Asmongold

Zack Hoyt was born in 1990 in Florida.^[7] Not long after he was born he moved to Austin, Texas.^[8] He grew up with an interest in video games, particularly role-playing games (RPGs), and was introduced to World of Warcraft by a friend in 2006.^[9] He quickly became captivated by the game and began playing it extensively.^[10] Hoyt later attended college, but dropped out to focus on his streaming career.^[11]

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With the release of World of Warcraft Classic in 2019, Hoyt's popularity surged, and he became one of the platform's most prominent streamers in that year.^[12][13] He remained one of Twitch's most popular World of Warcraft streamers during the Shadowlands launch in 2020.^[14] On July 3, 2021, he played Final Fantasy XIV for the first time before hundreds of thousands of viewers.^[15] Hoyt's favor towards World of Warcraft soured in July 2021, when a lawsuit was filed against the game's developer Activision Blizzard for discrimination against and sexual harassment of female employees. Hoyt subsequently began regularly criticizing Activision Blizzard and providing regular updates on the lawsuit on his streams.^[16] By August 2021, Hoyt had become one of the largest streamers on Twitch, with over 2 million followers.^[17] In October of the same year, leaked data from Twitch showed that Hoyt had earned the 14th-highest amount of money on the platform since August 2019, totalling at over $2.5 million.^[18]

In 2022, he contacted Republican senator Ted Cruz to discuss regulating loot boxes in video games. Cruz was non-committal.^[19]

In early 2024, Hoyt, alongside other prominent YouTubers, aided in spreading "anti-woke" conspiracism about Sweet Baby Inc.'s work in promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion.^[20]

In a Twitch stream on October 14, 2024, Hoyt called Palestinians "terrible people" from "an inferior culture" that "kills people for their identity" and "is directly antithetical to everything Western values stand for".^[21][22][23] He also said that they "have genocide built into Sharia law right now, so, no, I'm not going to cry a fucking river when people who have genocide that's baked into their laws are getting genocided". This statement was later called a "racist tirade".^[24] His zackrawrr account on Twitch was banned for 14 days due to violating the platform's hateful conduct policy.^[25] Hoyt initially made a brief apology on Twitter which was criticized by PC Gamer, stating "that quite a few people don't consider 'my bad' a sufficient expression of contrition and reconsideration for espousing grossly racist attitudes".^[24] Hoyt later released a more extensive apology stating he had been "slowly devolving into the most mean-spirited, rude, nasty, callous, psychopathic version of [him]self" and he would take a break from streaming. He also stepped down from his leadership positions in OTK and Starforge Systems.^[23][26]

After Elon Musk was accused in January 2025 of paying third parties to boost his Path of Exile 2 account, Hoyt challenged Musk to prove that he himself had leveled a character to 97 in hardcore mode, after which Musk unfollowed Hoyt on X, removed his verification check, and posted a screenshot of their private messages. A community note under the post stated that leaking private messages without permission generally violated X's guidelines.^[27][28] Musk later deleted his tweets, and the two have subsequently interacted with each other on X about other topics.^[29]

In November 2025, Hoyt was named in a lawsuit filed by the streamer Mizkif as a defendant alongside fellow streamer Emiru, OTK Media Inc., Mythic Talent Management Inc., and King Gaming Labs Inc. for reputational harm, lost earnings, and emotional distress.^[30] The lawsuit came after Emiru accused Mizkif of "psychological and domestic abuse, stalking, harassment, sexual assault, and threats of blackmail", which was then amplified by Hoyt during his livestreams.^[31][5]

In August 2026, he received a 14-day ban for suggesting that migrants, including children, attempting to cross into Spain should be shot; he refused to apologize for these remarks.^[32]

Business ventures

See also: One True King

In October 2020, Hoyt co-founded One True King (OTK), a streaming and content creation organization, with other content creators, including Mizkif and Esfand. In August 2022, he announced OTK's new PC building company, Starforge Systems, in collaboration with fellow content creator Cr1TiKaL.^[33] The company received backlash over the high prices of their products, to which they responded by reducing their prices by $100.^[34] In February 2023, Hoyt cofounded the talent agency Mythic Talent alongside fellow OTK member TipsOut, serving in an advisory capacity.^[35][36] On February 21, 2025, Hoyt announced that he had stepped away from his leadership roles within the OTK organization.^[37]

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According to The Atlantic, Hoyt presents his opinions as so common "that disagreeing with him means you're intellectually disabled." His beliefs have been characterized as a brand of conservatism defined by a lack of committed system of beliefs and hostility towards "left-wing identity politics". Hoyt has expressed support for universal basic income and a constitutional right to abortion. He has said that he places no weight on "principles or morality", describing such views as "top-down ideas that are given to you by the elites." ^[38]

On one occasion, he cited Democratic congressman Al Green's disruption of President Donald Trump's 2025 Congressional Address, stating that Green's actions make "people think [he's] a fucking retard". Hoyt's use of the word "retard" is frequent.^[38]

In an article for the International Journal of Communication, Adam Ruch cited Hoyt as an example of a video game critic who believed that left-leaning, "woke" perspectives were forced into video games. According to Ruch, Hoyt attributed this influence of "woke" perspectives in games to the environmental, social, and governance investment principle, arguing that left-leaning games were more likely to attract investment from large fund managers.^[39]

Hoyt has been characterized as typically holding anti-trans views.^[40] In 2021, he refused to take part in a boycott against Twitch to protest "hate raids" against streamers of color and LGBTQ streamers claiming the movement needed large streamers to succeed, despite being one of the largest on the platform.^[17] As part of his political commentary, Hoyt claimed that "every trans kid is a victim of a parent with mental illness".^[41] Despite Hoyt's claims that trans children have been "groomed" into being trans, he has said he would respect the pronoun choices of his own children.^[40]

In December 2025, Hoyt endorsed candidate James Fishback's campaign for Governor of Florida, describing Fishback as "based" and urging his followers to "vote for people like this."^[42]

Media Matters for America has been critical of Hoyt's remarks against immigrants and political opposition, highlighting statements he made in which he called for criminal prosecution of both groups in addition to a statement Hoyt made that his goal in his coverage is to "radicalize people as much as possible" by portraying subjects in "the most extreme and negative way" as a means of driving people toward his desired solutions. They also reported that Hoyt has praised white nationalist Nick Fuentes and anti-Muslim activist Tommy Robinson for being "willing to put it on the table and risk their platforms," and has described his own role as a bridge between far-right figures and more mainstream audiences.^[43]

His remarks have frequently drawn accusations of misogyny, including claims that men are "more naturally attractive" than women, that women are "best" at "selling themselves for money," and that female streamers are essentially equivalent to OnlyFans creators.^[44][45]