Wheelchair bound Twitch streamer, ZilianOP, walks – banned for fraud

A Twitch streamer by the name of ZilianOP, who has claimed for two years to be wheelchair bound, had his lies come tumbling down upon him during a recent stream where he got up and walked away from the camera. Since he elicited donations, somewhat based around his faux disability, Twitch has banned his account – and that of his complicit girlfriend – for fraud.

ZilianOp, real name Angel Hamilton, has apparently drummed up over $20,000 in streaming earnings and donations over the past couple of years, some of which has bought an expensive wheelchair, as well as funding a cross-country move for him to live closer to his girlfriend. While his now-deleted Twitch page did encourage donations though, it didn't seem to do so on the basis of his physical condition.

The video that's got everyone so riled up, is below. Note that his girlfriend – the female voice heard speaking over the video – was Skype calling him at the time and therefore had no delay in her reaction to his standing up, while those watching the stream with its typical 10+ second delay, took longer to respond. It's been suggested by some, that her story about the dog “standing up,” and peeing on her, was a simultaneous cover up of her own reaction as well as a coded way of telling Hamilton that his camera was still streaming. [yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N5gixJ2X8M']

Note also, that the camera is summarily refocused on the tabletop, despite the fact that the supposedly wheelchair bound Hamilton left his chair in shot and would therefore be unable to reach the camera without difficulty – hardly the first priority for someone who claimed to have fallen from his chair.

The following is an unconfirmed chat log from the ZilianOP bashing site Diabl0wned.

Twitch released a statement to Kotaku on the matter: “The Twitch broadcaster, Zilianop, did indeed have his channel closed and his partnership contract terminated on the basis of fraud,”

“Moving forward, we'll be offering refunds to those who subscribed to his channel through Twitch. We have zero tolerance for this type of behavior and the character demonstrated in this situation is truly reprehensible. His actions are a huge slap in the face to Twitch community members with real disabilities such as Aieron, and groups such as AbleGamers, who have helped spread a message of inclusiveness and positivity to not only the Twitch community, but gaming as a whole.”

KitGuru Says: The general consensus from people more in the know than I, seems to be that this guy did use his fake condition to elicit donations, which is reprehensible. It's nice to see Twitch reacting with such honour however, offering donations. Smooth move. 

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