In the past few months and years, some major streamers have already moved from Twitch to other platforms: The switch of the shooter experts Ninja and Shroud to Microsoft’s Mixer and DrDisrespect’s migration to YouTube Gaming caused a particular stir.
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DrDisrespect is back and 300,000 people are staring at a virtual gas station
With Sykkuno, a streamer is now switching to YouTube, who is known in the Twitch community as the friendliest streamer in the world applies and has been able to build up a huge fan base in recent years. But who is this Sykkuno anyway?
Who is Sykkuno?
Sykkuno started his online career back in 2011, mainly producing gaming videos for the moba hit League of Legends on YouTube. The meteoric rise to becoming a true internet star didn’t begin until 2019, however, when he started streaming on Twitch.
Being extremely shy compared to other streamers, Sykkuno initially hid his face. By his friendly and lively voice for which he is nicknamed Anime-Protagonist
received, he was able to quickly win his first fans. And while he never showed his face, the only way to recognize him on the streets of Los Angeles was his voice:
link to Twitter content
The big breakthrough came in 2020, when he regularly played the hyped title Among Us with much bigger streamers like Pokimane, Valkyrae and Jacksepticeye. In the following two years he was able to increase his number of followers from a few thousand to over 4 million.
But his biggest unique selling point is his inconspicuous and incredibly polite manner: Unlike most other streamers, Sykkuno has never yelled on air and always kept a cool head even in frustrating situations.
Whenever he encounters toxic players on the Internet, he treats them with warmth – often with the effect that they are suddenly very nice themselves:
link to Twitter content
The Sykkuno effect
This extreme friendliness also made many viewers doubt its authenticity – can someone really be that nice? Or is he just an actor playing a very lovable character?
link to YouTube content
In his community one therefore speaks of the so-called Sykkuno effect: Many of his current fans were initially skeptical and have assumed that nobody can really be that nice. However, according to the theory of the Sykkuno effect, this is only because many actually compare themselves to him and think: I could never be that nice, so this person is an actor.
After they watched Sykkuno long enough, however, his always exemplary behavior caused a rethinking: instead of saying that they could never be as nice as him, they now want to be exactly that – and are happy to be a part of his all-round positive attitude being able to be a community.
Why is Sykkuno switching to YouTube?
On May 2, 2022, Sykkuno announced their move to YouTube Gaming with a short farewell video:
link to YouTube content
Sykkuno has been one of the fastest growing Twitch channels ever, so why is he switching to YouTube Gaming to start streaming now?
Kristofer Yee wants to know the answer to that: The tech streamer known for building custom PCs has been a friend of Sykkuno’s for a few rounds together in GTA 5 RP. He now claimed in his latest Twitch stream that Sykkuno appears to have received an enormous sum for the move:
I don’t want to go into detail here. But Sykkuno, the deal he was offered by Twitch versus YouTube was absolutely amazing. It was absolutely ridiculous. It made absolutely no sense for him to stay on Twitch. It made no sense.
There was no sum of money. There was no contract. There were no free subscriptions that could have been given to him that would have justified this contract.
Christofer Yee
Sykkuno will probably not be the last major streamer to leave Twitch. Streamer DisguisedToast wants to know about at least five other big names who are set to announce their departures to YouTube Gaming soon.