Felix ‘xQc’ Lengyel has claimed that “a good amount” of his fellow Twitch streamers are paid a flat rate by some charities to do fundraising livestreams for them and backs this up by saying he has had offers to do so in the past.
The former Overwatch pro, who is one of Twitch’s biggest streamers, was surprised to realise that the majority of his 35,000 viewers seemed unaware that creators were often paid for doing charity streams. He then goes on to explain that streamers can receive “flat amounts” for doing fundraisers on their channels, regardless of how much money they raise, and with his chat telling xQc that they don’t believe him, he claims that he has received these kinds of offers from charities.
“Wait, you guys know that most charities, they pay these streamers to do it right?” xQc asks his viewers. “You guys can’t be that fucking stupid? You wouldn’t know. The streamer that you watch that do charity days, they’re pretty much all paid for it.”
Many of his viewers then ask xQc for proof and don’t believe that streamers would get paid for doing charity work.
“What do you mean proof? I don’t need proof that’s just common sense,” he says. “Most, or a good amount of charity [streams] that your streamers do, they raise money but they’re paid a flat amount before there’s any money. Even if they raise a lesser amount, that’s just how it is. What do you mean no? Stop saying no! Holy shit, I get these offers, I would know who the fuck to talk to.”
While charities frequently spend money on ventures to generate more in donations, such as advertising or events, many seem to be shocked that livestreamers would also fall into that category and would willingly be paid to raise money for a good cause.
After xQc’s claims caused a stir on Reddit, one of the streaming world’s most notable fundraisers, Ben ‘DrLupo’ Lupo, was quick to quash claims that he would be one of those creators that would receive payment from a charity, specifically St. Jude Children’s Hospital, for which he helped raise just shy of a million dollars earlier this month.
From an r/LivestreamFail post on Reddit regarding @xQc stating that a majority of streamers get paid to do charity streams – I’ve never been paid to raise money for @StJude. Just wanted to be sure that was clear. pic.twitter.com/n4Vbkl1NYf
— DrLupo (@DrLupo) June 30, 2020
xQc was quick to apologise to DrLupo for causing people to think this way and says that the conversation he had with his chat “went out of control and some of it was severely out of context.”
Gotcha. All I saw was the clip, so that’s on me for not watching what was before/after.
— DrLupo (@DrLupo) June 30, 2020
DrLupo’s sentiments were also backed up by Escape from Tarkov streamer Paul ‘Pestily’ Licari, who has also raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Starlight Children’s Foundation.