From League of Legends host to Chinese live-streaming celebrity: how ‘Brother Chopstick’ triumphed over adversity
Former beggar who was born without arms or legs started showcasing his innovative method of playing video games on fan sites and soon a star was born
Every evening, between six and eight, Yuan Lidong, aka Brother Chopstick, puts on a live-stream show from his rundown home in a village in northern China.
Like many Chinese live-streamers the feed shows him engaged in a range of seemingly inconsequential activities such as playing online games, performing tricks or singing or chatting with some of his tens of thousands of fans.
But unlike many of his peers, his appeal is – at least in part – a result of the considerable hardships he has had to overcome to get this far because Yuan was born without arms or legs.
Even his decision to branch out into singing for his fans was born from adversity. Yuan first rose to fame playing online games, such as League of Legends, while lying on his side using his left cheek to control the mouse and biting a chopstick to control the keyboard – hence the Brother Chopstick nickname. But the contortions required to do this were starting to cause him health problems so he was forced to branch out into other fields.
The switch appears to have cost him some followers – and his peak he had 140,000 – but the switch to singing may have a silver lining.
Yuan said that because he could not speak to fans while gaming he had been restricted in the number of followers he could attract.