An Argentinian Twitch streamer that goes by the name Kylorren_lol is experiencing online backlash after directing racist remarks at a Korean streamer.
What happened: Kylorren, a small creator in the Spanish-speaking “Genshin” community, went live on the social media platform after a discussion ensued on Twitter about the “Genshin Impact” video game character Keqing. He made racially offensive comments about fellow streamer Tenha and Chinese people to his 7,500 followers during this live stream, according to Sportskeeda.
- Tenha is a “Genshin Impact” YouTuber who makes content about the Chinese free-to-play gacha video game and currently has 331,000 subscribers. On Sept. 5, he uploaded a video about the hard-to-summon, five-star character Keqing titled “How I accidentally made the BEST Keqing on YouTube.”
- Tenha has previously claimed in an earlier video that Keqing was not the best character to use on her own, which had angered a lot of players who mainly use her, including Kylorren.
- Tenha claiming that his Keqing was the “best” seemingly challenged Kylorren, a Keqing main. He tweeted to Tenha in Spanish saying, “My C0 or @tenhaatv’s C6. It will be exciting to see if you like Keqing and bring out her full potential.” Tenha showed his audience this now-deleted tweet in his YouTube video addressing the situation.
- Tenha declined the invitation and also asked Kylorren to not react to his video in full, but to instead show a screenshot of the damage that Tenha’s Keqing did in the video.
- After this exchange, in a Spanish-language livestream response seemingly directed at Tenha, Kylorren said, “Asians are like that. Well yes, the truth is, friend. Because I work for Chinese people and they are the worst. The worst people in the world. Excuse me, really, because not all are the same, but working with Chinese people is the worst in the world.”
- He then read aloud a comment on his stream that said, “He put the cap on the chinaman,” after which he responded, “Yes, he’s a son of a b*tch.”
- He ended his tirade by saying that he wanted to send Tenha, a Korean man, 100 bits — a currency on Twitch — in order to say, “You sh*tty chinaman.”
Racism should not be tolerated in Genshin, let alone anywhere.
It’s incredibly worrying that there are communities that encourage racist behaviour so openly to harrass other content creators.
Shame on you @kylor_ren.
I hope @TwitchSupport and @YouTubeCreators take action. pic.twitter.com/WQjqacbAdv
— Atsu (@AsianGuyStream) September 7, 2021
The backlash: While some feel that the comments were taken out of context, many creators and commenters took to YouTube and Twitter to voice their concern about the comments that were made, as well as their anger. One that particularly spearheaded the backlash was Atsu, or AsianGuyStream.
- A “Genshin Impact” creator called AsianGuyStream on YouTube put out a video titled “Racism in the Genshin Community” where he addressed Kylorren’s comments towards Tenha. “Racism should not be tolerated in Genshin,” he said in his video. “It is incredibly worrying that there are communities that encourage racist behavior so openly to harass other content creators.”
- He made an emotional plea towards the Spanish-speaking community who play “Genshin” to call out Kylorren and to hold racists accountable. He said, “The reality is that the bridge is you guys. The bilingual, the multilingual people, who are part of this very, very, worldwide diverse community…you guys have a very important voice here because there are plenty of content creators who unfortunately stand by this behavior,” referring to the Spanish-speaking content creators that have been defending Kylorren’s racism.
- Tectone, another prominent “Genshin” content creator, wrote on Twitter, “If you are not accepting of differences in other people (Racist, Transphobic, Homophobic) f*cking leave my community.”
- “Genshin” YouTuber Mtashed responded to Tenha in a tweet of support, writing, “I am sorry that you had to deal with this brother. You will always have my support!”
A streamer benefits from a Chinese game, and then calls Tenha “a Chinese man” and says “they are the worst”. However, Tenha is Korean. Ridiculous behaviour #GenshinImpact #tenhatv https://t.co/KHdJ5oV6Hv
— bald_ie (@bald_ie) September 9, 2021
Imagine justifying casual racism as a part of one’s culture/way of joking & explaining to others that they are just too soft/won’t understand. This does nothing to the conversation of moving forward and holding racists accountable. This isn’t some “inside joke.” THESE ARE PEOPLE.
— Yeojix (@yeojixs) September 7, 2021
wtf i just heard about that spanish streamer being racist to tenha. tf being racist to chinese people while playing a chinese game?? tenha not even chinese??? imagine being racist.
— mintylato ☀️ :3c (@thachillea) September 8, 2021
Hello, here is your reminder that Genshin is a Chinese game and playing it while making bigoted, sinophobic comments to Chinese people ain’t it.
The amount of sinophobia that’s shown up in the community recently has been disgusting.
— Dani is Saving For Raven and Hu Tao ☽☾ (@VIATRIXKNIGHT) September 7, 2021
As a Latin American I feel disgusted, racism is wrong, hate is wrong… The fact that a lot of that is normalized in LATAM is not an excuse. Worst of all, having a platform and reach just to use it for that?! Already reported his account on Twitch, he should not be there.
— Lf_sIcKmAn 🇪🇨 – #YoimiyaHaver!!! (@Lf_sIcKmAn) September 8, 2021
Featured Image via Tenha (left), Kylorren Lol (right)