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Former Twitch streamer Steven "Destiny" is perhaps one of the most well-known Just Chatting personalities in the content creation sphere. As a political commentator and a debater, his content often revolves around contentious talking points. Considering how political discussions are perceived online, it is safe to say that Steven is considered quite a controversial personality.
Moreover, Destiny has a rap sheet to back that claim, being one of the few high-profile streamers to catch a permanent ban from Twitch. Having moved over to YouTube, the streamer is still going strong. He recently got into quite a lot of trouble for his comments about the Black streaming community.
Let's take a look back at some of the highlights of his career to see why he has come to be known as a controversial internet personality.
Who is Destiny? Taking a look at some of the most controversial things associated with the streamer
Steven Kenneth Bonnell II is his official name and he started his streaming career way back in 2011 on Justin.tv, which would later become known as Twitch. In the early days, he was a prolific Starcraft streamer known for his outspoken demeanor. Although not primarily a political commentator at the time, Steven was a libertarian, a far cry from his current liberal attitude.
Gradually, his political stance and style of content changed, with more air-time focus being given to debates on socio-political issues with fellow gamers and Just Chatting streamers. By the late 2010s, his leftist viewpoints again changed towards a more centrist outlook.
With many online debates and the nature of his discussions being sensitive, it is easy to see why he has made a name for himself for being controversial. Here are some of the big ones.
The n-word scandal
One of the first major scandals surrounding Destiny was in 2019 when fellow streamer Trihex, with whom he had a podcast, clashed about the use of the n-word in private. The conversation was about edgy jokes and the use of the n-word and f-word among friends.
Destiny claimed that using racist or homophobic words does not automatically mean that the person is racist or homophobic. Trihex shared a link to a comment from the streamer from 2018 that went into further detail.
Here is a direct quote from that thread written by the streamer:
"A person using homophobic language is not necessarily homophobic, though they oftentimes are unintentionally spreading homophobia."
This has been widely regarded as a disingenuous argument by many, and was a major point of contention between him and popular Twitch streamer Hasan "HasanAbi."
Timestamp 20:30
The first problem with Twitch and the "mowing down" comment
A major scandal involving the streamer occurred during the riots in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in America. Destiny was highly frustrated with the rioters and in a high-octane moment ended up saying that he would prefer if alt-right forces 'mow down' those who were looting and torching stores:
"The rioting need to f*cking stop. And if that means white redneck f*cking militia dudes out there mowing down dipsh*t protestors who think that they can torch buildings at 10 PM, then at this point they have my f*cking blessing."
The tirade cost him his Twitch Partnership as he was found to have violated Twitch's TOS for encouraging violence toward a particular group of people.
Permanent ban on Twitch
In March 2022 Destiny was handed an indefinite ban from Twitch and just like in the case of Herschel "Guy," aka "Dr DisRespect," he was not told the exact reason. The speculations, however, show two more examples of how he courts controversy regularly.
The first theory goes that the ban was due to him hosting the white nationalist and neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes on his channel. Fuentes was, and still is, banned from Twitch, and seeing how the platform enforces the ban, this might very well be the reason for the indefinite suspension.
Another theory, as posited by Destiny himself, states that the ban hammer struck due to his comments about trans-women athletes and how he thinks they should not be allowed to compete in the women's category of sports. Another controversial opinion to espouse. Numerous other streamers have called him transphobic at other times.
More recently, Destiny was called out by many people such as xQc for his comments about YouTube streamer Darren "IShowSpeed" and the W community. He faced a lot of backlash, in keeping with his position as a controversial streamer.
