Ludwig Ahgren

Ludwig Anders Ahgren (born July 6, 1995), known mononymously as Ludwig, is an American live streamer, YouTuber, podcaster, comedian, esports commentator, and competitor. Ahgren is best known for his live streams on Twitch from 2018 through late 2021, and on YouTube beginning in late 2021, where he broadcasts video-game-related content as well as non-video-game-related content such as game shows and contests. He is also known for his work as an esports commentator at various Super Smash Bros. Melee tournaments. He is the co-owner of the esports organization Moist Esports. He began streaming full-time on February 16, 2019.

Ludwig Ahgren
Ahgren in 2022
Personal information
Born
Ludwig Anders Ahgren

(1995-07-06) July 6, 1995
Hollis, New Hampshire, U.S.
EducationArizona State University (BA)
Occupations
YouTube information
ChannelsLudwig
LocationLos Angeles, California, U.S.
Years active2015–present
GenreVariety
Subscribers
  • 5.39 million
Total views
  • 1.30 billion
Associated acts
100,000 subscribers2019
1,000,000 subscribers2020
Twitch information
Years active2018–2021
GenreGaming
Last updated: May 10, 2023

While holding a widely publicized "subathon" event, Ahgren became the most subscribed Twitch streamer of all time in 2021, eventually reaching around 282,000 subscribers at its peak, beating the previous record set by fellow streamer Ninja. On November 29, 2021, Ahgren announced that he had signed an exclusive deal with YouTube Gaming. At the 2022 Streamer Awards, Ahgren won the award for "Streamer of the Year".

Early life and education

Ludwig Anders Ahgren[1] was born on July 6, 1995,[‡ 1] in Hollis, New Hampshire.[‡ 2][‡ 3] Ahgren is of French and Swedish ancestry.[2][3] He attended Arizona State University, where he was an inaugural member of Tempe Late Night (later renamed to Tempe Underground), a stand-up, improv, and sketch comedy club.[4] He graduated cum laude with degrees in English literature and journalism in 2017.[‡ 4][5]

Career

Twitch
Ahgren in an interview in May 2020

Ahgren began live streaming on Twitch part-time on May 16, 2018,[‡ 5][6] going full-time on February 16, 2019.[‡ 6] During 2018 and 2019, Ahgren's stream had a relatively small audience, mostly streaming the video games Super Smash Bros. Melee, Mario Party 2, and Dark Souls.[7][5] Since as early as June 2019, he has frequently made collaborative content with his current partner and fellow streamer QTCinderella.[8] [9] On November 10, 2019, Ahgren set the world record for the button mashing mini-game Domination from Mario Party 4.[10][11] According to Polygon, Ahgren's record was faster than a tool-assisted speedrun bot;[10] according to Kotaku, this is false, since the bot was capped at a score of 160, while Ahgren was playing on a modified version that removes the cap.[11] Polygon's Owen S. Good said, "If aliens landed and I had to explain what video games are and why they are fun, I'd show them this. Take a bow, Ludwig."[10]

In January 2020, Ahgren, among other Melee competitors and personalities, such as Mew2King and Plup, competed in an invitational tournament for Pokémon Sword and Shield by 2016 Pokémon World Champion, Wolfe Glick, where Ahgren finished first.[12][13] In June 2020, Ahgren was invited to compete against other popular Twitch streamers in the amateur chess tournament PogChamps of Chess.com, placing second in the consolation bracket. Ahgren subsequently made an appearance on the cover of the August 2020 edition of Chess Life.[14]

In November 2020, after the Melee tournament The Big House 10 received a cease and desist letter from Nintendo,[15] Ahgren announced the Ludwig Ahgren Championship Series 3, an impromptu charity tournament.[16] Taking place between December 20 and 21, it raised $261,668 for Gamers for Love.[17]

