I (20m) have a friend (24m) that is a streamer. He does livestreams as a hobby, and he dreams of making a profit from it. Long-story short, we have been friends for almost 3 years, and because we live in different countries, we have only met each other 2 times in person. We both love to play videogames and that’s how we met and we keep hanging out.
Now, today, while he was doing a livestream, after some time playing online multiplayer games and being quite stressed about it, he wanted to play a single-player game, but because I wanted to keep playing with him, I recommended playing a chill game called "Powerwash Simulator 2". Now, before and for a couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to get him to play it, but he always refused saying that he doesn’t like those "chill and cozy" type of games. But today he said (in a very annoyed tone) that he was gonna "give it a try".
Because it was the first time he played it, he had to complete a tutorial first and then he could invite to his party to play together. However, while he was playing it, he complained about the game and trashed it non-stop. I told him to just go to the game he wanted to play in the first place if he was not gonna enjoy playing it, but he ignored me and just continued. He kept saying comments like "Look how much fun I’m having with this…", "This is a very entertaining game to stream, right chat?", "Bro how do you have fun doing this, this game is trash". And his chat was also trashing it, commenting things like "I think you should just play something else lol wth is this", "This became a very entertaining stream…", and he would agree to every single comment about it while laughing.
But he didn’t just trashed the game, he was also saying comments about me, like "I’m wasting my time because of my friend", "Idk what kind of trash this weirdo likes to play". That’s where I felt humiliated, he was blaming me for his unpleasent time playing it and trashing me with his viewers for no reason. After some time he said that he was done with the tutorial (Which took him a long time). I already felt angry, so I didn’t reply to him, and he decided to go to the single-player game he wanted to play in the first place.
Now, I felt like I had to get back to him somehow, so I went to his chat and said "Thank you for humiliating me and making me feel bad for inviting you to play something. I really appreciate it." Before I closed the stream, I heard him say something like "I really don’t want to deal with it right now, I’m shutting the stream off", and his chat went completely silent.
After that, he said that I ruined the mood of the stream because of my attitude, that I shouldn’t take it personally because it was just a game, and that I should learn how to take a joke. So, AITA for ruining the mood of his stream?
NTA, but dude, he ain’t your friend.
There’s a million ways to say “this game might not be for me” that doesn’t involve ad hominem attacks on someone for suggesting a game.
He chose to trash you.
NTA
He was being childish and dissing you to use you for content. He was unnecessarily rude and treated you extremely poorly in front of his audience. I have no idea how many people watch these streams, but even if it was no one, no one deserves to be humiliated online.
Sure, it might’ve been petty to send that message in chat, but clearly he wasn’t listening to you, and honestly deserved that over the anonymity of a private message.
Talk to him and let him know your side. You have every right to be upset and he needs to apologize.
Bully gets called out in front of his admirers and can’t take it
NTA, that guy needs some lessons on how friendships work
NTA. There was no joke, and he’s the one that ruined the mood.
When it became clear he was in a bad mood, you offered him the option to move to whatever game he wanted, and he turned it down in favour of deliberately and publicly trash-talking both you and your game. That’s not a joke, and it’s a level of passive-aggression that’s just not inherent to playing games. Games are supposed to be fun.
So no. You didn’t take the *game* personally, you took the nasty insults personally. Because they *were* personal.
ESH (but mostly him)
this guy clearly doesn’t care as much about your feelings as he does about his stream. i’m sorry. if he always treats you like this, this person really isn’t your friend anymore.
if he is different off stream, then you probably shouldn’t interact with him on stream and talk about this situation. but complaining in his stream chat about him treating you badly also isn’t the move. that’s something you do in a dm. it is between you, no need to involve the public.
Didn’t OP’s friend “involve the public” first by openly trashing the game AND the friend in the chat?
Your friend is acting like a diva. NTA
ESH to a point (mostly him)
Just from a professional standpoint even though you’re not a follower and a friend, you should still be seen as part of the community. Anytime someone does collab work you should be given a good amount of leeway to not be the target of antics other than banter everyone’s okay with to raise engagement. Even drama streamers known for othering outside the community know it’s a bad idea to show you attack friends/collab partners. He may artificially stunt his career because those that see how he treats people on stream may not want to deal with him. It’s a recipe to limit long-term growth and a bad one.
From a friend perspective, he’s a clear asshole for what he did.
BUT . . . this is my criticism of you. If it’s clear someone is not interested in a game and has to be pressured into it then just don’t play that game. When he showed the initial push back it should have been dropped and instead moved to something you were both more enthusiastic about playing. From a streamer standpoint he probably also realizes that comfy games rarely pull numbers compared to others which he should have probably let you know. None of this excuses his behavior, but you basically dogged him into playing it in the first place bringing it up over a matter of weeks. His mistake wasn’t just telling you no is a complete sentence in the first place and having you accept that (assuming you even would).
I learned early on that if I pressured someone to play a game they didn’t have interest in the majority of the time neither of us would be happy because they would let me know in no uncertain terms that they could have been playing whatever else instead. Use this as a learning experience on that front to respect people’s taste because you clearly didn’t respect his first.
You kind of both messed up, and you both felt the repercussions of your choices.
You pressured him into playing a game He had expressed a distaste for and she did tiat at a time when he was already annoyed. Result is that he was snarky about the game and with you.
He made you the butt of a joke in front of a bunch of people who joined in, The result is to u called him out on it.
In your defense, you wanted to spend more time with your friend.
And his defense.. Snarking about a game is it pretty common way to entertain an audience when the game is slow.
Neither defense Is an excuse for disregarding each other’s wants or feelings
Hopefully, you 2 can get past this and go forward with a better understanding of where your limits are..
ESH him more so than you. If someone doesn’t want to play a game, then dont force it.
He massively sucks because he made it public and decided to use you for content. He actively humilitated you, which most streaming sites let you clip videos or record them to let other people watch the stream if they missed it. If he’s going to pull that shit in public then he needs to be prepared to be called out in public.
Yeah its morally wrong to talk about ur friends like that, but in a stream thats sort of what anyone would expect. You didnt “ruin” anything cus a livestreamer WOULD WANT reactions, thats how they grow right?
Seems like he is emotionally unavailable and that you were in the wrong place.
So my take is that: A livestream drama could be good advertising, therefore i think he is overreacting for turning it off.
And it is wrong to talk to ur friends like that, but since it is a stream i just think its all jokes to charm the viewers, and therefore i think you might not be his special streaming buddy cus you disliked it.
(which i get wtf)
But streamers are super individual so i might be wrong, so talk to him about it instead, because either way he should had told you before joking on ur behalf.
NTA. He ruined his stream himself.
Also, when someone insults you, saying “it was a joke” doubles the insult, doesn’t fix it.