Dr Disrespect

Herschel Beahm IV was born on March 10, 1982. He obtained a degree in Business Administration, specialized in Marketing Management, in 2005 from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona,^[10] where he played NCAA Division II basketball.^[11][12][13]

Beahm began playing Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 in college and became known in the Halo community while using the gamertag "Diarrhea Panic" for his trash talking via the game's proximity chat.^[14]

On January 12, 2010, Beahm published his first YouTube video on the "Dr Disrespect" channel, which is a variation of then-popular Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 commentary videos. It mixed clips of him trash talking over gameplay footage with real-life footage of him in costume as Dr Disrespect, a bombastic and body-armored "champion".^[15][16] Beahm had purchased the character's signature wig, mustache, and glasses from a costume shop. The video's success led to Beahm becoming a partnered creator with Machinima, which was then one of the most popular gaming channels on YouTube.^[14]

In February 2011, Beahm announced that he was taking a hiatus to be hired, on March 16, as the community manager of Sledgehammer Games.^[14][17] At Sledgehammer, he expanded his role to include level designing for the 2014 game Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. He joined Justin.tv (which later became Twitch) while he was working at Sledgehammer, and quit the studio at the end of 2015 to focus on a full-time livestreaming career.^[14]

Beahm gained a significant following for playing battle royale games, starting in 2016 with H1Z1 before switching to PUBG: Battlegrounds and then Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's Blackout mode.^[18] His stream on February 5, 2018, reached a total of 388,000 concurrent viewers, nearing Tyler1's record of 410,000.^{[19][20][21][22]} His popularity led to sponsorship deals with Gillette, Asus, Roccat, and Game Fuel.^[23] On January 10, 2019, Creative Artists Agency signed Beahm as a client.^[23] According to a June 2024 Rolling Stone article, Beahm had not been a client for some time.^[24]

On June 11, 2019, Beahm's Twitch channel was suspended as he was livestreaming while attending the 2019 edition of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles, California. Beahm and his cameraman went into a public restroom (Beahm re-entered the bathroom on two occasions, with filming still going on) at the venue in violation of Twitch's privacy rules.^[25][26] In addition, E3 organizer Entertainment Software Association revoked Beahm's E3 pass, banning him from the event.^[25][27] Twitch reinstated his channel on June 25.^[28][29]

Beahm signed a multi-year deal with Twitch in March 2020.^[30] On June 26, his account was indefinitely banned from Twitch. Twitch's official statement on the ban said, "As is our process, we take appropriate action when we have evidence that a streamer has acted in violation of our Community Guidelines or Terms of Service. These apply to all streamers regardless of status or prominence in the community".^[31] That same day, Discord removed Beahm from their partnership program, citing violations of their Code of Conduct.^[32] Neither released their exact reasons initially, and Beahm tweeted that he was not informed of Twitch's "specific reason behind their decision".^[33] A month later, he broke his silence in interviews with PC Gamer and The Washington Post, insisting that he still did not know why Twitch banned him, stating that his contracts were still in good standing, debunking "crazy speculation" and conspiracy theories he had allegedly entertained, and was focusing on "Doc 3.0" and returning to livestreaming.^[32][34] On August 7, he returned to streaming on YouTube.^[35][36]

In August 2021, Beahm stated that he knew the reason for his ban and was suing Twitch.^[37] In March 2022, Beahm and Twitch announced that they had resolved their legal dispute, with neither party admitting to any wrongdoing.^[38] In a follow-up tweet, he clarified that he would not be returning to Twitch.^[39] In April 2024, Beahm called Twitch "slithery disgusting purple snakes" and criticized the ban for costing him "a lot of big deals, a lot of sponsorships; shit, we had Nike, we were talking to Oakley, and that's no joke: I can bring up Oakley prototypes right here".^[40]

On May 29, 2024, Beahm claimed there was a $10 million annual offer to stream on Kick, an alternative livestream platform criticized for hosting controversial content creators, including banned Twitch streamers, and a more lenient approach towards content moderation.^[41] He said that the offer was "gracious", "humbling" and "appreciated", but he would need $50 million from the platform to join it and declined, adding that he was "not interested in moving" and that his channel was "looking good". The head of strategic partnerships Andrew Santamaria said that "he’s an amazing streamer, but we need to ground things in reality".^[42]

On June 21, 2024, former Twitch director of strategic partnerships Cody Conners tweeted, "He got banned because got caught sexting a minor in the then existing Twitch whispers product. He was trying to meet up with her at TwitchCon. The powers that be could read in plain text." Another former employee corroborated the story to The Verge. Beahm responded by stating that the legal case was settled and "no wrongdoing was acknowledged".^[43] On June 24, Beahm ended his livestream of Elden Ring, announcing that he was "burnt out" and considering leaving his business ventures. Shortly afterwards, Midnight Society, the game development studio co-founded by Beahm, released a statement stating that after speaking with parties involved, it would be terminating their relationship with Beahm effective immediately.^[44][45][46]

