Richard Tyler Blevins[2] (born June 5, 1991), more commonly known by his online alias Ninja or NinjasHyper, is an American Twitch streamer and Internet personality. As of October 27, 2018, he is the most followed streamer on Twitch with over eleven million followers and an average of over 59,000 viewers per stream.[3][4]
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Career
Blevins was born Richard Tyler Blevins to American parents of Welsh descent.[5]Though born in the Detroit area, he moved with his family to the Chicago suburbswhen he was a year old.[6] Blevins' youth in the Chicago suburbs included video games and sports. He attended Grayslake Central High School, where he played soccer, and was also an avid video game player. Upon graduation, he decided to play video games professionally, entering tournaments, joining professional organizations, and live streaming his games.[7]
Blevins began playing Halo 3professionally in 2009.[8] He played for various teams including Cloud9, Renegades, Team Liquid,[9] and is currently with Luminosity Gaming.[10]Blevins became a streamer in 2011.[6] He began playing H1Z1, then moved to PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. He joined Luminosity Gaming in 2017 first as a Halo player, then to H1Z1, later moving to PUBG, where he won the PUBGGamescom Invitational Squads classification. He began streaming Fortnite regularly and his viewership began to grow, which coincided with the game's growth in popularity.[9] In September 2017, he had 500,000 followers; in six months, that number grew by 250 percent.[11] In March 2018, Blevins set the Twitch record for a single individual stream while playing Fortniteafter he hosted a game with Drake, Travis Scott, and Juju Smith-Schuster.[12] In April 2018, he broke his own viewing record during his event Ninja Vegas 2018 where he accumulated an audience of 667,000 live viewers.[13]
Blevins has over 17 million subscribers on YouTube as of September 2018. He earns over $500,000 per month from streaming Fortnite, and credits the game's free-to-playbusiness model as a growth factor.[14]
On June 17, 2018, Blevins announced that he had partnered with Red Bull Esports. He also mentioned in the announcement that fans could challenge him at a special Fortnite event called the "Red Bull Rise Till Dawn" in Chicago on July 21, 2018.[15]
In September 2018, Blevins became the first professional eSports player to be featured on the cover of ESPN The Magazine, marking a breakthrough into mainstream sports fame.[16][6]
Charitable work
In a fundraising charity stream held in February 2018, Blevins raised over $110,000 to be donated to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.[20] During the first Fortnite Battle Royale Esports event in April 2018, Blevins gave away nearly $50,000 in prize money, with $2,500 of that going to the Alzheimer's Association.[21] Later in April, he participated in the #Clips4Kids event with other fellow streamers Dr.Lupo and Timthetatman, and in total, he helped raise over $340,000.[22] At E3 2018, Blevins and Marshmello won the Fortnite Pro-Am event and donated $1 million to a charity of their choice.[23]
Personal life
Blevins' family was featured in several episodes of the television game show Family Feud in 2015. According to The Brillion News, Blevins was the reason he and his team were able to make it onto the show.[24]
Controversy
Blevins stated in an interview at a Samsung event with Polygon that he does not stream with female gamers out of respect for his marriage and to avoid the rumors that the streaming could create.[25] He received mixed reactions; some said that he should set the example and not make it more difficult for female streamers to rise to prominence, while others supported his stance, claiming that he should be allowed to do what he wants to protect his marriage.[26][27] Blevins issued a response to the critics, reaffirming his support for gender equality and restating his commitment to his marriage, this time mentioning some prominent female streamers by name.[28] He has also made clear that women are welcome to play with him in a group or at events, saying that such situations allow him to "control the narrative more, without stupid drama and rumors flooding into our lives."[6]
In addition, on March 27, while in a stream with Nadeshot, he played and rapped out Logic’s 44 More. In the process of rapping, however, he used the word ‘nigga’ while attempting to rap out the song lyrics, which originally did not include the word ‘nigga’. It sparked controversy across his watching community and the public.[29]
Around mid-November, while Ninja was streaming with his friend, he was shot dead in-game by a user named IcyFive. After he died, his friend commented on the situation by saying to ‘watch out for the emote’. This was because it was a common situation to celebrate by using an in-game dance (known as an emote) after killing notable players such as Ninja. After he said it, the player instantly danced. Ninja, being revengeful, reported the player for ‘stream sniping’. This meant to follow a famous player and track and hunt them down while them being in-game, this gaining fame in-stream. However, this was clearly not the case in this situation. The situation was met with backlash because of Ninja's false accusations of the player. The player then responded with a series of tweets to reply on the situation.[30]
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