Ninja Responds To Bizarre CNBC Claim
Ninja, the ex-Twitch, ex-Mixer, now free agent streaming superstar recently got some pretty surprising news: apparently nobody knows what his real name is. This shocking revelation came from a guest on a CNBC financial segment, media analyst Laura Martin, and was spread to the gaming community by a tweet from industry expert Rod Breslau. The tweet quickly picked up steam, getting over 19,000 likes and 1,500 retweets as of writing this article. It wasn't long before it caught the attention of Ninja himself.
Richard Tyler "Ninja" Blevins, whose real name is very well known and is easily found with a quick Google search, responded with a humorous gif from Narcos. The gif is commonly used to imply either that the poster is feeling sad and alone, or waiting impatiently for something. That was all the streamer had to say on the matter, but others took the chance to pile on to Breslau's tweet. Some people replied by attacking CNBC or Ms. Martin for not doing their due diligence, which seemed like the bare minimum that someone being presented as an expert could do. Others simply pointed out that the information was readily available to anyone with an internet connection.
While it might have been a little more understandable if Martin had mistakenly referred to him as Richard — Ninja normally goes by his middle name, Tyler — people seemed dumbfounded that she apparently couldn't find his name at all.
Ninja himself seemed content to laugh it off, though, and plenty of his friends and fans joined in the fun. LazarBeam, an extremely popular YouTuber, commented on Blevins's gif saying that Ninja must not be that famous. Others jokingly claimed to know his real name, proposing everything from "Ninja Fortnite" to "Taylor Beavins."
This is far from the first strange claim that Ninja's faced in his career. For instance, the not-so-subtly-named Ninja_Hater once started a rumor that Blevins had died. It was a lie, of course; Ninja was alive and well, and he soon reappeared to quash the rumor. It turned out that he'd been traveling, which caused him to miss one of his usual streaming times and gave Ninja_Hater the opening to start the rumor. While the death hoax didn't last very long, jokes and memes about his supposed cause of death — the fake disease "ligma" – continued for quite a while afterward.
It's good to see Ninja taking this in stride. The streamer's attitude seems to have noticeably shifted in recent months, with some fans even claiming that he was turning toxic. It wasn't that long ago when Ninja tore into Cloak, another big-name streamer, for a gentle jab about Mixer. It was quite a departure from the Ninja who used to laugh and joke and toss energy drinks to his audience. There's no telling whether he was just going stir-crazy from lockdown, or his move to Mixer had been stressing him out, or something else entirely was bothering him. In any event, it's nice to see the old Ninja shining through now.
Anyone as famous as Blevins is bound to be the subject of some rumors and misinformation, whether malicious or unintentional (and Martin's mistake is certainly the latter). However, the claim that nobody knows who a famous person is might be a new one. It's not clear how this oversight happened, but at least Ninja's response to it was on point.