following he's cultivated: over three million people follow his Twitch channel to catch his streams, and over half a million follow his Twitter feed to keep up with his thoughts on gaming and life. But there's a bit more to Summit1g than you could possibly get from a short bio — lesser known facts that are far more interesting and help give you the full story of this popular gamer.

Below, you'll find a collection of these untold truths, which cover Summit1g's triumphs, failures, and missteps. By the end, you'll know even more about the player that's been lighting up the Twitch charts and making a name for himself outside of professional gaming.

It's often said that overnight successes are rarely that, and the hard work that someone puts in before they succeed often goes unnoticed. In Summit1g's case, he can boast that he's one of the most-followed Twitch streamers on the platform right now, and while he's picked up more steam as of late, he's actually been working at it for quite some time.

SocialBlade, a website that tracks the statistics for large streamers on Twitch, shows that Summit1g had as few as 51,000 followers back in October 2013. But two years later, in October 2015, he'd crossed the million mark. That's when the snowball really started to roll down the hill — or, in this case, up the hill. At press time, Summit1g currently has about 3.2 million Twitch followers and over 227 million channel views.

If you play video games on the regular, there's a good chance you've made an embarrassing mistake or two. Think back, and you can probably recall an instance where you've accidentally killed yourself with a rocket launcher, or fallen off a multiplayer map, or scored an own goal. But you probably can't recall a time where a video game error cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars, right?

Summit1g, unfortunately, does not have that luxury.

Playing at the DreamHack Open for CS:GO in 2016, Summit1g and his team were leading a match they had a very good shot at winning. But disaster struck when Summit mistakenly killed himself with a Molotov cocktail. His team went on to lose, and any chance at the prize money from the tournament — $250,000 — burned away. Summit1g took it all in stride, and a meme that still lives on via his Twitch fans serves as a reminder: be really, really careful with the Molotov cocktail.

Twitch has created a lot of opportunities for gamers like Summit1g, but one of the worst things the platform has made popular is swatting. When a streamer is swatted, it means a viewer has called the police in that streamer's hometown and lied about a violent scene that requires law enforcement intervention. In Summit1g's case, he wound up having guns pointed at him.

Summit was streaming the game Pokemon GO, which had become popular that summer, when he and a friend were approached by officers. There had apparently been a call to the local police station claiming that someone was walking around the park Summit was in with an AK-47 assault rifle. Police questioned Summit and his friend and eventually let them go about their business, but Summit stated afterward that he'd seen several officers with weapons trained on him.

"They had a guy across on the other side of the trail pointing rifles at us, and I think they had two cops at the car pointing rifles at us," he said. "It's kind of scary."

Jake Paul and his brother, Logan, are internet infamous. Jake started on the video-focused Twitter offshoot known as Vine before making his way to YouTube, where he now publishes videos that show him burning furniture and performing other disruptive stunts. His neighbors hate him, and so do seemingly tons of other people online — including many of Summit1g's fans. Summit found this out the hard way.

Back in April 2018, Summit decided to stream a few rounds of Fortnite with Jake Paul and several of Paul's friends. Had Paul been another streamer, Summit's fans might not have blinked an eye. But this was Jake Paul, one half of a duo that the Twitch community has not wanted to embrace. Many fans revolted, with some even telling Summit that he lost them as fans after the stream.

Summit put up a tweet that expressed his disappointment in his fan base, but he later deleted the tweet and went back to his normal streaming ways.

In June 2018, the E3 conference played host to the Fortnite Pro-Am, a tournament where celebrities and streamers teamed up to play the game's popular Battle Royale mode. And Summit1g, as a prominent Twitch streamer and former professional gamer, was invited to the event, where he was set to team up with Kenneth Faried of the NBA's Denver Nuggets. The event came and went, though, and there was no Summit present at the Pro-Am, which led many of his fans to wonder what happened.

As it turns out, his absence became a topic of discussion in the official Summit1g subreddit, where fans in the know clued others in to his whereabouts. Summit had pulled out of the Pro-Am for personal reasons, with some citing his need to get more sleep. The tournament went on regardless, with Ninja and music producer Marshmello taking home the prize.

It's not uncommon for video game publishers and small indie developers to find success thanks to online influencers. In fact, some make it a point to provide YouTubers and Twitch streamers with free codes in the hopes that their game makes it into a Let's Play video or a Twitch stream. In the case of Black Desert Online, it picked up traction in the West thanks in large part to Summit1g and his streams, but the studio behind the game never made a push to get Summit playing. Instead, it was Summit's fans who got him hooked.

At the time Summit picked up Black Desert Online, he was looking for a new game to stream but was at a loss for what to choose. Fans in his Twitch stream asked him constantly to pick up BSO, and after some hesitation, he relented — and actually enjoyed it.

The impact for the game itself was noticeable. BSO added several thousand additional players per day after Summit started streaming it.

Does the name Chandler Riggs ring a bell? If not, you've probably never seen The Walking Dead, which means you're not familiar with Riggs' character, Carl Grimes. In the world of The Walking Dead, Carl is an annoying kid who can't help but put himself in crappy situations. In real life, though, the actor is pretty much a normal kid: he's a huge fan of Fortnite, and he knows the big names streaming the game.

Back in March 2018, Riggs put out the call on Twitter to Summit1g, Shroud, and Dr. DisRespect, inviting them to play some Fortnite with him. To his credit, he sold himself while displaying a bit of humility, stating that he wasn't "as cool as Drake" but was better at battle royale games. Summit, Shroud, and Chadd answered the call, playing with Riggs just a few days later.

It just goes to show that, in this changing media landscape, Twitch streamers are basically celebrities themselves. And they have celebrity fans to boot.

If you play online games, the odds are good that you've experienced trash talk in one form or another. But that trash talk — the kind that takes place in matchmaking lobbies and during intense gunfights — isn't quite the kind Summit got when he went on stage at an H1Z1 Pro League event in April 2018.

Summit stepped in front of the crowd to play a little H1Z1 against a group of opponents looking to take him down. But what made this particular match different was the fact that actress Michelle Rodriguez joined him on stage. The setup was that Summit was supposed to be teaching Michelle how to play the game while he was playing, but what actually wound up happening was far more hilarious. Rodriguez roasted him the entire time he was playing with things like, "They're getting you from everywhere!" and "You're dying more than you're killing people!" It was a fun moment — one that Summit likely won't forget.

Summit1g isn't the only streamer that has made a huge name for himself as of late. There are other streamers who've made the move from professional gaming into the world of streaming on Twitch, and one of those people is Michael Grzesiek, also known as Shroud. And according to Shroud himself, he has Summit to thank for giving him the inspiration to change careers and try his hand at streaming on Twitch.

Shroud gave an interview to HTC in which he talked about his beginnings in the streaming space, admitting that when he first started out, he didn't have many viewers. He watched Summit play, took note of how much Summit streamed, and kept at it. Eventually he was rewarded with Summit-esque numbers himself, and now counts himself as one of the most popular streamers in the world. The two are now two of the best examples of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players who've successfully pivoted from playing professionally to playing as entertainment.