Ex-Twitch executive calls out CEO Dan Clancy's 'gross' self-promotion

Twitch CEO Dan Clancy has been called out for his self promoting behavior by djWHEAT, who used to work for Twitch previously. djWHEAT took to social media platform X to express his views about Clancy’s action. The ex-Twitch executive djWHEAT wrote on X,

“I can’t believe it. This goes against every bit of teaching I ever deployed while working at Twitch and it’s just gross. It actually angers me…There was a time, though, when it wasn’t like this at all. It just seems like two steps in the wrong direction. It is basic decency that you just don’t do this, so it’s disappointing to see in any capacity.”

Twitch CEO Dan Clancy drew critique from multiple netizens pertaining to his actions on July 18. On that day, Clancy was supposed to go on a stream for a charity marathon. However prior to the timing of his own stream, the Twitch CEO went on to self promote his stream on several popular channels on Twitch.

The publication Dexerto in one of its reports on the issue went on to point out examples from the chatlog of the Twitch CEO’s account for which he has drawn flak. According to the report by Dexerto, Clancy wrote,

“I am shamelessly going into chat of streamers I know to ask for raids when they are done…I am doing my first charity stream for St Jude’s as part of the GCX Marathon”

Excited to be doing my first full on charity stream. I am participating in the @GCXevent Charity Marathon in support of @StJudePlayLIVE and the incredible work being done at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Streaming tonight (Friday July 18th) from 9:00 p.m. to 1:00… pic.twitter.com/cen94vdLHM

— Daniel Clancy (@djclancy999) July 18, 2025

As per Dexerto, Raid is the name of the phenomenon on Twitch through which live streamers draw the attention of their viewers towards another streaming channel. However the practice of Raids, is usually employed by the user after their own streaming has ended. According to the report by Dexerto, repeated requests could be read as spamming on Twitch, and might be judged as a policy violation.

However, it is important to mention here that Clancy’s stream, which went on for four hours, ended up raising more than $4,000 for the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, as per Dexerto.

About Twitch

Twitch is an American live streaming platform. Founded by Justin Kan, Emmett Shear, Michael Seibel, and Kyle Vogt in 2007, Twitch at present has more than 240 million unique users every month as per the website Backlinko.

According to Britannica, the live streaming platform was initially named justin.tv by its principal founder Justin Kan, who founded the platform after graduating from Yale University. Kan’s main objective at that time was to stream life throughout the day. Britannica mentions that such a novel kind of streaming, not prevalent in 2007, was intended by the founders to create an effect similar to the experience evoked by the reality TV show Big Brother.

Twitch arose as a spin-off of justin.tv in 2011. While justin.tv specialized in lifestyle live stream content, allowing anybody with the requisite hardware to stream their life, the founding of Twitch was emblematic of the shift that occurred within the world of live streaming. Twitch was founded by Justin Kan and Emmett Shear in 2011, in order to respond to the popular trend of live game streaming.