Growing up as a gay man in small-town America meant having to watch people learn empathy in real-time when they found out they’d been going to school or working with a queer person this whole time and didn’t automatically hate them. I had more than a few people tell me they “hated” gay people until they met one (me) and then suddenly they’re allies to the cause. We are now seeing that unfold online for a bunch of young men after popular Madden Twitch streamer Sketch was outed for having made gay OnlyFans content, now some of his once-homophobic fans are suddenly realizing that gay people are just people. A silver lining in a bad situation, I guess?
For those who don’t know, Kylie “Sketch” Cox is a streamer with over a million followers on Twitch. His influence can even be seen outside of his streams as his catchphrase “what’s up brother” went viral on TikTok and even became well known in professional sports circles. On Sunday, July 7, the YouTube channel Pocketbook posted a video with screenshots of what it alleged was Cox’s OnlyFans content. The resulting fallout has been a mix: some streamers and influencers have expressed, support, while others have slammed him in predictably homophobic and anti-sex work ways. On July 8, Cox hosted a short response stream to address the situation, confirming the legitimacy of the screenshots and saying he made OnlyFans content when he was going through a “dark time” and struggling with addiction. It is real fucking sad that he feels the need to apologize for this, as there should be no shame.
Cox said that his support system helped him avoid a crisis moment, and he’s already joking about the scenario, so good on him for taking it in stride. A bizarre side effect of all of this is that some of Cox’s (mostly young, male) fans are suddenly learning empathy for queer people and sex workers. It’s an unfortunate reality that homophobes can’t conceptualize queer people and their struggles as real until it’s someone they care about, but if one good thing has come from all of this mess it’s that bigoted people are becoming less so.
“I clowned him at first I won’t even lie about it,” a TikTok user wrote. “Then I just realized how he must be feeling man. Seeing those texts [between Sketch and FaZe Clan’s Banks] and then him talking about it just hurt so much to hear man.”
We’ve reached out to Sketch for comment and will update this story if we hear back. Hopefully, these unfortunate events will lead to more hateful people denouncing their bigoted views. In the meantime, audio from Sketch’s video is going viral on TikTok in which he parodies U.S. President Bill Clinton’s infamous “I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” sound bite. Even in a rough situation, the dude’s got impeccable comedic timing.
This controversy comes not long after both top streamer Guy “Dr. Disrespect” Beahm admitted to inappropriately messaging a minor on Twitch and was subsequently stripped of almost all of his brand deals, and Nick “Nickmercs” Kolcheff was banned from Twitch for saying a transphobic slur. Unsurprisingly, some still voiced support for both controversial streamers, highlighting the often regressive ideologies of those who are plugged into the lives of popular Twitch personalities. So after seeing that unfold, it’s heartening to see some Twitch controversy help people escape bigoted mindsets rather than emboldening them.
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