Leffen under fire for claims streaming is “harder” than most jobs

Brad Norton
Leffen recording YouTube video

Veteran Smash Bros. competitor, William ‘Leffen’ Hjelte has come under fire on social media for a controversial claim that livestreaming video games on Twitch is “harder” than most other jobs.

Leffen hasn’t quite been able to steer clear of headlines for controversial takes of late. Just last week much of the Call of Duty community lashed out over his aggressive behavior towards Team Summertime’s Davis ‘Hitch’ Edwards on the topic of Skill-Based Matchmaking.

Since then, his Twitter fingers have been primed and ready to go. A few days later and the Swedish pro has jumped back into the spotlight once more.

Leffen playing Smash
Leffen has never been one to shy away from sharing his opinion, even if it lands him in hot water.

Arguing about the value of certain Smash games, prominent community member ‘iamrickles’ pointed out how Leffen made a good chunk of change. The pro player earned a good amount from streaming Smash Ultimate – a game that he often criticizes.

“Whatever you paid for Ultimate I guarantee streaming and making content for it has made you all that money back and more,” he outlined.

It didn’t take long before Leffen fired back, explaining how it was his efforts that made the money, not the platform Smash afforded him.

“I f***ing sold my body and soul to make that money. You think you have to love and respect every sh***y job you do for money? I’d rather flip burgers at McDonald’s if it paid the same amount.” One controversial tweet led into another as Leffen kept unloading. 

“As someone who has actually worked a minimum wage job bagging groceries, and ‘just played video games’, I’d take the flipping burgers,” he added. “Trust me, you know absolutely nothing about streaming Ultimate if you think minimum wage jobs are harder.”

Leffen currently boasts over 180K subscribers on YouTube and just under 300K followers on Twitch. Despite this social following, Leffen argues that the streaming grind is more difficult than most other jobs. This particular argument soon caught wind in the greater streaming community, garnering well over 2,500 responses in under 24 hours.

“Feeling like complete s*** for working a heavy schedule on a physically demanding job for p*** pay is bad, but yeah, having to deal with WiFi lag is harder you’re right,” one user responded

“Comparing retail work which is physically and mentally exhausting to streaming where you’re in the comfort of your home, interacting with a chat, gaming, and more, is a blessing,” another content creator added.

Thousands typed up a storm in response to the now-viral tweet. Though nearly all were looking to shut down Leffen’s school of thought.

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About The Author

Brad Norton is the Australian Managing Editor at Dexerto. He graduated from Swinburne University with a Bachelor’s degree in journalism and has been working full-time in the field for the past six years at the likes of Gamurs Group and now Dexerto. He loves all things single-player gaming (with Uncharted a personal favorite) but has a history on the competitive side having previously run Oceanic esports org Mindfreak. You can contact Brad at brad.norton@dexerto.com