‘Fortnite’ streamer and Twitch star Tfue’s signing off: ‘Need to go live my life’
Popular “Fortnite” streamer and Twitch star Turner “Tfue” Tenney said his streaming days have come to an end, for now.
Tenney, 25, announced his hiatus from streaming on Wednesday in a 40-minute video that looked back on his career of content creation. According to the video, Tunney first appeared in a YouTube video in 2007 and has been a streaming partner with Twitch for eight years.
“I just need to go live my life,” he said in an emotional message to fans.
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The retrospective, titled “Goodbye,” chronicled how Tenney, who currently boasts 11.7 million YouTube subscribers, built a following. The Florida-born streamer said he got his start playing popular shooting games “Call of Duty” and “Halo.” Then he started gaining a following with the “Destiny” series.
He spoke about playing with notable streamers including Tyler “Ninja” “Blevins and pursuing a competitive esports career. Tenney, who has faced backlash multiple times for saying racial slurs during his streams, caught his wave when Epic Games released the battle royal shooting game in 2017.
“That’s when s— really blew up,” Tenney said in the video. He said he first found the Epic juggernaut “corny,” but returned to it as the game added “cooler s—.”
In April 2018, Tenney signed with esports and entertainment group FaZe Clan. A year later, Tenney filed a lawsuit accusing the company of an “oppressive” contract. The two parties split in 2020 after settling the dispute.
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Wednesday’s video highlighted several of Tenney’s memorable “Fortnite” streams, friendships with other Twitch stars and YouTube megastar MrBeast‘s “Fortnite”-inspired gift to the streamer.
Tenney thanked his “supportive” family and fans for sticking with him through the years, but explained, “I just need time to get away.”
Uncertain on whether he’ll return to streaming, Tenney said gaming as a career lost its shine.
Teary-eyed, he continued: “I used gaming to kinda escape from reality. And I feel like now, I use reality to escape from f— work. I just feel f— kinda trapped sometimes, you know? It just feels like f— a lot, dude. It’s been f— hard.”
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Tfue last streamed on Twitch two months ago. Elsewhere in the video, he said he is streaming solely for the money, “and that’s just not who I am.”
Tenney’s hiatus announcement comes amid major shifts in the world of streaming. Canadian content creator xQc (real name Félix Lengyel) departed Twitch for rival platform Kick in a $100 million deal, reported by the New York Times last week.
“Kick is allowing me to try and do things I haven’t been able to before,” xQc said in a statement with the New York Times. “I’m extremely excited to take this opportunity and maximize it into new creative and fresh ideas over coming years.”
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