In December 2020, both Ahgren's YouTube channel and his Twitch channel reached over one million followers; Cale Michael of Dot Esports credited his rapid growth to his "Twitch stream expanding, continued collaboration with other big creators, and his willingness to try new forms of content out both live and for his YouTube channel."[18] Also in December, Ahgren released a Christmas album, A Very Mogul Christmas, to allow streamers to listen to Christmas music without receiving DMCA strikes.[19]

In January 2021, Ahgren began hosting a game show on Twitch, titled Hivemind, with fellow streamer Cr1TiKaL.[20][21] In October 2021, Ahgren was among a multitude of streamers whose earnings from Twitch were revealed in a data breach; between August 2019 and October 2021, Ahgren had earned $3.3 million through Twitch, which Ahgren confirmed.[22]

Subathon
Main article: Ludwig's subathon

On March 14, 2021,[23] Ahgren held a subathon that ran for 30 days, ending on April 13, 2021.[24] A "subathon", short for "subscription marathon", is a type of livestream on Twitch where every time a streamer receives a subscription—US$5 donations from viewers[25]—more time is added to a descending timer.[26][27] Once the timer reaches zero, the stream ends.[26] Ahgren received around 282,000 subscriptions during his subathon,[26] breaking the previous record set in 2018 by Tyler "Ninja" Blevins of the most concurrent subscribers on Twitch.[26][27]

Move to YouTube

On November 29, 2021, Ahgren announced he would depart from live streaming on Twitch, and moved to YouTube Gaming on November 30. He announced this with a short comedy sketch, where he blew up a purple car symbolizing Twitch.[28][29][30] According to Dot Esports, Ahgren cited his move to YouTube as one of the reasons why Twitch later relaxed its exclusivity rules for its partnered streamers.[31]

In December 2021, Ahgren received two DMCA-related bans, temporarily suspending his streams.[32][33][34] On September 11, 2022, Ahgren was banned for a third time during a stream where he deliberately played the copyrighted song "Go!!!" to see how quickly he would be banned. He was banned after one minute and thirty-one seconds which he claimed was a "world record".[34]

On July 2, 2022, Ludwig hosted an in-person version of his game show, Mogul Money Live, to over 5,000 people at the YouTube Theater.[35] Contestants included Pokimane, xQc, Sykkuno, Mizkif, Sodapoppin, and Fuslie, among others. Sykkuno won the show and was rewarded with a "golden toilet".[36]

On September 23, 2022, Ahgren announced a chess boxing event, the Mogul Chessboxing Championship, that was held on December 11, 2022, in the Galen Center in Los Angeles; It featured both streamers and professional chess players.[37] In the event, Ahgren was both co-host and a participant in a surprise chess-slap match with Connor Colquhoun.[38][39] On September 27, 2022, Ahgren announced the founding of the creative agency Offbrand, along with fellow streamers Brandon 'Atrioc' Ewing, Nathan Stanz, and Nick Allen.[40]

On September 28, 2022, Ahgren and Jschlatt, a fellow content creator, founded the YouTube channel "Lud and Schlatts Musical Emporium", a project to release royalty-free recordings of famous compositions and two original songs in the style of Nintendo video game music for use in content creation.[41][42] On October 15, Ahgren announced Swipe, his bidet product line.[43]

From October 21 to 23, 2022, Ahgren organized an invitational tournament for Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in Las Vegas, Nevada with 32-player brackets and a prize pool of $30,002 for both games, which was increased to $52,502 due to a cross-promotion with Capital One.[44] The event was broadcast across Ahgren's and Alpharad's channels.[45] On October 20, the day before the event was scheduled to begin, Ahgren revealed that a major sponsor had backed out at the last minute. YouTuber MrBeast signed on as a sponsor through his company Feastables.[46] According to Ahgren and tournament organizer Aiden 'Calvin' McCaig, the event cost $200,000 to produce.[47]