Days later, Turtle Beach ended their partnership with Beahm that extended back to 2020.^[47] Bloomberg News corroborated previous reporting with three sources, who said that the messages in question were sexually explicit. According to two of those sources, Beahm had asked a minor about her plans when attending TwitchCon. The messages were reported through Twitch's own reporting service. A spokesperson for Discord clarified that it had taken action against Beahm in 2020 after receiving a report from an unidentified "trusted industry peer".^[48] On June 25, Beahm acknowledged in a statement that he had sent private messages to a minor using Twitch's Whispers messaging function in 2017 and stated that the messages "sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate".^[6] After posting his statement, he made several edits to the post, first replacing the word "minor" with "individual", then adding the word "minor" back. The former Twitch employees responded that it was inaccurate, characterizing the messages as "graphic".^[24][49]

Two days later, Rolling Stone published an article in which a former Twitch trust and safety employee with direct knowledge of the matter said that Beahm had been made aware of the minor's age, indicating that it was not a problem, and yet continued to send messages with a similar level of explicitness as before.^[24][50] The former YouTube global head of gaming partnerships, Ryan Wyatt, said that Beahm was not offered a contract when he returned to streaming on YouTube in 2020 because they had become aware that Twitch's decision had been in relation to the inappropriate messages to a minor, but YouTube did not have enough access to evidence that would justify a terms of service violation.^[24] The following day, YouTube suspended Beahm from the platform's partner program and demonetized his channel.^[9]

In August 2020, Beahm announced that he was writing a personal memoir called Violence. Speed. Momentum. The book was released on March 30, 2021.^[51]

In October, Beahm worked with Hi-Rez Studios to design a custom map and a Dr Disrespect character skin for the third-person shooter video game Rogue Company.^[52]

In May 2021, Beahm invested in Bright Star Studios for $2 million for the developers' massively multiplayer online sandbox game Ember Sword.^[53]

In December, Beahm announced the launch of a "AAA game studio", Midnight Society, which was headed by him along with Call of Duty and Halo veterans Robert Bowling and Quinn DelHoyo, as well as Sumit Gupta acting as CEO.^{[54][55][56][57]} The studio's mission is to develop a "day-zero" community experience where players might decide on "feature prioritization, pivotal design decisions, and fuel innovation in the shooter genre", and would focus on online player versus player multiplayer games.^[58] Their currently in-development free-to-play battle royale title, codenamed Project Moon and later Dead Drop and DEADROP,^[59][60] sparked criticism around the sale of "Founder's Access" NFTs.^[61][62] On June 24, 2024, Beahm was terminated from the studio after learning about the allegation for sending inappropriate messages to a minor.^[63][46]

A fan of the San Francisco 49ers, Beahm collaborated with the San Francisco-based NFL team starting in early 2020. At the 2022 NFL draft, he announced in the 3rd round that the 49ers selected running back Tyrion Davis-Price from LSU.^[64] He was seen at the wild-card game between the 49ers and the Seattle Seahawks on January 14, 2023, at Levi's Stadium, where he sounded the team's ceremonial foghorn.^[65] Beahm featured in several social media posts and videos from the team during the 2022 and 2023 seasons as Dr Disrespect. In June 2024, the team officially cut ties with Beahm.^[66]

Beahm is a fan of the Golden State Warriors of the NBA, seen at games at Oracle Arena and Chase Center.^[65]

Beahm's character, Dr Disrespect (also known as The Doc and The Two-Time^[a]), is usually depicted during livestreams as bombastic and provocative. Originally, he was depicted to have "a very serious, dark tone".^[67] His supporters and fandom are said to be part of the "Champions Club".^[32] He is often regarded as an entertainer in the streaming industry, rather than a professional gamer. ESPN described him as "a WWE character in the competitive gaming world" and Beahm said that he "created a character who plays multiplayer video games, and he's considered the most dominating gaming specimen".^[67]

While playing as Dr Disrespect, Beahm wears a black mullet wig, sunglasses, a red or black long-sleeved athletic shirt, and a red or black tactical vest. He sports a mustache he has nicknamed "Slick Daddy" and "The Poisonous Ethiopian Caterpillar".^[68] He collaborated with professional wrestler The Undertaker for a G Fuel commercial, which was portrayed as a "mystery" feud.^[69][70] Beahm's family, if they make an appearance during a livestream, is also occasionally mentioned as part of the Dr Disrespect persona, with his wife portraying "Mrs. Assassin" and their daughter as "Baby Assassin" or "Baby Disrespect".^[14]

Beahm is married and has a daughter. He resides in San Diego County, California.^[24][71] In December 2017, Beahm confessed on a livestream to having cheated on his wife, and he stopped streaming for several months before returning in February 2018.^[72][73][74]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dr DisRespect.

• Official website