How Baiting His Fanbase Turned a CS:GO Major Winner into Valorant's Biggest Streamer

since the dawn of the internet there have been certain pop culture debates that have sown discord across the globe coke versus pepsi android versus iphone dc vs marvel topics that have sparked years of brain numbing argumentation online but these petty feuds pale in comparison to the holy wars waged by a certain group of web dwellers with the glass ceiling broken all the oppressed groups shall prosper especially the most oppressed group of all gabers console wars peripheral debates or a spicy take on your digital fashion sense gamers are very particular and very defensive about the things they love what is the reasoning what is the reasoning behind the the notorious heimerdinger nerf heiberger is over performing in top mid and bot lane at high levels of play give me your ding dong go yourself you stupid mother but when it comes to the current esports zeitgeist there is perhaps no debate more contentious than the one between cs go and valorent on the one side you have cs fans who are passionate experienced aging and think valorante is child game then there are the valorant stands who are fresh-faced enthusiastic and see their tack shooter cousins as a bunch of butthurt boomers but with the lines and the sand firmly drawn almost all notable competitors and content creators have made their allegiances clear in cs you gotta learn every single flash and smoke and nade and molly lineup to be an effective player in this game you're relying on your team to be the effective players in those roles and you're focused more on your role and i love that you gave up on unexpectedness i understand valor this game is horrible dude no wonder if died it's going to be like the the new age counter strike right that people really like that the kids are going to want to play but uh for old guys like me i think you counter strike but there are some who manage to walk the fence neutrals whose historical love for counter-strike can never be fully broken even in the face of something colorful and new as tempting as it may be but i have never forgotten about the cs community man it's just it's where i came from people always ask me so valen's way better that's why you play it more i'm like dude it's more fun to play something different when i'm not you know competing but there is one colossal content creator who has chosen to navigate this minefield a little differently a polarizing heel of a head clicker who despite having written his name into the history books of valve's fabled franchise has seemingly become the poster boy for its rival ip i am of course talking about none other than tariq tariq chalik yeah smoke i heard him throw came through hello hello i'm in my own head i'm doggy i'm playing like a dog oh my goodness let me gracious dude that was stuck on his head bro since stepping away from competitive cs go in the spring of 2021 tariq has gone from being one of nacs's greatest champions to shockingly what appears to be one of its biggest haters yes like it's the easiest way to for me to lose my erections so what inspired tariq to walk away from the game that defined him for years only to fall into the loving arms of one that he initially didn't raid at all how has he been able to become one of twitch's biggest streamers by inciting a civil war within his own fan base and more importantly should a single word that he says about either game actually be taken at face value you might get a global you might get a silver or even worse you might get a valerian player all right guys instead of the usual sub and subscribe spiel i give you i'm gonna ask instead that you check out our newest show worth where last week we did an episode on jks's incredible stand-in performance at katowice earlier this year be sure to check it out okay so it goes without saying but i'm gonna say it anyway tariq is certified counter-strike royalty he has consistently been one of the game's most popular streamers and more importantly his professional career was nothing short of exceptional most notably at the boston major alongside his compatriots on cloud nine tarik won north america's first and only major championship and he wasn't just along for the ride he was named the tournament's mvp for his outstanding individual performance tarik now trying for the no scope schedule is there oh my god derek's still staying alive inside the box not always easy to play on the ct side no i mean very good if you get into the tough economic situation you're just almost done with great double kill from taric don't lose the weapon he gets a third a fourth in the round holding the angle once again but does he go high does he go low it is a dance and now they concede multiple angles turret going takes all of my slip down guarding on 11 hp reigns peaks and he gets the angle now superior angle is there a diffuse for the ct side the 9 just yet they're spamming the grenades they're touching the bomb and now goes rain another bob is trying to defuse it again but no guardian gets taken down absolutely unreal ranked cloud9 and the score is tight but as we all know in the topsy-turvy world of counter-strike it's hard to stay on top for long and after a few years of roster jumping inconsistent results and covid putting a massive dampener on cs go and na during the online era tarik decided to put his illustrious competitive career on pause in april of 2021 to instead focus his attention on content creation so over the next few months tarik started streaming and uploading to youtube more consistently and when i say consistently i mean every god damn day whether he was pugging with washed up boomers or smurfing with his former teammates tark quickly became the choice spot for anyone looking for some truly unhinged cs go content baby i'm saying i'm not the only one who has this problem it's just see us in general no i i i see other streamers my words what are you talking about [Music] too i'll eventually one heaven what's that what's happening bro you guys don't see where you died i asked three times not a single calm walk out and i'll start with [Music] dude report this kid for throwing report him dude it's a liquid fan this kid's such a nerd he's thrown on purpose dude now it just so happens that right around the time that tariq made this big career move valerant had been released and was taking the streaming world by storm everybody who was anybody was playing riot's shiny brand new tax shooter and while tariq held out longer than most he eventually decided to see what all the hype was about but it's safe to say that at first he wasn't exactly convinced you see like many other seasoned counter strikers tarik had his reservations about valrant the gunplay wasn't as consistent the utility felt restrictive and the movement was molasses compared to cs go but as much as valoran's differences initially irked tariq it started making more and more appearances on his stream not just because it was wildly popular but because it offered tariq two things he notoriously loved one a reason