Since Twitch launched in 2011, quite a few streamers have gained massive followings and big bucks on the platform, either streaming games or daily vlogs.
Many of them can also point to at least one incident of a massive donation, but they've got nothing on this one.
Exotic Chaotic/Twitter
Exotic Chaotic is a Fortnite streamer on Twitch, the other Battle Royale game that's been giving PUBG a run for its money. Since beginning to stream full time, he's garnered about 16,500 followers and hundreds of paid subscribers. Then again, with average donations during a stream varying between about $1-10 per person, it's still tough to make enough money comparable to a regular salary, so when Exotic Chaotic got the biggest donation of his life, he was stunned.
The streamer was in the middle of a game of Fortnite earlier this week, when he noticed his Twitch notification pop up with a number that just couldn't be right. It said someone had donated a whopping $75,000 (approximately Rs 53.11 lakh), the biggest amount ever sent on Twitch. "Wait a minute," he said on screen, "That can't be right." He had to double check his PayPal account and there it was, sitting among payments waiting to be processed.
"DUDE," he yells. "DUDE! WHAT IS THAT SHIT!?"
It turns out the donation was absolutely for real, and it actually came from a friend of his, fellow Fortnite streamer KingMascot. Exotic Chaotic had to go check though, because trolls tend to mess with streamers a lot in this fashion. They make huge donations, so the notification pops up for the streamer being targetted, and then cancel the payment once they get excited. For Exotic Chaotic though, the payment went through 24 hours after it was initiated.
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KingMascot told Kotaku that he and Exotic Chaotic became friends through Fortnite, bonding over their obsession to collect every cosmetic available in the game. He'd heard his fellow streamer was going through a hard time financially and wanted to help out
"I do not have a very high income," Exotic Chaotic told Kotaku. "My girlfriend has worked full-time to support my career as a Fortnite streamer, so I owe it to her and my four-year-old son to protect and grow this money for their futures."
KingMascot meanwhile isn't doing well enough at streaming to make a donation like that. However, he mentioned he was an early Bitcoin investor, and now regularly trades on the stock market, so he was flush enough to do something nice for a friend
Since then, of course, the benefactor has been awash in messages, some of them lauding his thoughtful gift, and others asking to partake of his generosity as well.
For his part, Exotic Chaotic says he's going to put the money to good use for his family, but he does hope to pay forward the kindness he's been shown.
"It's very fun making bigger donations and seeing how happy it makes them," he said. "If I grow my stream to an extent, I will definitely make other streamers very happy. But for all I know, this will only happen once, so I need to make sure I take advantage of the opportunity and secure my son's future and repay my girlfriend for believing in me."