The Reality of Tyler1 – Controversial Internet Personality
The story of Tyler1, also known as loltyler1, is quite extraordinary, although the guy himself is controversial to say the least. Love him or hate him, Tyler Steinkamp, known mostly as “loltyler1”, is an Internet personality and a well-known League of Legends streamer from North America.
With 2 million followers on Twitch.tv, he is the kind of person that generates a lot of strong emotions when streaming. There is no shortage of people applauding his antics and disruptive behaviour, but the fact that he is also known as “The Most Toxic Player in North America” speaks for itself.
Live Twitch streaming tyler1
Watch live video from loltyler1 on www.twitch.tv
The banning of Tyler1 from League of Legends
If you’ve played League of Legends before, you know that this game can easily assist you in flaring up an entire spectrum of emotions from within. Players are well aware that the LoL community is a rather toxic one, with a lot of annoying trolls, frustrated individuals and a healthy number of kids, amongst of which Tyler1 would be king, because this guy really captures the very essence of the archetypal LoL player.
Over the years, he has had to create multiple accounts because dozens of them got banned indefinitely for verbally abusing other players, threatening them and for losing games on purpose. It almost felt like he was trying to tick all the imaginary boxes which define a toxic player, so what came next isn’t exactly a surprise.
On April 30th, 2016, Tyler1’s bad behaviour had finally caught up with him. It was a Riot employee, “Riot Socrates”, who broke the news that Tyler Steinkamp was officially and indefinitely banned from League of Legends. However, Tyler1 still found ways to keep his internet persona alive and started playing PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds whilst running private tournaments.
For more than a year, Tyler1 had to forsake the popular MOBA game, but his connections with League of Legends hadn’t been completely severed. In October 2017, another Riot employee, known online as Riot Sanjuro, made derogatory comments about Tyler1 on a Discord server. Riot Sanjuro had projected a not so optimistic outlook of Tyler1’s future, and Riot Games had to inevitably apologise after the whole issue exploded online. Yet, the popular streamer used this opportunity to remind people that he had changed and that he should be given a second chance.
Tyler1 returns to LoL with a vengeance
Indeed, after the incident, Riot Games lifted Steinkamp’s indefinite ban. Tyler1 unbanned meant that he could return to the game that had made him famous and that’s precisely what he did in 2018. People were once again more than willing to watch him stream his games live and he set a couple of important records in the first quarter of the year. After his comeback, he reached out to his audience and confessed that he was addicted to the game and many viewers reacted positively towards his honesty.
Even though Tyler isn’t banned on Twitch, there are many who prefer to watch him on YouTube. He has a vibrant YouTube channel which counts more than 1 million subscribers and in excess of 200 million views.
It goes without saying that he lost a lot of money during the time he was banned from League of Legends, but apparently game officials found it worthwhile to give him a second chance. The unprecedented strike against him generated mixed reactions and the same happened again when news broke out about Tyler1 being unbanned.
Tyler is still going strong, but his run-ins with the regulations enforced by Riot serve as a cautionary tale for other aggressive streamers and players. It is still hard to understand how it was possible for him to mock the company, and insult players without facing consequences for so long. Truth be told, there are plenty of other people who display toxic behaviour in their streams but they were not punished as harshly.
The fact that he was struck down only after he had become a celebrity, shows that Riot didn’t want this kind of behaviour to become a source of inspiration and to produce copycats. The League of Legends community is hard to swallow as it is and the last thing that decent players need is an influx of toxic peers and streamers.
