When famed streamer Richard “Ninja” Blevins announced he was cutting ties with Twitch and moving over to Microsoft’s new streaming service, he left a massive hole for all of his 14 million followers that most thought would never be filled. But the wait for a successor looks like it ended way faster than most expected. Check it out: We’re putting our money on this red-faced boy who plays Hearthstone to be the next big thing on Twitch!
Meet Jeremy Benton, a seventh-grader out of Stockton, Illinois. Or, as you’ll probably know him in a few weeks, the heir apparent to Ninja’s throne!
Sure, he only has 14 followers now on his Jeremy_12x Twitch account and most of them are his middle-school classmates. But we’re still betting this Hearthstone-streaming, rosy-cheeked boy will be responsible for 60% of Twitch’s revenue by the end of the year. Easy.
Look, what more do you need? He has a high-pitched voice that cracks from time to time, he’s constantly out of breath, and he oozes the sort of charisma that we go so far as to call Ninja-esque. In fact, we’d say there’s a good chance Red Bull and Uber Eats are already courting Jeremy for some sort of six-figure sponsorship deal.
There’s something so charismatic about the way he yells “This is bullshit” and turns an even brighter shade of red anytime he gets destroyed by an opponent’s Felgard card in Hearthstone. That’s the sort of star power that we haven’t seen since Ninja started streaming H1Z1 back in 2011. You’ve got to assume this rotund little beet-red preteen is well on his way to building out a full merch store of Jeremy_12x hoodies, joggers, and beanies.
Now, there are always going to be some Ninja diehards out there who say no one can replace the king. They’ll say that Jeremy’s win-loss ratio in Hearthstone (23-110, for the record) is nothing close to Ninja’s. And, yeah, he doesn’t wear a hoodie or dye his hair because his parents would lose their shit.
Some people might even say that the honor of being Ninja’s successor should go to other more popular streamers like shroud or Tfue.
But ultimately, it’s the unique flavor Jeremy brings to the table that will presumably make him into the de facto successor to Ninja’s crown. Keep your eyes peeled because within a few months, we’re betting this ruddy kid will be an internationally renowned superstar pulling a few million views for YouTube videos showing his everyday life. We pretty much guarantee it.
Unfortunately, that’s all we know so far about Jeremy! We asked for an interview, but his parents said he couldn’t come to the phone because he needed to go to church. That’s a classic Jeremy_12x move!
