On Monday night, Twitch streamer Kai Cenat broke the record on the platform for the most monthly subscribers, which led to Twitch posting a congratulatory message on social media about the accomplishment. But the message, which included some racial undertones, was not quite received the way the platform would have liked. And that led to some serious backlash in the streaming community.
Cenat has become one of the very few streamers to transcend just the streaming world into becoming a mainstream celebrity. The likes of LeBron James and Travis Hunter have featured on his streams in the past, with Hunter in particular actually choosing to do a touchdown celebration based on Cenat’s suggestion.
After previously holding the Twitch subscriber record before it was taken from him two months ago, Cenat decided to do a 30-day “subathon” for the month of November, which is a 24-hour stream for 30 days. He was helped with that by guests.
On Day 11 of the 30-day subathon on Monday, Cenat took down the record, achieving his goal of 326,252 subscribers.
LOST #1 A MONTH & SOME CHANGE AGO COMPLETELY PLANNED ANOTHER ONE IN LESS THAN 2 MONTHS AND CAME BACK AND WE GOT THE WORLD RECORD AGAIN🌎I LOVE ALL MY SUPPORTERS FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART JOB STULL NOT FINISHED ONLY DAY 11❗️ pic.twitter.com/jOkVkjF7Nx
— AMP KAI (@KaiCenat) November 12, 2024
Shortly following reaching the subscriber goal, Twitch took to X to congratulate Cenat on the achievement. But in doing so, they sparked controversy after suggesting that Cenat’s other options outside of streaming were to “rap” or “go to the league”.
Twitch deletes a tweet showing support for Kai Cenat after replies called them racist. 😲‼️ pic.twitter.com/8B9FPfHDhd
— DramaAlert (@DramaAlert) November 12, 2024
You can clearly see the racial stereotypes involved in the now-deleted post. And that’s an even worse look considering 20 percent of the proceeds from Cenat’s subathon will go towards opening a school in Mokoko, Nigeria.
But for now, it seems like Twitch is far more focused on marketing Cenat’s ongoing subathon than addressing the negative criticism about the post.
On Tuesday, Twitch made a number of posts about Cenat’s accomplishment but has not yet issued any form of apology for the post.
The Mafia pulled up. @KaiCenat has done it again 👑 pic.twitter.com/w8q0jCe4BH
— Twitch (@Twitch) November 12, 2024
. @KaiCenat with a message for all of us pic.twitter.com/qlqpkfRIT2
— Twitch (@Twitch) November 12, 2024
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.