Steven Kenneth Bonnell II (born December 12, 1988), known online as Destiny, is an American live streamer and political commentator. He was among the first people to stream video games online full-time.[5] Since 2016, he has streamed political debates with other online personalities, in which he advocates for liberal and social democratic politics.[6][7][8]
Early life
Steven Kenneth Bonnell II was born in Omaha, Nebraska.[6] He was raised in a conservative Catholic home,[6] and he attended Creighton Preparatory School, a private Jesuit high school for boys.[7] When he was a pre-teen, his mother's home day care business collapsed, and his family's home was foreclosed.[7] A few years later his parents moved to take care of an aging relative, after which he lived with his grandmother until he was 18. During his childhood, Bonnell played Japanese role-playing games, which he says made him an adept reader.[6]
In 2007, Bonnell enrolled at the University of Nebraska Omaha, where he studied music while working as a restaurant manager at a casino, mostly at night. Struggling to juggle both his education and full-time work, Bonnell dropped out of college in 2010. Within a year, he was fired from his job, which he attributes to his difficulty navigating workplace politics and understanding others' emotional experiences.[6]
Bonnell later found work as a carpet cleaner, working 12-hour days for commission. His average pay was $3–4 an hour (equivalent to $4.2–5.6 an hour in 2023).[6][7]
Career
Bonnell (center) at the HomeStory Cup, a tournament for the video game franchise Starcraft, in November 2014.
Gaming streaming (2011)
In 2011, Bonnell quit his job as a carpet cleaner to stream video games full-time. Streaming his Starcraft II matches on livestream.com and ustream.tv,[9] then Justin.tv (now Twitch), he was immediately financially successful.[5][7][10] In October of that year, Bonnell joined professional team Quantic Gaming and placed 4th in the 2011 MLG Global North American invitational.[11]
During his years as a Starcraft II streamer, Bonnell was known for his abrasive and confrontational style, including use of "acerbic and often offensive" comments against other players for shock humor.[5]
Twitch debates (2016-2022)
Bonnell's logo wordmark
Starting in 2016, Bonnell live-streamed political debates with other internet personalities. Bonnell debated YouTuber Jon Jafari, better known as JonTron, on immigration and assimilation in March 2017, after Jafari tweeted in support of anti-immigration statements by Republican congressman Steve King. In his debate with Bonnell, Jafari's statements concerning race, crime, and immigration were seen as controversial by viewers, and the subsequent backlash garnered media attention.[12][13][14][15]
Bonnell received a 30-day suspension from Twitch in summer 2018 for using the word faggot.[16] In November 2018, Bonnell and fellow streamer Trihex (Mychal Ramon Jefferson) premiered a political commentary collaboration, TheDT Podcast. The podcast streamed its final episode in October 2019, during which Jefferson confronted Bonnell regarding statements the latter had made defending his use of offensive humor—including racial slurs—in private.[7][17] Fellow Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who had previously reached out to "to form an allegiance", distanced himself from Bonnell in-part because the controversy.[7]
Bonnell was indefinitely banned from Twitch due to "hateful conduct" in March 2022.[18][19][20]Dot Esports speculates that this may have been due to Bonnell streaming with white nationalist Nick Fuentes, who had previously been banned from the platform, while Bonnell speculated it was due to him expressing the view that "trans women shouldn't compete with cis women in women's athletics".[18][19][21] In October 2024, Bonnell alleged that the reason behind his ban on the platform was for his characterization of online transgender activists as being "inbred".[22]
In late 2024, members of Bonnell's Reddit and Discord communities began participating in an online campaign against Twitch, pressuring Twitch advertisers under the allegation that the website was promoting antisemitic content. Some activists of the campaign were led by Dan Saltman, an online commentator and Bonnell's podcast co-host, who has launched multiple gripe sites that targeted Twitch's CEO Dan Clancy and Amazon vice-president Steve Boom. Saltman stated that "The goal of our campaign is simple: The CEO, Dan Clancy stepping down."[20] Bonnell has stated that his personal involvement in the campaign has been minimal. According to Bloomberg writer Cecilia D'Anastasio, both Bonnell's and Saltman's fans harassed multiple Twitch employees, including members of the company's trust and safety department.[27] Critics of the campaign also accused Bonnell and Saltman of harassing female journalists.[20] Saltman was ultimately banned from Twitch in November due to the stated reason of "extreme harassment". In response, Saltman stated that "allegations of harassment are often made by people who have been exposed for their bigotry, sexism and hatred".[27]
Bonnell identified as a libertarian, anti-SJW "with right-of-center social beliefs" until 2012, when his political outlook began shifting toward social liberalism after an incident in which he heard another streamer use a homophobic slur.[6][7] Bonnell has argued against certain aspects of both far-right politics and far-left politics.[6][7] Furthermore, he has promoted the idea that college campuses should have students who have diverse opinions in order to reduce polarization.[28]
