It is against Twitch’s streaming rules to say the word “ho,” but it is not against the platform’s rules to promote yourself as one.

Ask Jason Ruchelski, aka JasonR.

'The Twitch front page is a bunch of girls twerking and dudes throwing money at them. You used to have to be funny!'

Search the name of this massive video game streamer with nearly 900,000 followers, and it is likely that along with his Twitch page, his past controversies are among the first results to appear.

What did the streamer do, exactly?

Ho no

Ruchelski was accused, tried, and convicted of simply not wanting to play a video game.

It is not a trick statement or something that could be deemed as misleading by an online fact-checker. The claims against Ruchelski that are unironically pinned to him by his biggest detractors are as straightforward as it gets.

“I said hoes,” Ruchelski told Blaze News with a smile.

The father of two explained that in reference to women who showcase their bodies as the focal point of their video game streams, he said, “Be careful, these girl streamers, they're hoes, man.”

Forbidden speech

Ruchelski was hit with a ban from the Twitch platform for specifically using the derogatory term, as it was considered forbidden speech.

“They literally titled the email ‘hoes.’ They said, ‘You’re not allowed to call people hoes, it is deemed hate speech,' and I was banned for 15 days.”

The top Reddit thread for this event — yes, such a thing exists — does not dispute these simple facts, but rather it claims this nearly 7-year-old comment is indicative of a pattern of JasonR’s “sexist behavior.”

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Therefore, it was entirely predictable by the oracle-like Redditors that Ruchelski would lash out in a second instance of “misogynistic” behavior when he engaged in the hateful act of not wanting to play a video game.

'Toxic coping mechanism'

Yes, Ruchelski’s name has been battered around online for years over the horrendous crime of either “dodging (or exiting) a game” when he recognized a provocative female streamer or simply muting the female player.

Ruchelski’s apparent apostasy from the streaming community even garnered attention from Imane Anys, a streamer with over 9,000,000 followers of her own under “Pokimane.”

Anys called Ruchelski’s actions a “toxic coping mechanism” that signaled that his wife did not trust him.

Needless to say, the attention to Ruchelski’s supposed ecrimes resulted in a bevy of attacks and even “a ridiculous amount” of death threats along with attacks directed at his wife.

To this day, the streamer explained, he still has random drop-ins to his streams calling him “sexist” or “misogynist.”

The gaming industry is changing, though, rapidly.

Flop shops

Massive flops from massive gaming studios are becoming the norm, even for some of the most popular intellectual properties. A “Suicide Squad” game lost Warner Brothers $200 million; Unknown9: Awakening lost its studio more than $100 million after its lead actress boasted about the game’s diversity. Sony even closed a studio and ate hundreds of millions in losses after a diversity-laden game shut down after just two weeks — all of this within the last year.

Also in 2024, a community of more than 475,000 popped up on the gaming platform Steam, all centered on the rejection of diversity and inclusion in video games.

Moreover, where Ruchelski may formerly have been on the defensive, his sentiments have changed to where attacks on his character are more revealing of his critics than they are of him.

“What happened is happening all the time now, and it's not that people believe someone is actually sexist or someone is actually racist,” Ruchelski explained. “They’re manipulating audiences because that’s what people want to see.”

Ruchelski is convinced that some of his harshest critics would be polite and passive in real life and would not care about any of the claims made about him online. But “sexist this, racist that” is what drives a lot of people’s paychecks, he believes.

Pendulum swings

The pendulum is swinging, and fast, according to investigative journalist and avid Counter-Strike player Mocha Bezirgan.

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The reporter said that the court of public opinion on provocative female streamers has changed also, and these characters have quickly lost respect from audiences when they seem unwilling or unable to have conversations on tough subjects rather than point to vague notions of sexism.

“In my past as a popular short film producer, I’ve crossed paths with female streamers in different capacities,” he told Blaze News. Bezirgan’s shorts were actually seen by millions in Turkey, launching him into star status in the country.

“They were not necessarily good at video games, but were good businesswomen profiting from the sexual hunger of men,” he continued. “It’s not an industry that I respect, but the audience is changing.”

Ruchelski’s past supposed crimes are indicative of a time when online discourse, specifically in the gaming community, was stuck in a rut, but now it is digging itself out.

“What the hell happened to the content?” Ruchelski asked rhetorically.

“The Twitch front page is a bunch of girls twerking and dudes throwing money at them. You used to have to be funny!” he raged sarcastically.

Thinking for themselves

But there has been a shift, he emphasized. Curiosity for Ruchelski’s story has grown recently, as have the collective raised eyebrows of his followers, who are typically apolitical.

What used to be an inundation of questions about his alleged controversies are increasingly being replaced with inquiries like, “What is this cancel culture?” and “Why are they saying this about you?”

“I think it was kind of a combination of Elon Musk and Trump. [These events] are kind of making people finally think for themselves a little bit more than before.”

The streamer is open to these conversations, seemingly more than ever before, and so are other gamers.