Guy Beahm, who streams on Twitch as the popular character “Dr Disrespect,” has broken his silence on the controversial live stream incident during the E3 expo in Los Angeles early last month that resulted in a multi-week ban from the platform. Breaking character in rare fashion, Beahm posted a note to his dormant Twitter account in the form of a Twitlonger post, the first tweet from the account since November 2017. In the post, Beahm apologizes for his actions and offers some insight into why the incident, in which he and his cameraman filmed live in a mens bathroom, took place.
“When we were walking around filming at E3, we clearly werent thinking about the laws/repercussions of filming in the bathroom because honestly, it wasnt in our mind frame at the time. We were sort of all in with the Doc livestream experience and capturing the E3 event through the character,” Beahm writes. “We were so into the E3 IRL journey that we became a little blind in whats ok and whats not ok. We had no ill intentions and I feel that was pretty obvious if you watched the entire thing. We wanted to capture an adventure, unfortunately we took that adventure into the wrongs areas unaware of the legalities surrounding it. On behalf of the Dr Disrespect brand, I apologize for this.”
Twitch has already reactivated Dr Disrespects account after what appears to have been a two-week ban, and Beahm is expected to return to full-time streaming soon. But until now, he hasnt commented on the situation, choosing instead to post satirical promotional videos to the Dr Disrespect Twitter account hinting at the characters eventual return next week on July 8th.
Meanwhile, the Twitch community has been debating what Twitchs relatively light punishment means for the streamer community, as well as whether the company takes an active enough role in moderating the behavior of creators who both play video games live and, in the case of Beahms E3 incident, bring their channels into the real world in what are known in the community as “IRL” streams.
Beahm has been absent from those conversations, but the general consensus even among ardent pro-streaming members of the community is that Twitch risks abetting behavior like this by not handing down lengthier bans, commenting little or not at all on its decision making, and by letting popular streamers benefit financially by staging big comebacks after controversial bans. Since his account was reactivated, Beahm has received a massive influx of donations and gifted subscriptions. It follows a similar pattern to Beahms previous Dr Disrespect break in late 2017, when he stopped streaming to deal with a family matter only to return in February 2018 with record-breaking numbers.
Heres Beahms post in full:
Id like to talk about Dr Disrespects Twitch ban from E3.
This was my first IRL stream as the Doc and if its not obvious by now, one of the things I try to stay true with is authenticity. Real life personas are so difficult to pull off, especially in todays society. Doc is edgy, highly opinionated, cocky, etc. and that certainly adds to the difficulty in staying authentic without offending anyone on a deeper, personal level. When we were walking around filmi