In 2019, Bonnell began publicly debating in favor of capitalism against socialists and communists.[6] Bonnell has stated that his intention is not to persuade their opponents but to persuade the audience; although he has expressed that airing his opinions often feels "like screaming into the void", he estimates he has received hundreds of emails from former members of the alt-right crediting him for their conversion to left-wing politics.[6][7] Subsequent journalistic and academic coverage of right-wing YouTube commentary has credited Bonnell as an early and effective opposition to it, particularly owing to his provocative, combative debate style which appeals to right-wing gaming audiences.[3][6]
Political violence
Bonnell was notified in September 2020 that his Twitch partnership agreement would be terminated the following month for "encouragement of violence". The termination came as a result of comments made on-stream after the Kenosha unrest shooting, in which Bonnell expressed opposition to riots at the George Floyd protests.[29] Bonnell said:[30][31]
"The rioting needs to fucking stop, and if that means like white redneck fucking militia dudes out there mowing down dipshit protesters that think that they can torch buildings at ten p.m., then at this point they have my fucking blessing, because holy shit, this fucking shit needs to stop, it needed to stop a long time ago."[31]
Bonnell later said that Kyle Rittenhouse was clearly misguided but that his frustration was with rioters who Bonnell believed would scare people into voting for Donald Trump again.[32]
After the first 2024 assassination attempt of Donald Trump, which killed one Trump rally attendee and injured two others,[33] Bonnell stated that Trump and his supporters "reap what they sow, and I'm here to watch the harvest". The Economist cited Bonnell as an example of an "angry progressive" who "lamented" that the attempt had failed.[34]
Israeli–Palestinian conflict
Following the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, Bonnell expressed sympathy for Israel, stating, "The Palestinians are oppressed by all the Arab countries, and no country from them, which is supposed to be on 'their' side, has bothered to offer them a real solution—and yet, their anger is directed fully at Israel, and unjustifiably in my opinion."[35] In a debate with Nathan J. Robinson, Bonnell argued against the Palestinian right of return, believing it would make peace and a two-state solution impossible. Robinson responded by arguing that Arab leaders (Yasser Arafat and the Arab Peace Initiative) had shown a willingness to compromise on the right of return.[36]
In a conversation about immigration with the YouTuber Carl Benjamin, popularly known by the pseudonym Sargon of Akkad, Bonnell expressed his general view that, because immigration lowers the cost of labor for companies hiring low-wage earners, it is good to have high levels of immigration. Furthermore, in order to fix the wealth disparity caused by both the lowered wages of low-wage earners and the heightened wages of high-wage earners, Bonnell proposed raising taxes on the wealthy and distributing their earnings to the poor.[37]
In 2021, Bonnell debated Marxian economist Richard D. Wolff, with Bonnell defending capitalism. In that debate, Bonnell described the label of "socialism" as poorly defined, and noted a history of famine and abuses in countries like the Soviet Union and China, while Wolff responded by attempting to correct perceived misrepresentations from Bonnell of his views on socialism throughout the debate.[8] Bonnell has cited his poverty during his teenage and college-aged years as an influence on his views, and says that he prefers to argue based on empirical data rather than moral suasion.[7]
Canvassing
In 2020, Bonnell supported the general election campaign of Joe Biden.[38] Following Biden's victory, Bonnell led a canvassing campaign in support of Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in the 2020–21 Georgia Senate runoffs.[39] With the help of approximately 140 volunteers mobilized from Bonnell's online audience, the campaign knocked on an estimated 17,500–20,000 doors in Columbus, Georgia, making it one of the larger campaigns of the election.[40] Bonnell led another canvassing operation in support of Mark Gudgel for the 2021 Omaha mayoral election.[41] On March 3, 2021, Gudgel officially cut ties with Bonnell over the latter's statements regarding riots at the George Floyd protests.[31][42]
Bonnell has been married twice and has a son.[46] He is openly bisexual,[47] and his second marriage was an open marriage with Swedish streamer Melina Göransson.[7][48][49] Bonnell and Göransson married in December 2021.[50] They separated and filed for divorce in December 2023.[51]
^"The attack on Donald Trump unleashes a flood of misinformation". The Economist. July 15, 2024. Some angry progressives are lamenting that the bullet grazed Mr Trump's ear, missing his skull by millimetres. Destiny, a leftist social-media commentator, told his 250,000 X followers that Mr Trump and his supporters will "reap what they sow, and I'm here to watch the harvest".
^"Personal". destiny.gg. Archived from the original on March 2, 2021. Retrieved May 31, 2021. Melina and I are currently in an open/poly relationship. We treat each other as primary partners, though we may pursue other sexual/romantic relationships as well.
^Göransson, Melina. "I am married!". Twitter. Archived from the original on December 27, 2021. Retrieved January 1, 2022.
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