FaZe Clan content creator Brian ‘Rug’ Awadis has hit out at fellow YouTube stars the Stokes Twins, accusing the pair of copying one of his thumbnails.
FaZe Clan are an organization that has, in the last few years, transcended their roots as a Call of Duty content creation group. They now host collaborations with some of the world’s biggest brands, including Man City and Burger King.
Rug embodies this transcendence better than most. While he has certainly moved away from Call of Duty, he hasn’t lost touch with his audience and regularly entertains them with videos covering a range of topics. With just shy of 18 million subscribers, he is one of the platform’s most popular creators.
Back on January 6, Rug released a video titled ‘Testing Viral TikTok Gadgets’. As you can guess, it saw the 24-year-old trying out gadgets seen on TikTok and trying to recreate the videos that made them famous.
However, controversy arose when, on January 15, the Stokes Twins uploaded an almost identical video to their channel. It is titled “Testing VIRAL TikTok Gadgets To See If They Work!” In the video and its description, the Stokes Twins link FaZe Rug’s original video and thank him for the idea.
However, Rug took issue with their behavior, calling out the near-identical thumbnail used by the Stokes. In fact, the only difference between the two thumbnails was the replacement of Rug on the left-hand side.
“It’s totally cool to do the same idea because I’ve done the same,” the FaZe Clan creator said, “but copying and pasting the thumbnail is where it’s fucked up.. My thumbnail guy spent hours on it just for it to be completely stolen. Crazy”.
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It’s totally cool to do the same idea because I’ve done the same, but copying and pasting the thumbnail is where it’s fucked up.. My thumbnail guy spent hours on it just for it to be completely stolen. Crazy lol pic.twitter.com/Ww3JTET4eD
— Rug (@FaZeRug) January 15, 2021
As you can see from Rug’s tweet, the two thumbnails do appear to be identical, albeit Rug replaced by one of the twins.
Rug’s frustrations seem justified, especially if a lot of hard work went into its original creation, by his own thumbnail designer.
It is not the first time the Stokes have found themselves in the middle of some controversy, being charged back in August over fake bank robbery pranks. The prank resulted in an Uber driver being held at gunpoint after Orange County officers arrived.
