In the middle of a livestream, the father of popular Twitch streamer xQc calls, concerned about his son’s admitted gambling addiction.

It’s easy to forget that Twitch and YouTube content creators are real people who have lives outside of streaming and making videos. This is, unfortunately, why viewers regularly send hate mail, swat at creators’ homes, or even show up at their homes themselves. Twitch streamer xQc said in April that he’d received an unusually high number of death threats and that he’d previously had to relocate due to viewer-instigated police raids.

As one of Twitch’s most well-known personalities, xQc has seen his fair share of unsavory behavior, but he also receives a lot of positive feedback from viewers. He’s had gambling streams in the past, and xQc recently admitted to having a gambling addiction, which has raised some eyebrows. Pokimane, a fellow Twitch personality, revealed in the first episode of his podcast that he had lost $1.85 million in April due to gambling.

This revelation, understandably, caused many people’s jaws to drop, and the story was picked up by several media outlets. The situation, however, resulted in an unexpected but wholesome interaction between xQc and his father. The content creator received a phone call from his progenitor during a Twitch livestream, which he answered on camera.

The content creator jumped in and told his father to stop reading clickbait articles about him. Reminders that there are people behind the familiar personas on social media can be extremely beneficial.

Despite them spamming “OMEGALUL” throughout the interaction, the brief but touching phone call between a concerned father and his son likely had a positive effect on xQc’s viewing audience. Seeing behind the scenes of a Twitch or YouTuber’s life can also make people feel more personally connected to them, though this can have both positive and negative consequences.

In 2021, xQc’s gambling streams sparked some debate in the Twitch community, with celebrities such as Amouranth and Ollie Ring weighing in. xQc, according to Ollie Ring, was irresponsibly influencing younger audience members to gamble as a popular content creator. Furthermore, online gambling is prohibited in Texas, where the streamer resided at the time. xQc announced shortly after that he would no longer do gambling streams, though this is not a commitment the streamer has kept.