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Stephan "Steph" Loehr, who goes by the online aliases of "FerociouslySteph" or variations of "StephOddish," is a trans, ex-competitive gamer from Washington who, despite their horse-face, is also a deer furry/otherkin. While one can derive amusement, or be disturbed, by his behavior as a deer otherkin involving mewling on his stream for hours and spasming as a goblin pokes his head, Stephan is most notable for his extreme views on online conduct which aims to appeal to the most hypersensitive of users. While this ordinarily would lead to bemused dismissal from most, this instead raises concern given Stephan's recent promotion to the head of Twitch's "Safety Advisory Council," a position of power from which he will be able to enforce his bizarre stances, an ability he has been recorded gleefully bragging about in anticipation. Further intrigue arises from the absolutely horrendous reception his promotion and previous behavior sparked, leading to a cataclysm of negative criticism from detractors in opposition and sheer insanity from his supporters doubling down, creating a dumpster fire of unprecedented proportions not seen since about a week ago when that other thing happened.
Special thanks goes to @CatharticShitHead, @Haramburger, @I had to, @muh_moobs, @Nigel of Ukip, and @ωσкє вℓυє мυѕℓιм qυєєη for their assistance in the creation of this thread, users @ACTION, @Sometimes, and @Detract_This for finding additional updates, @weedsneaker13 for their assistance with archiving, and users @zedkissed60 and @Spedestrian for verifying information. Additional thanks goes to @MrLeftwardSlopingPenis for the original thread.
For context, this thread was rewritten and merged with a post created by another user. The merge was completed starting on page 8 of this current thread.
OUTSIDE OF TWITCH
Before his claim to infamy, Stephan was on a competitive team for a popular MOBA game with his boyfriend by the name of "Elizabeth Baze," and is curiously part of the Anti-Defamation League. Stephan's boyfriend "Lizz," whose real name is Michael Bruce Joyner (who shall be identified as such henceforth) and who used to go by the alias of "Dead-A-Chek" and "DeadOnDrugs," is a fellow MtF transgender streamer and Twitch "ambassador." Their forays into competitive gaming is a point of pride for the two, as Michael has been caught lying about their tourney placements during this time by claiming to come second in a tournament titled "Twitch Rivals Apex," which was proven to be false by one of his old teammates, with further explanation here.
Giving but a taste of the disposition Stephan's supporters seem to universally share, this spurred Michael to attack their ex-teammate for correcting this information, venomously insulting them with a ferocity which carries over to their responses directed at other bystanders regarding the current situation. Presumably, this behavior (and future demonstrated behavior) by Michael is most unbecoming of an "ambassador" of Twitch who is meant to serve as a face for the platform. But interestingly, this is rather reflective of Stephan's equally patronizing tendency to try to emotionally manipulate his dissenters, guilting or shaming them into submission.
As most can conclude by this squabble, Michael is also of significant interest and is ever-diligent in defending Stephan from his opposition. Outside of his involvement with Stephan's negative reception, however, the most notable (yet still underwhelming) quality of Michael is that he and Stephan appear to be in an "open relationship" with an individual known as "Brittany Baze." Beyond this, current evidence points to Michael being a rather eccentric individual himself, but readers are warned, as user @Denmark Mafia shared and as users @Venom_X, @Sometimes, and @Qriist archived here, here, and here respectively, Michael is as insufferable in person as he is on the internet.
A fourth member in Michael and Stephan's "open relationship" is a natural-born woman "Willow Lupa" or "Rainbowkittnn," who is the person seen scratching Stephan in the now-infamous videos. Willow, however, seems to be the least interesting (although most unfortunate-looking) of the bunch.
Moving from the topic of social to biological, and back on to Stephan himself, he is quite obviously trans (with his pre-transition photos shared and confirmed by Stephan himself). Although he has apparently not divulged much on this matter, he has confirmed himself to have received sexual reassignment surgery, or at least an orchiectomy (the surgical removal of the testicles).
BEHAVIOR
As one would expect given his personal history, Stephan's disposition online before the current trainwreck he's found himself in is quite strange. Stephan is a self-proclaimed deer furry (or otherkin, or what-have-you). But rather than simply masturbating to crayon drawings of anthropomorphic, quadruple-breasted deer centaurs fisting one another in a landfill like a healthy and sane furry, Stephan actually acts on his delusions of being a spiritual deer. These snippets have led to endless criticism, with many claiming that Stephan is not sound of mind given his behavior in them. As a non-exhaustive list of examples, currently there are clips circulating such as the one that follows, with Stephan claiming to eat wild grass to better connect with his deer fursona.