to grind two an outlet for sweaty competitions bro i just dismantled them now as expected as soon as taric started to become really comfortable with valorent people started harassing him suggesting ad nauseam that he like every other north american cs go competitor go pro and while he obviously had the technical ability it was hard to deny how lucrative and rewarding his dedication to streaming had become but even beyond playing the game tark's stream had become something of a hot spot for competitive valorant whether you were a new esports fan interested in watching for the first time or an elitist cs go lover curious to learn the game from someone you respected tarik's vct watch parties were the place to be [Music] [Music] because i believe in the rotation just got two kills in mid by the way this kill well yes might be impactful you kill that now now when most streamers move away from the game they originally made their name in their viewership tends to take a hit but that never seemed to be an issue for tariq and that might be a result of his hidden talent no not his knack for ceremoniously clapping cheeks but rather his natural ability to let's say disturb the peace you see long before he was known as the content king to valor and kitties tarek was known by cs stans as the content criminal a title bestowed upon him by the great inimitable superstition referencing the fact that tariq is and always has been happy to make content around being a bit of a disturber i'm being spammed holy i like that bug then bugged in one hp bugged him plugged in any bugs any bugs any dance any bug dance bike bug what's going on bug then love steal's law still's law dutch nissan bro do something please [Music] here we go eric's literally popping on duracell battery i'm literally in some room look at this i'm literally in song's room i'm inside song's room of course over the years winding up his peers has proven itself to be light work for someone with tarik's gift so in order to truly test his ability to stir the pot tarik decided to play up the natural already existing cs valorante divide in his fan base by pitting both sides against each other you see when it comes to making fps content in north america valorant is undeniably the king like just look at tarik's youtube channel and you can see that it's just true but to appease his die-hard cs audience tarik knew that throwing slight jabs at riot's game could quell any concerns that he was well a filthy sellout because at the end of the day all that cs fans ever want to hear is that counter-strike is in fact the king of shooters so he drip-fed them exactly that cs is so much harder man not only is the game harder but being a pro is so much harder it's time to try that sure was farming these and valerian dude now he comes over to see us and like he's having a hard time at that point i'm considering to go back if i were him you're like this well then we're shooting back this stupid cartoon cartoon network looking ass characters games dog i tell you dog now to be fair this is toric we are talking about so in reality csgo fans weren't safe either i don't play as much as i used to it's just because like valerian's like new and exciting and it gets me like turned on and when i play yes like it's the easiest way to for me to lose my erections i think cs fans are very die hard bandwagon like they've been watching cs for like countless years and it just seems like a group of old men that are angry old men to me honestly ballerina is so much harder than csgo there's so many abilities just so much like how many specifics that i can't really explain to you guys yes that is right tarek the supreme disturber that he is turned the cs go versus valorent debate into a war of attrition in which he was essentially the arms dealer but funnily enough amidst all the mayhem and the memes what tariq instigated wasn't really an immature if not ill-willed battle but rather a conversation a forum where both sides of his community could put him on blast and poke fun at each other without taking themselves or their games too seriously and even though tariq was certainly enjoying himself whipping up storms and watching them from a distance every now and then he offered his viewers sincere insights into the states of both games because whether die-hard cs fans want to admit it or not tariq wasn't just playing valorent more because of its wild popularity he was playing it more because he actually liked it lately i haven't been feeling cs that much it's been kind of boring a little bit i don't know because it's only fun when we 5q the problem with cs is there's nothing to like there's nothing to there's nothing to do like i'm going to go on cs and i'm just going to pug and the only fun in it is plugging on my friends only 5q otherwise like there's nothing to grind for strive for do anything like i'm just going to pug and it's fun because we control around and it could be fun like in pugs and but valerian it's new it's different for me there's the leaderboard i can strive for something i'm learning new things at the end of the day tarek isn't some two-faced sellout who's profiting off of teasing people he's a genuine down-to-earth dude whose love for fps has allowed him to grow massively by uniting two disparate audiences and he's achieved it by simply being himself that's insane what are you saying it's not that good bro look at the detail in this drawing man look at my calves look at the overheat text look at this freak in front of me look at my abs and if anything what he's done with his mischievous antics is shine a light on just how absurd it is that there would ever be any sort of tension between these two communities there's no real betrayal in liking both games and for a guy like tariq who has given so much of himself to counter-strike i think it's safe to say that he has earned the right to stream whatever the hell he wants without having to justify it to anybody yes is like uh how can i put this my ex-wife my ex-wife it's like my ex-wife dude i love seeing her every now and then but like i'm i'm married to a new girl now like we can have we can have dinner every now and then like we could you know we can do this we can do that but i'm i found someone new i am of course talking about none other than tariq tariq jelik i'm pretty sure that's how you say his name but i have very very little experience in turkish pronunciations that was not enough [Music]

Channel: theScore esports

Views: 477,730

Keywords: esports, gaming, theScoreesports, thescore, tarik reacts valorant, valorant, story of tarik, the story of, csgo vs valorant, tarik reacts to vct, tarik valorant settings, tarik valorant highlights, tarik csgo settings, csgo major, boston major 2018, cloud9 vs faze, stewie2k, m0e rage, tenz valorant montage, counter strike global offensive gameplay, shroud on valorant, pros react to valorant, n0thing valorant, esports documentary, tyler1 rage, csgo funny moments, rank s csgo

Id: LQv6c-pzrYE

Length: 18min 33sec (1113 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 19 2022