A new star has emerged on Twitch: a video game-playing peanut with eyes and lips.
Men across America spent their holiday time off tuning into the hourslong livestreams of TheBurntPeanut. The foul-mouthed legume plays the video game “Arc Raiders” while cracking jokes and loving “goop,” his term for the virtual loot found in the popular game.
TheBurntPeanut is a VTuber, a type of streamer who conceals their identity using a virtual avatar. There’s a long history of these animated gamers, including Twitch giants like Ironmouse.
But the small animated peanut has grown large in viewership, touting 1.4 million followers on Twitch, 1.1 million on YouTube, and over 750,000 on TikTok.
Here’s what you need to know about that peanut your boyfriend, brother, or cousin was raving about over the holidays.
Who is TheBurntPeanut?
Like many on Twitch, TheBurntPeanut streams for long stretches — often over seven hours at a time — while playing the popular game “Arc Raiders.” It’s not unusual for 75,000-plus concurrent fans to tune in to watch him dancing, chatting, and cursing out his competitors while gaming.
The man behind TheBurntPeanut has not yet disclosed his name or appearance. That’s a long-standing tradition for some gamers, who often show their screens instead of their own faces, and especially for VTubers. (Think back to 2022, when the YouTuber Dream famously revealed his face.)
TheBurntPeanut does show his actual eyes and lips, which allows him to show emotion. (This should be familiar to any fans of the Annoying Orange.) His peanut body also moves as if it was speaking.
Fans of TheBurntPeanut are called “bungulators” — and there are a lot of them. According to Stream Charts, TheBurntPeanut was the No. 1 Twitch streamer ranked by hours-watched between December 6 and January 4. In that period, he clocked 9.2 million hours watched on the platform.
Much of TheBurntPeanut’s humor leans on the crass side. He claims that he’s been banned from TikTok 47 times. He leans into his character, joking about not having arms and legs, and about eating his family for munching on fries cooked in peanut oil.
@theburntpeanut The Lebron James Of Arc Raiders #ArcRaiders ♬ original sound – theburntpeanut
At the December Streamer Awards, TheBurntPeanut took home the prize of Best VTuber, beating industry stalwarts like Ironmouse and Mori Calliope. His win stirred up controversy, as TheBurntPeanut calls himself a “PTuber” and does not associate with the traditional, anime-style VTubers that built the category.
VTubers are often cash drivers, with a management industry forming around the streamers. TheBurntPeanut’s paid subscribers are split into three tiers: $5.99, $9.99, and $24.99 a month.
Stream Charts estimates that TheBurntPeanut counts over 40,000 active subscribers in the first tier, with 84 and 63 active subscribers in the second and third tiers. The firm estimates his 30-day income to be between $129,427 and $201,874.
On YouTube, fans can support streamers by sending paid “super chats.” Playboard estimates that TheBurntPeanut received 985 super chats in the last 7 days, amounting to $12,325.
Before he became a streamer, TheBurntPeanut said that he worked as a phone salesman. He earned about $600 every two weeks, he said.
“I’ve just been so blessed by the Bungulators,” he said. “Every day, I wake up, and I thank God that I have what I have.”
The wives, families, and patrons of Bungulators
As TheBurntPeanut’s popularity surged in December, so did a spin-off genre of TikTok: complaints and jokes from his fans’ partners.
In one video, a woman said TheBurntPeanut made her boyfriend laugh more than she could. In another, a woman wrote that she sometimes thinks her boyfriend loves TheBurntPeanut more than her.
One woman recorded herself repeatedly asking why she was “falling asleep to a peanut.” She captioned it: “I am a victim.”
Enjoy me crashing out over @theburntpeanut because in the past week he’s taken over our household. I’ve woken up to his voice on our bedroom TV at 3am more than once. “His presence is soothing to me” —my fiancé, mid-nap at his own birthday party🎈asleep to burnt peanut 🙃🫠 #boythings #wtf #burntpeanut #christmasparty #holidays
Others are bonding over TheBurntPeanut. One woman posted about joining her husband to watch the “little sassy peanut.” Another wrote that her fiancé got her watching TheBurntPeanut — but that she now watches solo of her own free will.
The streamers’ fans aren’t all men, of course. One woman on TikTok described watching TheBurntPeanut as part of her “night routine.” The clip now has over 300,000 views. One family rang in the New Year watching TheBurntPeanut on their television.
These TikToks are a sign of how pervasive one small peanut has become — and how meteoric his rise has been. So if you see a peanut on the TV when you enter a restaurant, now you know why.
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