SmallAnt/PointCrow Feud

Event
Event:	SmallAnt/PointCrow feud, divorce, breakup/fallout, etc.
Participants:
Date(s):	Late 2021/early 2022 to September 2023
Type:	imbroglio
Fandom:	YouTube, Pokemon, Breath of the Wild, video games
URL:
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The feud between YouTube speedrunners/Twitch streamers SmallAnt and PointCrow was widely known by their communities between 2022 and 2023. Their fanbases, notably, played a large part in it.

As of September 2023, they have made up. In 2024, they began to do collaborations again.

History

PointCrow and SmallAnt were associated with each other since the end of 2019, after PointCrow first started his YouTube channel in the same year. Their first known video collaboration was about a year later, a Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild race, posted by SmallAnt in November 2020. Because SmallAnt was already a well-known content creator, many fans discovered PointCrow this way.

They became rivals, referring to each other as such and in talking to and about each other, both in videos and on Twitter. They did more race challenges together, including Minecraft and Pokémon map randomizer mod races. However, because SmallAnt consistently won, even when he was the underdog (such as in the BoTW race, when he had 5 times less hours in the game than PointCrow), fans of SmallAnt as well as other users in PointCrow's chat began to harass PointCrow, saying that he was "SmallAnt but worse" or "SmallAnt but he loses" and not as good as his friend in his chat and YouTube comments. This became recurring with their collaborations.

One competition between the creators played a large part in this: a Pokémon map randomizer race posted in October 2021, in which PointCrow thought he was softlocked and thus reset, thinking there was something wrong with his version of the game. Their rule about softlocking also seemed to be at odds, as both creators had a different idea of what constituted as a necessary reset. In the YouTube video, SmallAnt edited in that part of his video to say that PointCrow reseted in a few sections that turned out to not be softlocks. Though both creators tried to clarify in the YouTube comments that the cheating accusation was a joke, it seemed that significant damage had been done. According to a YouTube comment, PointCrow approached SmallAnt shortly after this, wishing to end the rivalry, which SmallAnt accepted.

A month later in November 2021, PointCrow participated in a tournament stream that was crowd-controlled, wherein chat donations could control the pacing of the game. Representing NRG, PointCrow raced against Cheese, who was representing CLG. During the stream, SmallAnt donated to Cheese, controlling the game so that Cheese would win. SmallAnt later explained that he didn't donate to make PointCrow lose, but rather to get Cheese/CLG to win; however, both PointCrow and fans felt differently. Later, when SmallAnt released his "Pokemon Diamond but every battle my team is random" video ten days prior to PointCrow's "Pokemon Shining Pearl but they randomly evolve every level", both got accused of copying each other, both from their fanbases and each other. Some comments imply that SmallAnt may have known that PointCrow had already been working on his video prior to making his own, but because his video was released earlier, fans got the impression of the opposite.

Additionally, SmallAnt played a Pokémon mod that PointCrow had commissioned, but failed to credit PointCrow properly, due to not putting it in his stream's layout, and making his chat emote only, when the credit for the mod was a chat command that people were unable to comment. Unfortunately, this caused the rift between them to grow further.

Fans harassed PointCrow for months in comparing him to SmallAnt, until he had to ban SmallAnt's name from his chat entirely. In a VOD posted in February 2022 (though it may have been streamed earlier), he said that he stopped doing streams with SmallAnt at the time due to this type of attention.

As discussed in their VODs about the situation (deleted as of February 2024), SmallAnt's response to PointCrow's concerns about their overlapping fanbases was along the lines of saying he was unable to control PointCrow's Twitch chat or what his chatters did. Despite this, SmallAnt's behavior and online treatment of his friend seemed to in fact encourage this rivalry and disregarded PointCrow's feelings. PointCrow ended up blocking SmallAnt on Twitter and Discord in order to relieve himself of the stress from being associated with him. When SmallAnt found out, he attempted to reach out through one of PointCrow's Twitch moderators, who told SmallAnt that PointCrow needed space. When SmallAnt provided this, after a few months, PointCrow took offense that SmallAnt did not attempt to reach out to him again.

The feud became more publicized as PointCrow discussed it again on stream, saying that SmallAnt had "fucked [him] over" and that they were not friends anymore. In May 2022, due to being unable to contact PointCrow privately, SmallAnt publicly apologized on stream, saying that he had never intended to step on PointCrow's toes or hurt his feelings. PointCrow watched this response on stream as well and did not accept the apology, calling SmallAnt manipulative for crying. As of February 2024, both VODs are now deleted.

Their collaborations stopped, and neither made any public statements about the other for over a year (with the exception of SmallAnt discussing how PointCrow's copyright strikes from Nintendo for his modded Breath of the Wild videos was "limiting and unfair" in April 2023). Many fans expressed sadness and disappointment at both the fallout, and witnessing it publicly. A sizable amount of fans were not happy with PointCrow's public accusations towards SmallAnt and the emotional extent to which he reacted; however, a large consensus was to accept the reality of the feud but continue to enjoy both creators' content anyway. Particularly on Reddit, many fans attributed the true source of the conflict to be their respective fanbases/Twitch chats, due to the toxicity that affected PointCrow in particular. Despite the fallout, they continued to collaborate with mutual friends, such as Alpharad, cjya, and pChal.