In another instance, Stephan found it prudent to show himself being scratched like an animal as he whimpers and snorts on-camera with Willow, interrupting a stream otherwise focused on gaming; tittering, moaning, and seizing apparently being rather deer-like behavior.
That isn't to say he allows these sessions (called "scritching" in the furry community) to only serve as mere interruptions. On the contrary, Stephan has dedicated entire streams to these acts, demonstrated here where one can only presume a meth addict (potentially Brianna Wu after expressing his support of Stephan, also shown below) broke into his home and decided to incapacitate Stephan by rubbing his head before making off with his stolen goods after the clip ends. Or it's just Willow looking particularly awful again.
Deciding that his more discerning viewers deserve something extra after these few streams of sheer discomfort, Stephan also considered opening an OnlyFans specifically for footage of his wranglers scratching the dingleberries off him, in case there were any viewers willing to pay to see this content rather than pay to make it stop.
Although these itch-relieving sessions are pleasantly repulsive on their own, the brunt of the umbrage people take with Stephan being promoted to a position of power on Twitch are his brazen and insane views on the community which he is meant to oversee and dictate. Here, Stephan proceeds to maliciously slander the often-marginalized group known as "gamers," smugly claiming it is "just a fact" that they are white supremacists, apparently missing the memo that the platform he now represents was created specifically for this outspoken minority.
Titillated by the negative reaction he received for this, Stephan seemed intent to anger nearly every conceivable user of Twitch, leading to one other primary point he's made which garnered extreme backlash: his belief that voice chat should be removed from competitive video games because it is inexplicably "unfair."
To better clarify, although this led to him seeming even less credible, he went into further detail on his personal Twitter. He also proceeded to argue with and talk down to a person who agreed with him, Stephan believing this person was actually disagreeing even after said individual explicitly explained otherwise, all serving as a demonstration of Stephan's contemptible, patronizing personality.
As many a viewer will notice, Stephan's argument doesn't make any sense. Realizing this, Stephan goes on to both makes his point somehow less sensical and insult yet another overwhelming majority of users on Twitch, claiming that "cis, white male" users are universally wrong for disagreeing with his stance on voice chat. Bizarrely, Stephan acts exasperated because his dissenters haven't somehow dissected every instance he's belabored this view across the years, implying that he's unaware he only just now entered the public eye. At the very least, Stephan finally decides to explain that the reason he wants to remove voice chat, being "minority" sounding voices tend to get harassed in competitive play, competitive players apparently being unphased by the needless risk of being reported or banned they would need to take for the sake of discriminating against a teammate for no reason.
In a final, masterful play, Stephan ends his rambling with an ultimate, insurmountable argument for all who disagree: stay mad, because he is right.
Yet even after the controversy began, Stephan found it to be a strategic move to stoke the flames even further, joyfully claiming that those who go against him should be "afraid of [him]" because he "[has] power" that "they can't take away from [him]" and that "Twitch is endorsing [him] to do [so]," proving that Stephan is completely tone-deaf to what is the primary issue people have with his position and actions.
After a brief meeting with Twitch staff the day after this was recorded, however, Stephan backpedals tremendously, basically stating the exact opposite of what he does in the above clip. Of note is his claim that his words were "misinterpreted," a bold-faced lie given the aforementioned clip's clear-cut statements. In a subsequent stream, Stephan then states he had to be careful of what he says, heavily implying Twitch staff put him in his place during their meeting and that he was explicitly instructed to do damage control for them.
Soon after, a clip of Stephan soon surfaced basically repeating the above sentiments. As expected, Stephan denies any responsibility and claims to no longer respect the people who insisted he had some fault for the chaos he summoned. Most intriguing, however, is that Stephan's body language only ever shifts from his usual toothy grin when he mentions he went to a meeting and got yelled at, implying the only thing that stuck with Stephan from the meeting is that his superiors got mad at him for a reason he can't fathom.
THE DUMPSTER FIRE
There are a variety of views a sensible reader can take regarding Stephan's behavior and their position on Twitch's staff. One can perhaps conclude that Stephan's comments, while strange, will most likely not negatively impact the Twitch community in a notable way, especially when under such harsh scrutiny. It's possible to see that Stephan's behavior as rather unprofessional, and is a poor representation of the moderation team. Some can even conclude that Stephan's views and actions are abhorrent for somebody who is meant to serve as a link between a major website and its community which could lead to more severe issues in the near future. But regardless of their viewpoints, all individuals observing Stephan can universally agree: the response Stephan has garnered is an absolute trainwreck.
