Banned streamers top YouTube’s 2022 most watched

The most watched YouTube gaming streams of 2022 have been revealed, and some controversial streamers are at the top.

The most watched YouTube gaming streams have been revealed by a social media tracking service, and some of the top ten are streamers that have been previously banned by Twitch.

The data comes courtesy of gaming social media tracking firm Stream Hatchet, who compiled a list of the ten most watched gaming streamers on YouTube by hours watched.

At the top of the list was Dan “IShowSpeed” Watkins, who was banned from competing streaming service Twitch for “sexual coercion and intimidation”. The ban stems from an incident where Watkins participated in a dating show on the platform.

During the show, Watkins reportedly threatened to sexually assault another contestant, called her slurs, and made further sexually harassing comments towards her. Twitch initially temporarily suspended Watkins, but the ban was ultimately made permanent shortly after.

Watkins has also been banned from Valorant and all other Riot Games, such as League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics, over misogynistic and abusive comments made in-game.

The top ten YouTube Gaming streamers list also includes VTubers, or ‘virtual YouTubers’, who are streamers who use an animated 3D model so they don’t have to show their face on stream. Three VTubers made it into the top ten, Kuzuha, Pekora, and Miko, all of whom stream almost exclusively in Japanese.

Kuzuha is a VTuber, and uses a 3D model instead of a webcam. Picture: YouTube

There’s recently been a bit of controversy over an AI-powered Twitch streamer which is presented in the style of a VTuber. The AI both plays the games presented on the stream, and interacts with chat, the latter of which has resulted in the AI saying some very controversial and insulting things.

The other controversial streamer to make the list, coming in at fourth place, was Herschel “Dr Disrespect” Beahm. Beahm was permanently banned from Twitch in 2020 for unknown reasons, resulting in legal action taken by Beahm against the streaming giant. The two parties settled the dispute in private in 2022, with neither party admitting fault.

The controversial streamer was also banned from Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 late last year over the use of the game’s proximity chat, which he says he likely “spammed”.

Dr Disrespect was banned from Twitch in 2020 for undisclosed reasons. Picture: Dr Disrespect

Here’s the full list of the most popular gaming streamers on YouTube, and the amount of hours they were watched by viewers and fans:

• IShowSpeed – 38.5 million hours
• Kuzuha – 27.4 million hours
• TimTheTatman – 26.6 million hours
• DrDisRespect – 25.2 million hours
• Pekora – 23.3 million hours
• Ludwig – 22.5 million hours
• Windah Basudara – 21.9 million hours
• Vegetta777 – 20.9 million hours
• Miko – 20.7 million hours
• DJMariio – 20.4 million hours

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.