xQc is the biggest streamer on Twitch and recently broke his viewership record. We explain the streaming phenomenon to you.
Overwatch 2 is currently experiencing incredible hype on Twitch: over 1.5 million viewers watched big and small streamers compete against each other in the multiplayer shooter on Tuesday evening.
The currently biggest and most-watched Twitch streamer xQc was also at the start and set a personal record: Over 312,000 viewers watched his return to the game that once started his meteoric rise on the streaming platform.
But who is this xQc anyway and why does he cast such a spell over so many people?
xQc: From Esport Pro to the World’s Biggest Streamer
The online career of French Canadian Felix Lengyel, better known by his nickname xQc, began in 2016. Although most Twitch viewers might know him as the biggest streamer on the platform these days, the now 26-year-old first made a name for himself as a professional Overwatch player.
During his time as a professional shooter, he has enjoyed a number of successes, including competing in the prestigious Overwatch League and winning the Most Valuable Player award at the 2017 Overwatch World Championship.
However, the streamer’s controversial character, for which he is loved or hated today, was already evident back then: On several occasions, xQc, whose nickname stands for FeliX Quebec Canada, was given game bans in the professional league by Blizzard – among other things for homophobic insults and abuse of the report system in Overwatch.
This was followed in 2018 by his dismissal from his team Dallas Fuel and the end of his Esports career. So from then on he concentrated on his streaming career – with huge success. By the middle of 2019, xQc was already one of the biggest Variety streamers on Twitch, and at the end of the year he took first place as the most-watched streamer overall for the first time.
That hasn’t changed to date: last year, Lengyel was once again the most-watched streamer on Twitch with 274 million hours of watch time, while the runner-up had over 100 million hours less. His peak concurrent viewership was 173,000 in 2021, which he has now managed to top by a whopping 45 per cent thanks to Overwatch 2.
Why is xQc so popular?
1: xQc is the perfect ninja replacement for many
After Ninja, previously considered the biggest streamer on Twitch, left the platform for an exclusive deal with Microsoft’s Mixer, xQc was able to fill that void – as the two streamers are similar in many ways.
Both stand for extreme ambition and want to be among the best in every game. This often leads to tantrums and rants, which are particularly entertaining for younger viewers.
One fan juxtaposed two of these outbursts in a video:
2: The audience can identify with him
For many of his fans, xQc is the epitome of authenticity. While Twitch is often full of self-promoters, arty characters and acting, xQc has never changed in their opinion.
His trademarks include not only his aforementioned rants, but also that he seems to have neither a filter nor a visible sense of shame.
And even when he ridicules himself with completely absurd statements and his chat laughs at him, he does not take himself seriously and laughs with them. In one of his most-watched Twitch clips, for example, he identifies a shorn alpaca as a dog, a beaver as a lobster and an eagle as a chicken:
3: Good sense for the right content
xQc, as a so-called variety streamer, is not tied to a type of game that viewers expect on his channel. Instead, he has a good knack for discovering new games that are worth watching for his fans.
Whether it’s role-playing GTA 5 as bank robber Jean Paul, Among Us or Rust with other streaming greats, as well as speedruns in Minecraft, Lengyel not only follows and creates great Twitch trends, but also knows how to get the most out of them.
Example: When the big chess hype broke out on Twitch in 2020, xQc had himself trained by chess grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura. Although the streamer really tried his best, he repeatedly drove his mentor to the brink of madness with hair-raising moves – but the viewers loved it.
Have you ever watched xQc? What do you think of the streamer and his controversial personality? Drop us a line in the comments