Ahgren would host another Smash invitational, the Scuffed World Tour, on December 18, 2022, in light of community uproar surrounding Nintendo and Panda due to the cancellation of the 2022 Smash World Tour Championships. Intending to rival Panda's Panda Cup Finale, which was to be held on the same weekend before it got postponed,[48] Ahgren invited the top sixteen Melee and Ultimate players from Smash World Tour 2022 to compete with the primary goal of raising money to support VGBootCamp, the organizers of Smash World Tour.[49][50]

In January 2023, Ahgren announced that he joined Moist Esports as a co-owner.[51]

Personal life

Ahgren began dating fellow streamer, QTCinderella, in 2020.[52] They reside together in Los Angeles.

Awards and nominations
Awards and nominations received by Ludwig Ahgren
Year Ceremony Category Work Result Ref.
2021 Esports Awards Streamer of the Year Himself Nominated [53]
2022 The Streamer Awards Best Variety Streamer Nominated [54]
Streamer of the Year Won [55][54]
12th Streamy Awards Streamer of the Year Nominated [56][57]
Collaboration My Gameshow Broke YouTube Nominated
Variety Streamer Himself Won
The Game Awards Content Creator of the Year Won [58]
2023 The Streamer Awards League of Their Own Nominated [59]
Best Streamed Event Mogul Chessboxing Championship Won
13th Streamy Awards Streamer of the Year Himself Nominated [60]
Variety Streamer Nominated
Podcast The Yard[lower-greek 1] Nominated
Esports Awards Esports Personality of the Year Himself Pending [61]

Filmography

Music videos
List of music video appearances by Ludwig Ahgren
Year Title Artist(s) Role Ref.
2021 "Inferno" Sub Urban and Bella Poarch Bellboy [62]
2022 "Dolls" Bella Poarch [63]

Discography

Albums
  • A Very Mogul Christmas (2020)

Notes
  1. co-hosted by Ahgren, Anthony "Slime" Bruno, Nicolas "envy" Vercillo and Aiden "Aimen" McCaig

