German Twitch streamer MontanaBlack gives an honest interview on ZDF: “I’ve never been good at games.”

Marcel “MontanaBlack” Eris is one of the most successful streamers on German Twitch. In an interview with ZDF, he spoke about his difficult past and his gaming career. MeinMMO has selected some highlights for you.

Who is MontanaBlack?

• MontanaBlack, called Monte for short, is one of the most successful German twitch streamers
• He has over 4.5 million followers, and an average of almost 34,000 people watch him (via SullyGnome)
• But he wasn’t always so successful. In his youth he struggled with drugs and was a criminal
• In an interview, he spoke very honestly about his career and his success – because it doesn’t come from his gaming skills

You can see more about MontanaBlack in the video:

This interview is about: On August 24, ZDF published an interview with MontanaBlack as part of the “Germania” portrait series. The series aims to explore what it means to be German – especially from the perspective of people with a migration background.

MontanaBlack is the son of a Turkish mother and a German father, but the conversation is about much more than just his origins.

MontanaBlack’s success: in the right place at the right time

This is behind his success: MontanaBlack says of himself that he was just in the right place at the right time. He started uploading videos to YouTube at an early age and has also been on Twitch since 2013. It wouldn’t work like that again today.

Because: Back then, MontanaBlack’s open nature was his unique selling point. Everything was much more “uptight”, today everyone would talk about everything on the Internet. But even then he spoke openly about his past, his drug use and his low points.

MontanaBlack has had great success with games like GTA, Call of Duty and Fortnite, showing a lot of gameplay at a time when hardly anyone seemed to be showing much gaming. Lately the focus hasn’t been on gaming anymore and that has cost him a lot of viewers.

The success never had anything to do with his playing skills:

Well, I’ve never been in anywhere, so game-wise. Not dogshit either, but I’ve never been known for delivering crass gameplays.

Instead, he is simply close to the audience. He can never do without telling people in live streams what’s going on with him. Because for him it is “not just a hobby, but also a passion and in a way also therapy.”

That’s why he still wants to stream when he’s 50 – if someone still wants to see him. But he definitely doesn’t want to bend for his viewers:

MontanaBlack does not believe in exaggerated correctness

That’s why Monte doesn’t want to pretend: Many people have become what the viewers wanted from them on the Internet. But MontanaBlack was always who he wanted to be himself.

MontanaBlack’s advantage was wearing his heart on his sleeve, being authentic. That had already backfired, but everything used to be a bit more relaxed.

Nowadays, people and the companies behind them would always want to be politically correct, just not say anything wrong. It gets him “animally on the sack.” He therefore does not want to adapt his content.

After all, MontanaBlack is not an educational channel. The responsibility for what children and young people watch in particular still lies with the parents and not with him.

Nevertheless, MontanaBlack has grown up and matured. He used to be more confrontational, more freaked out. Today he wants peace and quiet and “no more headaches”.

You can watch the 15-minute video on the ZDF website look at.

Incidentally, MontanaBlack also clears up a rumor on ZDF. For a long time, many fans had believed that he was actually only 23 or 25. This assumption was based on a running gag from his streams.

MontanaBlack himself had claimed he was only 25, and the 88 in his username came from his parents getting married in 1988. In the video, he introduces himself and states his age as 34 and admits that his parents were never married.

One issue is dear to MontanaBlack’s heart: while he’s managed to get off drugs, not all of his friends have been so lucky.

MontanaBlack doesn’t understand fun either and banned its own moderator after he had advertised drug use in the chat.