Shroud's Streaming Slam Has Fans Divided

Few things produce as much controversy as online streaming. The space is dominated by tons of personalities, both big and small, looking to carve out their own niche and possibly even make a career out of it. One of the most popular streamers today is Shroud, a competitive gamer known primarily for his insane abilities on first-person shooter games, with particular plaudits going to his rapid-quick aim. For the most part, Shroud — whose real name is Michael Grzesiek — has mostly avoided controversy to this point. Barring the extremely rare meltdown, Shroud is typically level-headed and calm when approaching things on-stream. However, he isn't immune to fan backlash, and one recent comment has his fans divided.

For the uninitiated, Shroud formerly played for eSports team Cloud9 from 2013 to 2018, where he quickly became one of the best "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive" players in the world. Despite his success, Shroud has quit playing "CS: GO" and has moved to streaming full-time beginning in 2018, where he has enjoyed even more success, garnering near 10 million subscribers on Twitch and even getting a multi-million dollar deal with the short-lived Mixer platform. 

In a recent stream, Shroud responded to a follower who asked if he would ever consider a return to competitive gaming (per TheGamer). The Canadian streaming sensation was quick to quash rumors about any return to the eSports scene, saying that it feels like work, while streaming feels like play. This take on streaming has divided people on social media, with some suggesting it downplays the difficulties in streaming.

When explaining why he won't return to the competitive eSports scene, Shroud said it's because "working sucks" and that he'd rather just continue streaming. "You guys got to realize, I don't like work," Shroud said on his Dec. 6 stream. "That's why I stream. I don't like work. Working sucks. So, if there's anything that requires some work and some effort, I'm probably not going to do it."

Shroud elaborated further after another follower pointed out that streaming itself could be considered work, given that Shroud does it as a career. "Streaming is work? No, it's not f***ing work — it's a ... joke," he quipped in response. "Look, I'm sitting here doing nothing. I'm literally doing nothing." This caused a bit of a rift on social media, with people discussing the merits of Shroud's take on streaming as one's primary source of income. "Streaming is like any other job," one commenter on Twitter said. "Really tough starting out and when you get to a certain point, people work for you and then you sit back and reap the benefits of their hard work." In response, another observer agreed with Shroud's take, saying that he "sits there and play[s] games," and that others should "stop trying to make it complicated."