Ludwig's Entire Rocky YouTube Timeline Explained
Ludwig, the former Twitch streamer that blew up in 2021, is now part of the YouTube Gaming gang. Following in the footsteps of massive names like DrLupo and TimTheTatman, Ludwig joined the ranks back in November 2021. Since then, he's streamed all kinds of content, from letting his chat buy anything with his credit card to reacting to TikToks. He even kept up a second channel on the platform, Mogul Mail, where he provided commentary on a variety of subjects, even revealing the biggest pros and cons of YouTube versus Twitch. With views on individual videos ranging between 500k to nearly 7 million, he's a big name on the site.
However, things haven't always been smooth sailing for Ludwig. The transition from Twitch to YouTube was incredibly rocky, and Ludwig had to adjust to new rules and guidelines that he wasn't expecting. While he's still soared on the platform, he made quite a few mistakes in the early days.
#freeludwig, baboons, and children
Before Ludwig made the switch to streaming on YouTube, he uploaded videos regularly to the Google-owned platform. In fact, he had posted on YouTube for 618 days straight, as he pointed out on Twitter when he was suddenly banned for a week for "child safety" concerns. The real reason he was banned was because he reacted to a clip of a baboon throwing feces at a child. The clip actually came from YouTube and had ten-times the views of his video that got him banned. Ludwig thought it was ridiculous that his video received a ban when the other video was still up and going strong.
His viewers agreed, and #freeludwig started trending on Twitter. Ludwig's original tweet about the problem got over 900 replies. While fans were outraged, the official TeamYouTube account explained that he would be able to upload videos again, saving his nearly two-year streak. The problematic video was also reinstated, but with an age restriction.
While there's no clear answer as to whether or not YouTube was being hypocritical or Ludwig was uncertain about Age Restricted Content, it wasn't the last time the streamer would get in trouble with the platform.
Copyrighted content vs. Ludwig
Less than a week after moving to YouTube, Ludwig was banned from the platform. While streaming three days after he made the move, his stream was abruptly stopped and viewers received a message that his channel was unavailable. Unfortunately, while reacting to YouTube videos, he stumbled into the infamous "Baby Shark" song and played it briefly on his stream.
Just like anything else related to copyrighted content, the company that owns the incredibly popular children's song has a legal right to strike the video down. That's exactly what it did, and Ludwig wasn't too happy. While it was a simple mistake that came from the confusing jump between platforms, Ludwig seemed to have thought he'd have a bit more freedom over what he played on his stream and basically said as much in a video announcing his move.
Things couldn't have gotten worse for Ludwig on YouTube, as he was in trouble yet again four days later on December 2, 2021. His stream was abruptly cut short again after streaming another YouTuber's videos. Despite receiving warnings throughout the stream that he was streaming content that was copyrighted, Ludwig continued to watch the content live. He thought that the warning would result in the video being demonetized, but it actually meant that YouTube would stop his stream.
This incident didn't end with the streamer being banned, though. He was able to quickly start another stream and joked about the situation, saying that he'd have to come up with his own content.
Ludwig's accidental return to Twitch
While Ludwig finally started grasping how to handle copyright content on his channel, he hilariously broke his contract with YouTube by streaming on Twitch about three weeks after moving platforms. When he went to stream, he accidentally went live on Twitch instead of YouTube, and it took him a second to realize it. Once he got his stream working on YouTube, his viewers started berating him for being late with the term "latewig." However, the streamer was in good spirits and showed the clip of him on the wrong platform to poke fun at himself.
YouTube didn't publicly criticize the streamer for his mistake or ban him for any amount of time, so it seems like it understood that Ludwig made an honest, and pretty funny, mistake. After this, it seemed like his struggles on the platform were finally over, but his chat started becoming problematic while making a naming decision.
YouTube chat and Ludwig's cat
Fast forward to May 2022. Ludwig adopted a new cat, and to celebrate, he left the cat's name up to his chat. For fun, he ran a game of "Marbles" to decide on a name, which let viewers add their names (after getting approved) to a virtual marble. From there, the marbles raced down a virtual course to see which name would finish first. The lucky winner? "Cracker."
At the time, there was speculation that led to the idea that the term "cracker" had caused fellow streamer HasanAbi to be banned from Twitch because of its use as a slur toward white people. Ludwig tried "Marbles" again to find another name, but his chat wasn't too happy about it. To pacify them, Ludwig let the kitten choose by putting "Cracker," "Coots," and "Marbles" on his screen and seeing what the cat went to. Of course, just to troll the YouTuber even further, the unknowing feline went straight to "Cracker."
Nothing immediately came from the issue, but his cat could get him in trouble in later streams.