Black streamer speaks out after getting more viewers when pretending to be white

A Black streamer has opened up about his experience of racial inequality in the industry, revealing he received three times as many viewers when he was pretending to be white.

Twitch streamer Just Relax Kid, whose real name is Zach, is a relative veteran in the streaming world, having been on the platform for 10 years. For nine years, he has also been officially partnered with the site.

He is primarily a gaming streamer, typically filming himself while playing a game so users can watch him react in real-time.

But, when Zach decided to use an animated generic picture of a bearded white man to stream, he found that his views went up.

In a post on X/Twitter, he explained: “I really got 3x more viewers since I took off my cam and decided to be a white man.”

Another post showed visual proof and revealed that when he played with his camera rolling, his videos achieved between around 200 to 800 views.

When he played with the white man as his picture, the views appeared to skyrocket into the thousands, with one getting almost 22.5k views.

People were saddened by the findings, with one person writing: “I spoke about this a while ago and I wanted someone to experiment to see if I was just talking nonsense.

“I was definitely right and sucks to see in a sense.”

Since his discovery, Zach revealed that many Black creators have stopped streaming with their cameras on to try and get more views.

He told Dexerto: “Honestly, I’m hurt, cause of all these Black creators who were like, ‘I’m not using my camera anymore. I’m not doing it. And they were serious.

“So, I feel bad, because I feel like I’m kind of responsible for that. I don’t want people feeling shame just for being who they are.”

Zach stopped short of saying the discrepancy in views was “racist” which angered some in the Black community.

He revealed: “I was getting hate from everywhere, from Black people and white people. White people were mad at me because they said I was screaming racism, but Black people were mad at me because I wasn’t screaming racism.”

Zach also suggested that to be successful on Twitch as a Black person, you have to “be a certain type of Black”.

“How I see it, is that you gotta be a certain type of Black to get those opportunities,” he explained. “You either have to be like ‘watered-down Black,’ if that makes sense – you know, you’re just Black, but you don’t show any Blackness, in a sense.”

Zach added: “Or, you have to be making an a** of yourself. You gotta be making a movie, entertainment. It has to be like Hollywood every time you stream. Someone like Kai Cenat. Like, you have to make an a** of yourself on a regular basis just to get [recognised], you know what I’m saying?”

indy100 has contacted Twitch for comment.

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