Ninja reacts to Jimmy Kimmel roasting him and other gamers over ESPN cover story
Professional gaming and streaming is more accepted today than ever before, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe from Jimmy Kimmel’s playful jabs.
The television host and comedian is never afraid of poking fun at people and a recent episode of the show saw Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins’ recent ESPN cover land in his sights.
Ninja watched a clip of the segment on his own immensely popular Twitch stream on September 20 and exclaimed “please don’t make fun of me, please don’t make fun of me Jimmy!”
Unfortunately, Jimmy didn’t seem to get that message!
“ESPN magazine this bi-week by Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins, who is one of the world’s greatest Fortnite players. He’s a video gamer, this is the first time a video game player has been on the cover of a major sports magazine,” Kimmel begins, highlighting how groundbreaking the story is.
Then comes the roast: “Some people consider this guy, Ninja, to be an athlete, because he streams for up to 12 hours a day and has, I guess, a lot of physical dexterity. And if that’s true, congratulations masturbating teens – you’re going to the Olympics!”
Ninja laughs and puts his head in his hands as Kimmel continues: “I don’t know how I feel about this. Fortnite really is taking the world by storm. This is true: some parents are hiring coaches to teach their children to be better at Fortnite!”
The TV star makes his feelings about that particular phenomenon very clear, saying “A quick way to know you shouldn’t have children is if you think it’s a good idea to hire a VIDEO GAME coach to teach them to play it.”
Of course, the whole roast is tongue-in-cheek and Ninja’s success speaks for itself. The Twitch sensation has become the mainstream face of streaming in 2018 and his ESPN article has been hailed as one of the biggest breakthroughs for professional gaming, whether it be esports or streaming.
Ninja’s wife, Jessica ‘JGhosty’ Goch, also spoke up moments after he had watched the roast, saying that being “made fun of” by Jimmy Kimmel is a PR dream and a “you made it moment.”