Ludwig lets YouTube viewers decide name for his new cat and instantly regrets it

YouTube streamer Ludwig Ahgren has made a rookie error by allowing viewers in chat to throw prospective names at him for his brand new kitten, with ‘Cracker’ winning a stream game as the name of choice. 

Naming anything can be an auspicious affair, nominative determinism aside, finding the perfect title for a pet needs to fulfill the dual purpose of being fun to say and accurate to the personality of the animal. Skipping the hard yards for a (frankly adorable) new cat, Ludwig threw naming duties at his chat during a May 16 stream.

Quickly running into the well-documented issue of letting the internet name anything, a series of inappropriate names instantly dominated the decision-making. Sifting through them, Ludwig picked out all the prospective names and chucked them into a game of marbles.

With named marbles racing to the bottom of a series of tracks, this was a fair, unbiased way for one name to come out on top. With ‘Cracker’ winning the tournament, however, Ludwig visibly regretted his choice to place naming power in the hands of the internet.

With the ‘cracker’ controversy dominating conversations on Twitch less than 6 months ago, as Hasan, Bruce Ray, and Froste all got hit with bans for using a ‘racially charged’ term, the name was not an ideal choice for the streamer to have.

Despite the name Cracker winning the marbles tournament, Ludwig tried to avoid the name by then throwing a poll up between ‘Coots’ and Cracker as name choices for the fresh feline. Coots ended up winning the poll by 54% of the votes to Crackers 46%.

In response to calls from chat that this was a scam, and backing the name Cracker after its Marbles win, Ahgren pulled up a Microsoft Paint window, drawing three names for the cat to choose itself. With ‘Cracker’, ‘Marbles’, and ‘Coots’ on screen, the cat instantly started pawing at Cracker.

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The cat’s dedication to the controversial name led Ludwig to declare “This cat’s a problem. For me, for society.”

Throwing a reference at Twitch’s hardline bans over the use of the term, Ludwig called his partner and Twitch streamer QTCinderella up, before lamenting: “How do I break the news to QT? She’s a Twitch streamer.”

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In conversation with QT where she outright rejected the name, Ludwig asked: “Is it because it’s problematic?” to receive the succinct response from QT:  “No, it’s because it’s a stupid-ass name.”

Finding no answer to his nomenclature problem, the streamer ended his livestream with a full screen of the unnamed cat taking a nap, signing off with:”Say goodbye to Marbles, or Coots, or Cracker.”