Twitch: 42,000 see what Gronkh has to say on the Hogwarts Legacy shitstorm

On February 3, 2023By Garmin Philip

The German gaming streamer Erik “Gronkh” Range commented on the Twitter shitstorm on the evening of February 3rd, which raged because of a statement about “Hogwarts Legacy”. He had by far the largest stream in Germany on Friday evening.

What was the shitstorm on Twitter about? Gronkh has been slammed by some people on Twitter for the last week after a clip from one of his streams was shared on Twitch (via Twitter).

In the clip, he said he didn’t care about JK Rowling. And asked if that made him a bad person.

He had previously announced that he would be playing and streaming the controversial Hogwarts Legacy. He wanted to channel the money that would come in via Twitch donations and donate it to specific organizations.

Gronkh, the man with the voice – career and life of Germany’s most famous Let’s player

Gronkh says clip was taken out of context – Rejects JK Rowling

That’s what he says about the Shitstorm: Gronkh explained the clip was taken out of context. He cares about JK Rowling, he finds her views “shit.”

Someone sent him a letter with arguments in favor of JK Rowling – to this situation he replied with the statement “JK Rowling does not play a role in his life”, please do not send him e-mails.

But that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t care about trans people and their difficulties. But on the contrary.

The people from his stream who were watching him and for whom he made the statement knew that too. He spoke to this community at that moment: They would know his views.

Gronkh admits that he often expresses himself in such a way that there is room for misunderstanding. In this case, he also believes the clip was maliciously taken out of context. The 45-year-old thinks that certain people on Twitter hoped to achieve a particularly large reach with him as a big name.

Twitch streamer not boycotting Hogwarts Legacy but has already turned down ad campaign

What does he say about Hogwarts Legacy? Gronkh says he understands when people want to boycott the game. He himself has not yet played Hogwarts Legacy, and has not even commented on it.

However, he refused to take part in a promotional campaign for the game. Gronkh had already canceled the campaign before the shitstorm broke out against him. Even if he had considered participating and also donating the money to the campaign.

He cannot understand why he is serving here as a supporter of “Hogwarts Legacy” – apparently this is due to his wide reach.

At one point, Gronkh was somewhat unhappily interrupted:

Gronkh believes: Shitstorm has done the cause a disservice

How does he see the shitstorm? Gronkh repeatedly emphasizes that he does not see himself as a victim in the shitstorm. Ultimately, people raising the issue would have done the trans community and its goals a disservice.

Because of the shit storm, Hogwarts Legacy received a lot of attention: Hogwarts Legacy was on the front page of the online edition of the Bild newspaper for 2 hours.

Gronkh also notes that after a few hours, the discussion on Twitter was infiltrated by trolls posing as trans people under false flags and fueling the discussion with provocative statements. Gronkh said he always looks at the timelines of such posters and there are often indications that they are “right wing trolls” or “siff trolls”.

At one point, Gronkh says he couldn’t sleep that night, just scrolled through Twitter and saw people texting each other. It hasn’t been about him or the topic for a long time now, people just yelled at each other. He finds “not expedient.”

On the contrary: Gronkh emphasizes that in his stream you have always tried to talk about things calmly.

Much approval and sympathy for Gronkh

How was the mood in the chat? Gronkh was supported and showered with positive emotes from the start of the stream. Even before the stream started, many users said on Twitter how much they appreciate Gronkh and that they were sorry for how attacked the streamer seemed.

As during the shitstorm, he received a lot of sympathy.

With a peak of over 42,000 viewers, Gronkh’s stream had about twice as many viewers as usual.