Black Twitch streamer ‘hurt’ after getting 3x more views pretending to be White: “Something needs to change”
Twitch: Just_Relax_KidTwitch streamer ‘Just Relax Kid’ went viral after raking in three times more views when he streamed with a picture of a white man rather than using his camera. We spoke to him about his experience streaming on Twitch and how he feels following this viral moment.
Just Relax Kid, AKA ‘Zach is Relax,’ has been streaming on Twitch for over a decade, and has been partnered with the site for nearly nine years.
Like many other streamers, his content primarily revolves around gaming. Generally, he’ll play a game and show himself on camera using a green screen, allowing viewers to get a front-row seat to watch his humorous reactions.
One day, Zach didn’t feel like showing his face during a stream. Instead, he opted for a generic illustration of a white, bearded man with spectacles, a common practice among ‘faceless’ creators or even VTubers.
Normally, Zach’s streams would net him around 300-800 views. However, his broadcasts using the image of a White man garnered him three times that amount, as shown in a viral post on Twitter / X. Zach’s views skyrocketed from below 1K to upwards of 22K views after switching from his camera to the drawing.
Just Relax Kid “hurt” as other Black streamers hide their faces after viral post
Zach’s post has been viewed over eight million times. It has also sparked a major conversation within the streaming space about Twitch’s algorithm and the experience of streaming as a Black creator on the platform.
We got the chance to speak with Zach, where he told us he feels “hurt” by the situation, saying it has prompted other Black creators to turn off their cameras in the hopes of gaining more views.
“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,'” he told us. “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.”
“There’s thousands of people that are DMing me like, ‘Yo, how can I set up this PNG?’ There’s so many Black creators who I’ve watched since I’ve tweeted who don’t use their camera anymore and use a white PNG. And I’ve had three of them tell me, ‘Yo, my numbers have gone up.'”
Twitch: Just_Relax_KidOn top of this, Zach was also hit with a slew of criticism for pointing out the issue in his viral post. “I was getting hate from everywhere, from Black people and white people,” he continued. “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.”
“A certain type of Black” for Twitch
Zach has been clear that he doesn’t view the situation as racist, and even says he’s not “angry” about the ordeal. However, he did admit that he feels “betrayed” by Twitch, having streamed for over a decade on their platform without hardly any recognition, aside from being featured in a subsection on Twitch’s homepage during Black History Month.
“I’ve been one of your partnered streamers for almost a decade, and I’ve never gotten any love or nothing from Twitch ever,” he explained. “Like, not a single thing besides Black History Month. Like, nothing. It was wild to me, and I was like, ‘You know what, I probably won’t show my camera anymore.'”
To get recognition on Twitch, Zach feels that Black creators have to “be a certain type of Black,” citing Twitch powerhouse Kai Cenat as an example of this.
“How I see it, is that you gotta be a certain type of Black to get those opportunities,” he said. “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.”
“Or, you have to be making an ass 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 ass of yourself on a regular basis just to get [recognized], you know what I’m saying?”
Finding a solution
Of course, Zach is far from the only Black creator on the internet to have openly spoken about the differences in his treatment on a platform as opposed to non-Black creators. Most famously, CoryxKenshin spoke out about favoritism and racism on YouTube in 2022, while BruceDropEmOff was heavily critical of his numerous bans on Twitch before leaving the site for Kick earlier this year. Even Kai Cenat was left befuddled after receiving a gift from Twitch in the form of custom sneakers after smashing subscriber records instead of a highly anticipated contract.
“I agree with them 100 percent,” Zach said of the aforementioned creators. “Even though they’re huge creators, so it’s like, they’re in the top percentage and still feel alienated, you know, still feel on the outside. So imagine people under them, you know, how low they might feel?”
When asked if he had a message for the platform, or how the site could go about remedying the situation, Zach didn’t have an answer — but ultimately feels that more opportunity needs to go around, and not just to the site’s top streamers, or to those gaming the next hot meta on Twitch.
“I really wish I had an answer of how they could fix it. I really do, because something needs to change, but I feel like it’s both a Twitch thing and a viewer thing, so it’s really hard. I think that they should just start trying to push out more creators.”
Dexerto reached out to Twitch for comment, but received no response at the time of this article’s publication. For now, Zach says his post is live for anyone who wants to see the evidence for themselves.
“I think everyone was happy because I’m like the first person to show actual numbers instead of just saying it happened, so I don’t know. Maybe it will spark something, maybe it won’t, but hey — it’s there, you know?”