In September 2023, PointCrow stated in his Discord server that he and SmallAnt were friends again; they had re-followed each other on Twitter as well at the time. At the end of the month, a video of PointCrow's friend joking about the fallout was posted on YouTube, in which he laughed with good humor about it. A few days later, PointCrow streamed himself playing SmallAnt's Pokemon Escape Room. SmallAnt was in the chat and talked to him freely, and PointCrow openly praised SmallAnt for his creativity in the Escape Room.

In December 2023, Smosh co-founder Anthony Padilla posted "I spent a day with PRO SPEEDRUNNERS (SmallAnt, PointCrow)" with both sitting together in the thumbnail. In the video, PointCrow and SmallAnt discuss their own experience and expertise with speedrunning, before frankly discussing the background surrounding their fallout.

SmallAnt: I was already an established streamer, [we] did some very similar content. Like I was doing some Breath of the Wild challenge runs at that time, so he also did some Breath of the Wild challenge runs. We had very parallel content basically all the way up. And so me being the bigger creator he was quite often compared to me. And like I was compared to him, but me being the bigger creator, he got way more of that.

Anthony: So it's kind of like a rivalry that was put on for entertainment, but it started to feel a little bit too real.

SmallAnt: It wasn't necessarily that like... we didn't really dislike each other at all, like. We were friends. But it was just, you know, 200 people every day would be like "you're worse than this guy." That wears on you. Eventually he started to focus that on me, where it's like, I am the cause of that.

Anthony: Is it because you didn't tell them to stop? Or because he just thought you were associated with that?

SmallAnt: That was something that both of us didn't encourage. 18 months later—a couple months ago—he reached out and he's like, "hey, [can] we talk?" and I'm like, "...okay." [But] he called and he gave me the best apology I've ever received from anyone. [He apologized] for everything that he had said[...] stuff that I didn't even think about. It was a very genuine, very good apology. [...] I definitely had some things I had to apologize [for] too. I wasn't super vocal [with my chat] about like, "hey guys, cut that out." I [did a] community post once on YouTube but I definitely could have done better [making] people a little bit friendlier in the rivalry, letting people know. [But] we talked, we're good now, we'll probably do some content together eventually.

PointCrow: It's like, I am a different person than I was before. [I'm] 25 and I make mistakes. And unfortunately [that] mistake happened to be extremely public. Like he would say something [like], "Oh I thought you meant it like this", [and] vice versa. And it sort of culminated into where I started attributing malice in places where there were none. But since then, you know, it's been a year and a half. I've grown as a person, I realize where I had faults, I realize where he had faults and we're both adults. So we talked it out. It's weighed on me a lot, and I can't imagine how much it's weighed on him as well. So I was like, "Hey, I want to reach out, see if we can make something better." You know, just talk it out, at least, just have a dialogue, a conversation. And we'll do it privately. That's one of the biggest mess ups I've made in my career. [It's] like, if you have a problem with somebody, you should try to settle it more privately.

Anthony: People are probably shitting themselves right now seeing you both on screen together in a room right now, after all the beef.

SmallAnt: Mhm.

PointCrow: Just a little bit.

Anthony: After all that beef, that public beef.

PointCrow: Yeah, that was crazy.

Anthony: Has that been completely—no more, no more beef.

PointCrow: I'd say so.

SmallAnt: Yeah, we talked it out, we're all good now.

PointCrow: Yeah, I was just sorry for, you know, what kind of happened.

SmallAnt: Well initially, in the the first, like, public response, I kind of said my bit and did an apology for the stuff that I needed to apologize for, at least the stuff I thought I did.

Anthony: So then it was your turn and you felt you needed the time.

PointCrow: Yeah, [I] needed time to really reflect on myself too. So then I was like hey, if there's, you know, anything—if you want to forgive what I've done as well then I just wanted to talk it out. And he was very kind and was like, yeah, let's talk it out.

Anthony: What do you think was the biggest misconception about that whole situation?

PointCrow: I mean there's a lot of people [being] like, "hey PointCrow, you are a worse version of him." Or it's like, "all you do is copy ideas."

SmallAnt: 'Cause all of our content, we would compete, basically. Like we never worked together on a project, we would always—

PointCrow: It was always like butting heads with it

SmallAnt: Yeah.

PointCrow: So I think it came from [a] place of really enjoying it. [But] I took that a little bit more personally of like, I do more things, you know. My content is not derivative.

In February 2024, they streamed their first competition together since 2021, an Infinite Craft race, 2 days in a row for 8 hours straight each. A day or so later, SmallAnt made the thumbnail on stream and posted the video shortly afterward. They seem to have other projects together in the works.