TommyInnit reveals how YouTube fame became "overwhelming" amid Minecraft boom

TommyInnit is one of the biggest faces of the Minecraft community — but fame comes with its caveats, and Tommy wasn’t exactly prepared for the recognition that his status as a major Twitch star would bring him.

The Minecraft community boasts a fair few influencers with huge fanbases, Dream, DanDTM, and Karl Jacobs among them, as well as English streamer TommyInnit.

The UK-based content creator gained a foothold in the Minecraft player base in 2020, becoming one of Twitch’s fastest-growing broadcasters and garnering 3 million YouTube subscribers at the end of the year.

Now, Tommy boasts over 6.5 million Twitch followers and over 10 million YouTube subs, and it seems that his status as a top-tier influencer only continues to grow… but he wasn’t prepared for the “overwhelming” amount of recognition the role would require.

oh my god!! seriously thank you all so much <3 pic.twitter.com/GFs60HRyXQ

— TommyInnit (@tommyinnit) December 3, 2020

During a September 14 episode of Logan Paul’s IMPAULSIVE podcast, Tommyinnit revealed that, at first, being recognized in public by legions of fans was a bit too much for him.

“I found the start of this year pretty hard with anxiety and stuff, about going out in public,” he began. “The whole getting recognized s**t, that was really overwhelming. I think a lot of it — the sort of feeling of alienation with YouTube, and people not seeing you for just, like a guy that makes videos — and it’s totally easy to solve, and I feel like I’m a lot happier with it and better with it now, but that was a struggle at the start of this year.”

“I was thinking about dropping out of college,” he added. “I was really anxious about it. I didn’t like the idea of going out in public. It was this choice between privacy and identity. … I went out with glasses and a disguise, because I wanted to see if I was still getting recognized.”

It makes sense that Tommy would find all this to be a bit over the top; the influencer reminded listeners that he’d been “mobbed at a train station by fans” in the past, which was something that he didn’t expect, as he’d risen to prominence fairly quickly.

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For this Minecraft creator, fame happened quite literally overnight — but he’s managed to find the tenuous balance between stardom and normalcy in spite of his status as an internet superstar.

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