Popular Fortnite Streamer Drops Racial Slur

Tyler Blevins, more widely known as Ninja, was streaming Fortnite Battle Royale to Twitch while listening to rapper Logic's song 44 More when he let slip the N-word. It has since been clipped and shared all over Twitter. As you can expect, Ninja has received quite a bit of backlash for using the slur, which seems especially off when considering that the song he was singing along to doesn't use the word in its lyrics.

Ninja has set a series of tweets to apologize to his community for using the word;

While I am confident that most of this is a misunderstanding, I recognize that it’s my responsibility to never let there be THIS kind of a misunderstanding. More than anything, I hate that any of my friends, fans, or viewers might feel disrespected. (Tweet 1)

— Ninja (@Ninja) March 29, 2018

It is my job, and hopefully I’m usually good at it, to make everyone feel welcome, valued, and safe to be themselves. So I apologize to anyone who might feel hurt because I NEVER want that. It’s my stream, and it’s on me to make that right. (Tweet 2)

— Ninja (@Ninja) March 29, 2018

The best way I can explain it is that I promise that I understand how much pain that word causes, even if it gets used a lot in music and elsewhere. It’s a word historically used to divide people, and I’m about bringing people together. (Tweet 3)

— Ninja (@Ninja) March 29, 2018

I promise that there was no mal intent (I wasn’t even trying to say the word-I fumbled lyrics and got tongue tied in the worst possible way). Again, I apologize for offending anyone and appreciate you all rocking with me.

— Ninja (@Ninja) March 29, 2018

With a following of over 4 million Ninja is the highest profile streamer on Twitch. He also recently played Fortnite with rappers Drake and Travis Scott. All this to say, it will be interesting to see the effects this has, if any, on the size of his streams.