The Streamer Awards Were A Reminder Of How Streaming Rewards Bad Behavior

The Streamer Awards, an annual ceremony celebrating the best in live-streaming hosted and produced by QTCinderella, took place over the weekend in Los Angeles, California. 

There were some genuinely touching moments, like adorable grandma and jigsaw puzzle aficionado ijustlovepuzzles winning the Hidden Gem award, and a touching speech from Best Breakout Streamer FaZe Adapt, but The Streamer Awards was mostly three and a half hours of people regularly rewarded for behaving badly doing just that. 

If you aren’t privy to the interpersonal drama and controversy surrounding the professional streamer space, that’s okay. I wish I could Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind a lot of this information from my head. Just know that in the months leading up to the fifth annual Streamer Awards, host QTCinderella has broken down on her stream, citing stress around organizing the event, while other streamers (mostly ones not nominated for awards) accused her of rigging the ceremony. It was the special brand of drama-farming and rage-baiting that has come to define the streamer space. 

Just like earlier this year at San Diego’s TwitchCon, during which streamer Emiru (who won Best Creative Arts Streamer on Saturday) was physically assaulted at a meet-and-greet and “clip farmers” acted out on the convention floor and outside of it, bad behavior was on full display this Saturday at The Streamer Awards. 

Multiple clips circulated on social media over the weekend that are a cogent reminder of how young and, in many cases, small-minded some of the most popular streamers are. A 17-year-old streamer known as Rakai, who recently got a two-year suspension for stealing flowers from Walmart while live, approached a married, lesbian couple while live-streaming to ask them if they were gay, not long after asking a different woman streamer if she “had a man.”

Co-host FanFan, who mingled amongst attendees’ tables during the ceremony, made a joke comparing Kai Cenat, who is Black, to Sean “Diddy” Combs, “congratulating” him on his new documentary with 50 Cent. Sean Combs: The Reckoning, a four-part documentary examining the life and behavior of the rapper recently imprisoned for transportation of prostitution, just aired on Netflix. It was produced by 50 Cent. Immediately after her joke, an influencer named Tylil grabbed the mic FanFan was passing around to state, “If y’all gonna be making jokes, at least make it funny.”

“The streamer awards: *fat joke* *gay joke* *anti black joke* *another gay joke* *another anti black joke*,” read a post on X.

India Love gets booed off stage after claiming DDG and Rakai deserved Breakout Streamer of the Year over FaZe Adapt 👀pic.twitter.com/0IA0gN8As4

— FearBuck (@FearedBuck) December 7, 2025

At one point during the show, influencer India Love stormed the stage to insist that two other streamers, controversial rapper DDG and the aforementioned Rakai, deserved to win Breakout Streamer of the Year over FaZe Adapt. Love was booed off-stage and later apologized while livestreaming. “There was no excuse for my behavior,” she said. 

My hottest take on the streamer awards is all the drama and clip farming is a direct consequence of promoting and rewarding that kind of behavior throughout the entire year.

Reap what you sow type shit.

— Sean (@SeanDaBlack) December 7, 2025

“My hottest take on the streamer awards is all the drama and clip farming is a direct consequence of promoting and rewarding that kind of behavior throughout the entire year,” wrote streamer SeanDaBlack on X. “Reap what you sow type shit.”

Moments like ijustlovepuzzles winning the Hidden Gem award helped elevate The Streamer Awards’ vibes—the older woman streamer, who has 46,000 followers on Twitch, was incredibly emotional as she received her award. “I was in such a dark place when my kids created this Twitch account and gave me something to do. This stream gave me life,” she said.

If streaming were more about platforming interesting people who genuinely love what they do and less about rewarding teen boys for misbehaving, maybe The Streamer Awards would be less tough to watch. Other winners included Flats for Best Marvel Rivals streamer, TheBurntPeanut for Best FPS Streamer and best VTuber, Peak for Stream Game of the Year, and iShowSpeed for Streamer of the Year.