FaZe Clan is one of the foundational groups behind internet culture. Back in the early days of YouTube, FaZe Clan’s Call of Duty trickshot videos sat alongside comedy skits, reaction videos, and Let’s Plays as typical teen viewing. The hardcore gaming group soon expanded: They became esports celebrities thanks in part to their rivalry with Optic, and they branched out into collaborative IRL content that foreshadowed the streamer house trend of the mid 2010’s.
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Over these years, FaZe Clan saw many changes to their line-up and rode waves of popularity as they sought to monetize their success. The core fanbase, however, felt that FaZe was abandoning what made them special, betraying the hyped-up, hangout-friendly vibe of their early days. When GameSquare purchased FaZe Clan back in October of 2023, the goal was to reconnect with FaZe’s roots by putting control back in the hands of creators.
In this article, we look at how FaZe Clan has completely rebounded by streamlining their roster of personalities while exploring the new talent that is reinvigorating content and hyping up viewers on live-streaming platforms.
FaZe Clan Bounces Back Under the Direction of Content Creators
After FaZe Clan entered new ownership, it took a few months for the effects to show. In April of 2024, FaZe made an iconic blue screen “Ctrl-Alt-Del” announcement signifying a complete reset for the brand. The announcement revealed that the existing roster for FaZe Clan would be heavily reduced, leaving only 14 of the previous members, with 4 new members joining the line-up for a total of 18 content creators.
In the three or so months since, the results have been a dramatic success. While the aggregated weekly viewership for all FaZe Clan member channels sat at around 1.5M hours watched prior to April, it has since climbed up to a peak weekly viewership of 4.8M hours watched in July. This incredible tripling in viewership reflects renewed faith in the FaZe Clan brand – so how precisely did they bring about this reversal in reputation?
Apart from the roster change, two key steps shook up the FaZe Clan formula. Firstly, on the 16th of May, the decision was made to split FaZe Clan esports and IRL creators into separate divisions. FaZe Media now represents the IRL branch of the group, allowing these content creators to more singularly recreate the friendly atmosphere of the early 2010’s. Secondly, on the 19th of June, FaZe Banks personally purchased 25.5% of FaZe Clan, signaling his faith in the brand and officially giving the original creators more influence on the group’s direction moving forward.
New FaZe Clan Members Push the Group Towards IRL Content
Based on both of these changes, this proposed new direction is clearly a shift towards IRL content. Looking at just the four newcomers to the group – FaZe Max (plaquethemax), FaZe Silky, FaZe Lacy, and JasonTheWeen – reveals that 92% of their content is IRL-focused. The leadership at FaZe Clan picked these streamers based on their ability to create compelling live content and, presumably, due to their young age which can bring in a new generation of FaZe fans. The “frat boy” style of their content also harkens back to the early 2010’s vibe of FaZe Clan.
FaZe haven’t avoided gaming content altogether, however. Among the new members, the most played titles include trendy games on live-streaming platforms (such as the recently released EA College Football 25) and cooperative games that provide opportunities for members to play off one another (such as Chained Together). These are the perfect complement to IRL content such as FaZe Silky’s pop culture reaction-style videos and FaZe Max’s Kai Cenat-style live skits.
JasonTheWeen Stands Out as the Poster Boy of the New FaZe Clan Mindset
This new line-up has a massive gulf in popularity based on current hype. Over the last three months, JasonTheWeen generated a monumental 155K chat mentions across Twitch and Kick. Part of this excessively high number stems from JasonTheWeen’s penchant for Twitch Raids – events in which he urges his fans to hijack other streams and bombard their chats with his own name. As a result, JasonTheWeen’s trolling antics inflate his chat mentions.
However, it’s not all bluster: JasonTheWeen is pulling in massive viewership. As recently as the week beginning July 22nd, JasonTheWeen generated an immense 1.8M hours watched. JasonTheWeen perhaps best embodies the joking, light-hearted spirit and youth-oriented content of FaZe’s early days, with his mogging content poking fun at himself in a humble way that immediately endears him to viewers. Collaborating with other new members like FaZe Max and StableRonaldo is a way to supercharge this content, with FaZe Max seeing 1.5M hours watched in that same week and StableRonaldo consistently generating hours watched in the several hundreds of thousands
FaZe appears to be back in form after the clever decision to split their esports and IRL content. However, it could be interesting to see how a slightly higher amount of gaming on the FaZe Media side could boost viewership – particularly more live service games and collaborative games like Chained Together. Stream Hatchet will be watching the exciting new direction FaZe Clan takes now that it is back in the hands of content creators.
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