DjWHEAT lashes out at a Twitch employee who says they don’t watch any streamers

The former head of creator development at Twitch Marcus ‘djWHEAT’ Graham had some harsh words for an ex-Twitch employee who admitted to not watching any streamers from the platform.

DjWHEAT was one of the most experienced Twitch employees until his departure in January of 2022, working with the platform for more than a decade at the time.

Wheat voiced concerns about the direction of the site in a couple of instances since leaving the company, with the latest example of this was during his May 12 stream when he flamed an ex-Twitch employee who shared that he did not watch any streamers during his tenure at Twitch.

DjWHEAT suggested that without “understanding the product” and experiencing it, the employee is unable to produce “meaningful work” for the company.

DjWHEAT flames ex-Twitch employee for not using the platform

DjWHEAT went over a comment of an ex-Twitch employee during a portion of his May 13 stream. The comment in question stated: “I’ll say something scandalous: I never watched Twitch streamers. When I was at Twitch, I didn’t even play any games.”

DjWHEAT said that the second part is okay because you don’t have to play games to be successful at Twitch, but took issue with the first half of the comment.

“I think you needed to use the product. I think you needed to understand why someone might subscribe to a creator, why someone might return day after day at 9 AM when someone goes live. If you’re not experiencing that, how do you actually expect to do meaningful work,” said DjWHEAT.

Reddit thread on the topic left users split, as some agree with djWHEAT that Twitch needs employees who understand what they are developing.

“Twitch is a success in spite of its owners and staff, in no way because of,” reads one comment. While another user simply states in relation to WHEAT’s comment: “This guy gets it”

But other users stand behind the ex-employee and disagree with WHEAT’s argument.

“His statement makes no sense unless this former employee was involved in user experience in some form,” reads one such comment. While another user states: “It all depends on what their job was, cause at the end of the day they just listen to their boss.”

The former Twitch executive later commented that the platform doesn’t have enough empathy towards creators like xQc and Pokimane, but also smaller creators. An opinion that DjWHEAT held and tried to communicate while working for Twitch, and one that he still holds to this day.