Gamers That Can't Stand Ninja

Tyler "Ninja" Blevins has long been a controversial figure in the gaming industry. Though he's brought a lot of joy and entertainment to his fans over the years while streaming Fortnite and other popular titles, he's also rubbed some people the wrong way. Sometimes this has occurred due to his own actions, while other times it seems folks just have it out for him.

The streamer made headlines last year when he moved from Twitch to Microsoft's Mixer. He reportedly signed a lucrative contract with Microsoft that will keep him comfortable and in the limelight for the foreseeable future. However, this level of success has come with its share of enemies. Though arguably one of the most successful streamers, he's not beloved by everyone. In fact, it appears more than a few gamers can't stand Ninja. 

Here's a look at Ninja's more notable critics in the gaming world and the circumstances that drew their ire.

Ninja might not have a more long-standing and ugly feud than the one with Tfue. It's escalated to the point that Tfue has challenged Ninja to an MMA fight. So, what happened?

Well, it's kind of hard to pin down. Tfue has mentioned on more than one occasion he considers Ninja to be his rival. "No matter how nice I am to the kid, he's always hated me," claimed the streamer. "So, I don't really know what to tell you guys, but I don't really care."

The feud seems to stem from a vague incident in which Tfue claims Ninja attempted to get his Twitch account banned. Ninja has denied this allegation and Tfue hasn't offered any proof. Still, it's obvious there's no love lost between the two. You normally don't challenge someone to a physical fight if there isn't any beef, though, it could simply be a publicity stunt.

Fortnite is kind of Ninja's bread and butter, so the streamer is extremely protective of the game. When Twitch streamer Brett "Dakotaz" Hoffman tweeted, "Fortnite is hot garbage right now," Ninja stepped in to defend the title. The exchange quickly got heated, with Ninja reading and responding to comments from Dakotaz while streaming. The argument culminated in Ninja saying, "You are so [expletive] stupid if you think this game is trash." 

Not long after, Dakotaz blocked Ninja on Twitter. In a tweet explaining why, he wrote, "Ninja got blocked because lots of opinions happen on my twitter and I don't need a snowflake sending his 12 year old army on me every time he does not agree. Simple!"

Dakotaz's move finally put an end to the back and forth between the two gamers. Others, including Ninja's wife and manager, Jessica Blevins, took up the mantel in Ninja's defense. Streamers such as Corinna Kopf were less sympathetic.

Ninja has streamed with a few big names in the past, some of whom come from other areas of entertainment outside of gaming. He taught Mark Hamill the ropes in Fortnite and won big partnering with Marshmello. Possibly Ninja's biggest get came when he streamed with Drake, Travis Scott, and a few other musical artists. This 2018 streamer broke a record for most concurrent viewers on Twitch and kicked off a trend of celebrities joining Twitch to check out all the hype.

Since then, Drake and Ninja have apparently had something of a falling out. Ninja insinuated Drake used him to get new followers, saying, "I feel like Drake saw that I was up-and-coming in the gaming scene, and he thought it would be a perfect way to just tap into another source of viewers by playing with me."

Drake shortly unfollowed Ninja on Instagram, after which Ninja said Drake still owes him $5,000 for the bet placed during their match. There seems to be some bad blood between the two. How wild would it be if Drake dropped a diss track about Ninja?

Last year, songwriter and actress Lady Gaga made headlines when she asked her Twitter followers one simple thing: "What's fortnight?" The responses were immediate, with the internet collectively losing its mind. One person who seemed unfazed by this was Ninja, who invited Lady Gaga to stream with him sometime. Gaga was even more confused by this, asking, "@Ninja who are you?"

Streamer Kaceytron stepped in at this point. She referenced Ninja's previous statements regarding his discomfort streaming with female gamers, tweeting, "He's one of the most popular streamers on the internet and he doesn't support women as he has publicly announced he will never duo stream with any woman, I guess unless it benefits him." 

This erupted into an argument between Ninja and Kaceytron, during which Ninja wrote, "I will continue to support everyone in gaming while you get baked on stream." Though the conflict ended with Kaceytron publicly apologizing, the exchange doesn't seem nearly as "playful" as the two might like you to believe.

Back in 2018, Ninja accused Fortnite player IcyFive of "stream sniping," which is what happens when someone watches another player's livestream for the express purpose of finding and killing them in-game. Ninja eventually apologized to IcyFive, but the trouble didn't stop there. This little tiff prompted a viral Reddit post that shared a video from another player, Chera, who accused Ninja of getting him wrongfully banned.

According to Newsweek, Chera had actually exaggerated the issue and in fact had two different Fortnite accounts. Though Ninja reported one of his accounts in the past, Ninja actually had nothing to do with the account that was banned. However, folks in the Reddit thread were more than happy to dogpile on Ninja in the comments. The original Reddit post gained over 30,000 upvotes before the news came out that it was allegedly misleading. 

At the time, Newsweek concluded, "Hating Ninja has become a popular trend over the last few months. His subscriber count has taken a severe dive in the second half of 2018." While Ninja eventually recovered from the controversy, it was an ugly situation all around.

Pretty much everyone was shocked when Ninja moved from Twitch to Mixer. However, fellow streamer Gross Gore had some particularly strong words to say in response to Ninja's platform change. In a profanity-filled video, he called Ninja a "sellout." He also accused Ninja of abandoning the platform that he'd built his career on without a care, simply being in it for the money.

A few months after Gross Gore posted that video, Ninja mentioned in an interview that he had seen it, but only about "the first 30 seconds." He says he didn't watch the entire video and shot back with his own criticisms of Gross Gore. This set Gross Gore off, who posted yet another video in which he called Ninja several coarse names and made more disparaging remarks about Mixer. That was about it for this feud, but after so much name-calling from both streamers, the two likely won't reconcile anytime soon.

Kurt0411 doesn't usually have anything nice to say about anyone, so it's no surprise that he's butted heads with Ninja in the past. Still, it's notable to see a beef like this play out between two high profile streamers. 

What set Kurt0411 off in this instance was Ninja's insistence that he could become good at playing FIFA (Kurt's game of choice) in a week's time. Kurt0411 responded by sharing a gif of Ninja looking angry at a loss. He added "Ninja after he clicks a button and nothing happens. Stick to playing games which have no delay, no dynamic difficulty adjustment and no broken mechanics."

Kurt0411 has also insinuated EA stiffed FIFA players prize money they were owed, instead giving it to Ninja to promote Apex Legends. Conspiracy theories aside, it's clear that Kurt0411 has very little love for Ninja or the kinds of games he plays. 

Reverse2k was Ninja's longtime Fortnite Duos partner, but that all came to a sputtering halt in the first few months of 2020. During a stream, Reverse2k made a joke about Ninja's move to Mixer, which Ninja didn't take well at all. Much to the surprise of the other people on the stream, Ninja blew up at Reverse2k, demanding an apology and swearing up a storm. According to Ninja, he felt like Reverse2k was implying he'd made a bad decision by moving to Mixer.

Very shortly after this heated exchange, Reverse2k tweeted, "All good things come to an end." Things went quiet between the two for a while, but it seems like Reverse2k is done with Ninja at this point. A couple of months after the incident, Ninja announced that he had a new Duos partner. Some fans weren't happy with the change. As one fan tweeted, "Reverse literally wasted a year of his life playing with ninja."