What is stream sniping? Looking at some of the most controversial stream-sniping moments

Stream sniping is probably high up in the list of the worst things that could happen to streamers. In essence, stream snipers are people who exploit the livestream of a content creator to get an undue advantage over them.

This can become a serious problem for popular streamers with large audiences, leading to frustration and poor gameplay.

It is especially prevalent when these online personalities play battle royale games, but stream snipers tend to attack any and all kinds of competitive titles. Even professional sporting athletes are not above being labeled stream snipers.

For example, in 2020, the Esports Integrity Commission published a report alleging large-scale stream sniping at the highest level of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive competitive play.

That said, big streamers like Ninja, xQc, Shroud, and Dr DisRespect, who consistently play battle royales such as Fortnite, PUBG, and Call of Duty: Warzone, are probably the most visible victims of stream snipers.

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Effects of stream sniping: The good, the bad, and the ugly

The good

Stream snipers can be of different varieties. Take a peek at the clip above from FPS God Shroud himself.

During the heyday of PUBG, Shroud's lobbies would be full of stream snipers trying to get close to the former CS legend. While there were some malicious types, Shroud's inhuman reactions made for some very entertaining clips of him taking down some stream snipers.

But as shown in the viral clip, one of his most watched clips on Twitch with almost 200K views, the stream snipers are not there to grief Shroud. Instead, many players brought him loot or attempted to be near their idol, hoping to be included in a clip.

As demonstrated by the clip, sometimes things would develop into hilarious situations. This brings us to a big reason stream sniping is so prevalent in the gaming community.

Regardless of the outcome, stream snipes tend to generate highly entertaining content, whether funny or not.

Sometimes, however, stream snipers deliberately grieve streamers to mess with them.

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The bad

Unfortunately, the distinction between good and bad stream sniping is a thin one. Take, for example, the infamous Banana Saxophone who plagued xQc for months.

A Fortnite player by the gamer tag Juul Trooper could be found stream sniping the Juicer consistently with his iconic banana skin and saxophone emote.

The action clearly infuriated the streamer as he lashed out and raged at the stream sniper, clearly frustrated with the repeated incidents. But fans, for the most part, loved it, which is why numerous such compilations of streamers like xQc and Ninja raging at being stream sniped exist on the internet.

If the point of streaming is to entertain an audience, is stream sniping just another type of content? The problem with stream snipers is that one can never know how far they will go in their bid to nag the streamer.

There is a thin line between raging at stream snipers and letting it affect your mental health and gameplay.

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The ugly

Here is a notorious clip of Dr DisRespect from October 2021, when stream snipers got the best of him. The Two-Time ended up uninstalling the game after it affected his gameplay to such an extent.

For players like Doc, grinding the title and playing well is a big part of their appeal as streamers. And stream sniping is a significant hindrance to fair gameplay.

Stream sniping was also why xQc was banned in November 2020 while playing in Twitch Rivals. The platform punished the Twitch star with a seven-day suspension for stream sniping his opponents.

Besides the week-long ban, the Canadian also had to relinquish his winnings from the competition and was banned from Twitch Rivals for six months.

Certain games have harshly punished the actions of stream snipers, and the debate on how to root out malicious snipers is unending.

However, many streamers cry "stream sniper" when things don't go their way. This makes detecting a legitimate offender quite hard, and stream snipers have numerous workarounds to keep harassing content creators, making most measures pointless.

Note: This article is subjective and reflects the author's opinion.