Across multiple communities and websites, Stephan's actions (and reception thereof) has spurred countless news sources to cover the mess, with varying levels of support.
Even internet personalities felt the need to speak on the matter. From well-liked and popular Youtubers like "Cr1tikal" giving their balanced thoughts on the matter...
...To, perhaps, "other" individuals, such as streamer Destiny, who offered his take on the situation, which Stephan made the bold move of biting back against.
Obviously, Michael took to the skies in order to defend Stephan, which led to an unfortunate exchange where he insulted a dyslexic user who made the point that he needs voice chat to communicate in-game due to difficulty using text chat, culminating in Michael tactfully calling another user in the same conversation a, quote, "illiterate fuck" before immediately "apologizing." "Apologizing" being in quotes because Michael backpedals it in the same breath by specifically clarifying he's not "sorry" because he insulted a person for a handicap outside of their control, but because Michael's actions gave his opponents more ammunition for a counter-argument before insulting the user yet again, proving that Michael only cares about defending Stephan himself rather than actually supporting Stephan's point, which ironically was to help marginalized groups avoid harassment. Michael finishes off by explaining his empathy ends for anyone the moment they dare disagree with him. Once again, it is unknown if this is acceptable conduct for users who are meant to serve as "ambassadors" for Twitch.
Michael soon realized how this episode made him look horrible to outsiders and attempted to do damage control much too late, leading to him attempting to buy other people's respect for the low price of $50 by donating to a charity for people with dyslexia. Apparently a person who does not discriminate against a marginalized group advertises when they make a small donation to a related charity when it is expedient for them to do so, rather than donating unprompted and without fanfare. But the damage was already done, and his apology after the fact sounds especially hollow given his non-apologies (plural) earlier. Hilariously, Michael tries to twist his blatant insults days later as his words being taken "out of context," an excuse suspiciously identical to Stephan's future apology within the same timeframe.
But days before this apology meant to "recontextualize" his words, Michael oddly complained about being mentioned on a known international terrorist conglomerate website called "🅱iwifarms." What makes this strange is that he claimed to be "doxxed" well before his information was ever present in the thread, heavily suggesting this move may have been a ploy for pity, and which ironically motivated users to doxXx Michael as self-fulfilling prophecy.
After humorously making Stephan's desire to remove voice chat in video games look like a conspiratorial ploy to undermine people with dyslexia, Willow decides to bring up the rear. But because Willow is just stupid and boring rather than stupid and insane, all she had to offer were weak justifications and convenient reinterpretations of Stephan's words.
But there is much intrigue to be found outside of Stephan's social circle (of all two people in them). Personality Justin Whang, for instance, was understandably content to simply point and laugh.
Others, however, have eagerly taken Stephan's side, like the predictable choice of ResetEra posters, who were ready and willing to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him and his supporters.
Yet, somehow, there is much discourse to be had in communities such as trans Reddits, where countless users argue whether or not Stephan's behavior is deserving of respect, pity, or revulsion.
And therein lies what makes Stephan's current situation amusing: the endless barrage of defenders and dissenters he has called into action, along with those excitedly watching on the sidelines. As the situation has only recently developed, there shall obviously be further lunacy and idiocy as countless others rush to jump to Stephan's inexplicable defense, expectedly misconstruing Stephan's opponents' intentions by portraying them as merely attacking Stephan for his endless list of personal descriptors rather than holding him personally accountable for his statements. Stephan himself has even responded to the controversy, smiling as always while he claims to be struggling with the creation of this very thread.
The nature of the situation caused many to question why Stephan was even selected to represent Twitch staff to begin with, causing a theory that the heads of Twitch intended to use Stephan as a cudgel to weed out undesirables on their platforms. In essence, the belief is that Stephan would give Twitch means to instate and enforce draconian rules after he spurred a p[anned overwhelming and negative reception. This belief hasn't been confirmed directly, although it is questionable given Stephan's ties to the Anti-Defamation League, but a recent statement from Twitch addressing Stephan's reception lends credence to the theory. Disconcertingly, despite stating that it isn't Stephan's place to make executive decisions, this post confirms that Twitch will use his reception to adjust their rules, claiming "[Twitch is] grateful for [Stephan]'s contribution to help[...]improve Twitch policy," which falls in line with the aforementioned theory perfectly.
Still, there now exists a large divide of users across all platforms and communities, some in support, some in opposition, and some content to watch as spectators. As time goes on, more information and stupidity shall soon follow in Stephan's wake, and indeed only time will tell if the situation worsens. Probably so.
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PICTURES
What is wrong with you?
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