Who is EwOk? Deaf Fortnite streamer who became FaZe\u2019s first trans star Soleil \u2018EwOk\u2019 Wheeler is one of the most inspirational streamers in the Fortnite community. He joined the esports org at only 13, and that\u2019s not even the most impressive feat \u2013 the teen did it all while deaf. EwOk\u2019s success on Twitch and beyond has resulted in the accumulation of over 250,000 followers and even more on Instagram where he sits around 368,000. He is an anomaly in an ocean of wannabe pros and broadcasters across the globe. But where did he come from, and what does the future hold? EwOk is the first transgender star to join FaZe. Birth of a streamer Wheeler first had dreams of streaming and playing against pros like Ninja when he watched them compete against each other. In search of making dreams a reality, he started streaming on Twitch in October of 2018 after getting a gaming PC. EwOk was an obvious choice of gamer tag, as according to CNN, one of his four dogs looks like an Ewok from the legendary film series \u2018Star Wars\u2019. Like all streamers, EwOk started off small, with only three viewers watching him play at first. But as he kept with it, that number kept improving and growing, all while he racked up over 300 wins in Fortnite. But come March, everything was about to change. Wheeler was given a jersey by Atlanta Falcons quarterback Kurt Benkert. Rise to stardom On March 7, 2019, extremely popular Twitch icon Timothy \u2018TimTheTatman\u2019 Betar was coming off a long stream and decided to host the young deaf player, sending thousands of his viewers his way. Making the most of this opportunity, the teen kept playing to his now supersized audience and went from under 1000 followers on March 7 to just under 10,000 by March 10. From there, everything just snowballed. Positive media reaction, Twitter growth, everything. The internet was set ablaze by the fact that not only was a kid this young so good at Fortnite, but they were doing it all with a handicap. A few months later, EwOk\u2019s Twitch account reached the 100,000 followers milestone. Not too bad for spending less than a year on the platform. EwOk teamed up with Atlanta Falcons backup quarterback Kurt Benkert at the Fortnite Celebrity Pro-Am. It even reached a point where Atlanta Falcons backup quarterback Kurt Benkert (who had viewed EwOk\u2019s stream during Tim\u2019s host) teamed up with the young superstar at the Fortnite Celebrity Pro-Am at The Forum in Los Angeles. While the two didn\u2019t win, it was Ewok\u2019s first-ever offline event and a sign of things to come. Making FaZe history On July 27, 2019, it was revealed that Ewok was recruited to FaZe Clan as the group\u2019s first-ever female star prior to his transition in 2020. FaZe co-founder Ricky Banks announced the news with a welcome Tweet, officially marking esports history. \u201cWelcome to FaZe, you\u2019re incredible, you inspire me,\u201d Banks tweeted, revealing EwOk\u2019s recruitment. \u201cFirst girl ever in FaZe. I\u2019m glad we held out this long. You\u2019re perfect.\u201d Shortly after, the growing star posted a Twitter video where he revealed the good news using sign language. \u201cI wanted to really jump into that and make history,\u201d he then told CNN. Does being deaf affect how he plays? EwOk has revealed that despite being deaf, Fortnite has an internal sound visualizer that may even give him an edge. \u201cThe sound visualizer has been very helpful and it allows me to play on the same level, although there are a few sounds that are still missing in it,\u201d Wheeler told ESPN. \u201cOverall, it allows me to be just as good as other players, if not better. I compensate the inability to hear chat by texting in chats and signing in video chats.\u201d Here\u2019s the guy who changed my life when he hosted me. Thank you so much @timthetatman Finally got a chance to meet you and thank you in person. #tatmanarmy forever!!! pic.twitter.com\/qlFna1yNH9 \u2014 FaZe EwOk (@Ewok) June 17, 2019 And the Twitch community has been very accepting. \u201cSome of the popular streamers knew I was deaf, so they waved on the screen and typed in chat to reply to me. Some of them even learned how to sign,\u201d she said. What\u2019s more, is the teen can also use his inability to hear as a sick burn against game developers. When the community was up in arms over the BRUTE Mech controversy, he mentioned Fortnite, saying, \u201cPlease do something I haven\u2019t been able to do since birth. Listen.\u201d Considering all this happened in just one year, there\u2019s no telling what year two of EwOk\u2019s streaming career has in store for us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Who is EwOk? Deaf Fortnite streamer who became FaZe\u2019s first trans star Soleil \u2018EwOk\u2019 Wheeler is one of the most inspirational streamers in the Fortnite community. He joined the esports org at only 13, and that\u2019s not even the most impressive feat \u2013 the teen did it all while deaf. EwOk\u2019s success on Twitch and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77993\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}