"Wait, you're a staffer?" - Twitch streamer Squeex jokes about using bots to increase viewership

Twitch streamer and Super Mario 64 speedrunner Squeex has been on the rise as of late. Over the past few months, he has nearly doubled his follower count on Twitch, with over 21,000 followers in total. His average viewer count has seen similar growth, with him now averaging nearly 940 viewers per stream.

During his latest stream, a viewer in his chat commented on the channel's growth, saying there were more viewers than usual. He jokingly responded that they were all bots. Continuing the joke, he acted as if the person who commented was a Twitch staffer, quickly toeing the company line:

"Oh wait, you're a staffer?"

---

Squeex jokes about botting while speedrunning Super Mario 64

During one of the many Super Mario 64 speedruns, the Twitch streamer used a comment about his channel's recent growth as the springboard for a fantastic bit of improvisational comedy.

After having doubled his follower count and average viewer count in a few short months, Squeex read a chat that mentioned his current viewership was higher than normal. He responded by joking that his viewership mostly consisted of bots that he paid for:

"'Damn, your stream is doing numbers.' Yeah, they're all bots. I clicked the 'Wanna get easy Twitch follows and Primes' button."

For those unfamiliar, there is an issue on Twitch where bot accounts will spam chats with advertisements about paying for followers and subscriptions. These bots usually target smaller streamers who are hoping to attract real viewers through Twitch's algorithm after purchasing followers.

Fake engagement and botting are against Twitch's community guidelines, and Squeex knows this. He took the joke even further, pretending that the person in chat asking the question was a Twitch staffer and that he had just made a mistake by admitting to botting.

He said that he was merely joking about paying for bot viewers and followers, saying exactly what Twitch would want to hear. To add to the joke, he spoke as if he were under duress and being forced to read off of an index card:

"I meant I am creating an environment of inclusion and diversity to support fellow content creators."

He took things a step further, proving his loyalty to Amazon by promoting Prime Video's exclusive TV series The Boys:

"Watching The Boys Season 3 on Amazon Prime Video."

Although he wasn't speaking to a real Twitch staffer and was not in any real danger of being banned, Squeex seemed satisfied that his performance would help him avoid punishment from Twitch:

"I think I nailed that one."

He certainly did nail the joke, while speedrunning Super Mario 64 no less.

---

Fans react to Squeex talking his way out of a Twitch ban

Some fans who viewed the clip on Reddit appreciated how far he went to sell the joke, including the nervous gulps he made in between sentences:

Many took a liking to Squeex and his sense of humor:

It is certainly impressive how effortlessly the streamer seemed to multitask between speedrunning a game and performing his comedy bit.