References
  1. Jiang, Sisi (October 9, 2021). "Streamers React To Leaked Twitch Income Rankings With Jokes, Criticism". Kotaku. Archived from the original on January 4, 2022. Retrieved January 4, 2022.
  2. Majumdar, Ripan (September 4, 2022). ""I'll Copy His Secret Formula Bar for Bar" – YouTube Streamer Ludwig Mimicked Twitch Star xQc To Become the Biggest Streamer". EssentiallySports. Archived from the original on September 28, 2022. Retrieved September 28, 2022.
  3. Ludwig explains the best part of being Swedish, archived from the original on October 11, 2022, retrieved October 11, 2022
  4. "Ludwig BEFORE YouTube", archived from the original on November 19, 2022, retrieved November 19, 2022
  5. Press-Reynolds, Kieran. "How Ludwig Ahgren became one of Twitch's most popular streamers and broke a record before announcing a move to YouTube Gaming". Business Insider. Archived from the original on September 28, 2022. Retrieved September 28, 2022.
  6. "ludwig - Stream May 17, 2018 - Stats on viewers, followers, subscribers; VOD and clips". TwitchTracker. Archived from the original on January 28, 2021. Retrieved August 19, 2023.
  7. Hope, Henrik (May 4, 2019). "Hello [Streamer] PogChamp": The Language Variety on Twitch (PDF) (Master's thesis). University of Stavanger. p. 31. hdl:11250/2603065. Archived (PDF) from the original on November 20, 2021. Retrieved December 19, 2020.
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  9. "The Truth About Ludwig and QTCinderella's Relationship". April 8, 2021. Archived from the original on June 5, 2023. Retrieved August 11, 2023.
  10. Good, Owen S. (November 10, 2019). "World's fastest button-masher breaks 200 in Mario Party 4 Domination". Polygon. Archived from the original on January 29, 2021. Retrieved January 24, 2021.
  11. Rosenberg, Adam (November 10, 2019). "You've never seen button-mashing like this before". Mashable. Archived from the original on January 29, 2021. Retrieved January 24, 2021.
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  19. Galloway, Ryan (December 7, 2020). "Ludwig releases surprise Christmas album". Dot Esports. Archived from the original on June 22, 2021. Retrieved December 7, 2020.
  20. Michael, Cale (February 7, 2021). "CodeMiko on Twitch: 'It hurts because I feel like they see me as a toxic person'". Dot Esports. GAMURS Group. Archived from the original on July 26, 2021. Retrieved September 12, 2021. She also confirmed that Twitch mandated she be removed from a future episode of Hivemind, the platform's new game show hosted by streamers Ludwig and Moistcr1tikal. This decision also applied to any other Twitch-sponsored events that would have featured Miko in some form during her suspension.
  21. Miceli, Max (August 19, 2021). "American Eagle seeks attention of young customers with new Twitch sponsorship". Dot Esports. GAMURS Group. Archived from the original on September 12, 2021. Retrieved September 12, 2021. Not to be confused with Twitch Rivals, the Twitchgaming channel is primarily used as a vehicle for broadcasting a podcast called The Weekly, as well as a gameshow-type series called Hivemind with Ludwig and MoistCr1TiKaL.
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  27. "Ludwig Ahgren breaks Twitch subscription record after 31-day stint". BBC News. April 14, 2021. Archived from the original on April 16, 2021. Retrieved August 4, 2022.
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  29. Peters, Jay (November 29, 2021). "Ludwig, the streamer who broke the all-time Twitch subs record this year, is moving to YouTube Gaming". The Verge. Archived from the original on November 30, 2021. Retrieved November 30, 2021.
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  31. Tsiaoussidis, Alex (August 25, 2022). "Ludwig: Twitch eased exclusivity rules over YouTube nerves". Dot Esports. GAMURS Group. Archived from the original on September 14, 2022. Retrieved September 14, 2022.
  32. "Ludwig banned AGAIN from YouTube mere days after joining the platform". December 6, 2021. Archived from the original on August 7, 2022. Retrieved August 7, 2022.
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  34. Mahato, Ashish (September 12, 2022). "Ludwig achieves 'world record' for fastest ban on YouTube". Dot Esports. GAMURS Group. Archived from the original on September 14, 2022. Retrieved September 14, 2022.
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  36. Scotti, Lawrence (July 2, 2022). "Sykkuno beats xQc & Pokimane in Ludwig's final Mogul Money: Recap & results". Dexerto. Archived from the original on July 7, 2022. Retrieved July 7, 2022.
  37. Linville (raync910), Ray (September 25, 2022). "Ludwig Announces Mogul Chessboxing Championship, Hambleton Vs. Trent Headlines". Chess.com. Archived from the original on September 26, 2022. Retrieved September 26, 2022.
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  44. Aiden Calvin [@aidencalvin] (October 24, 2022). "Some LSI prize pool updates. Because of the Capital One downloads we hit, they threw us another $35k for the prizing. Mr Beast also gave us another $10k specifically for prizing. This brings the prize pool for each tournament to $52,502 - paid out to top 16" (Tweet). Retrieved October 24, 2022 – via Twitter.
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  50. Ludwig Ahgren [@LudwigAhgren] (December 4, 2022) "16 people per game now" (Tweet). Retrieved December 6, 2022 – via Twitter.
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  52. Glaze, Virginia. "QTCinderella Exposes Thirsty Streamers for Sliding in Ludwig's DMs". Dexerto. Archived from the original on June 10, 2023. Retrieved June 10, 2023.
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  55. Ingram, Michael B (March 14, 2022). "Ludwig Wins Streamer of the Year Award". Game Rant. Archived from the original on May 17, 2022. Retrieved May 17, 2022.
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  62. Tsiaoussidis, Alex (July 14, 2022). "Sykkuno made unexpected appearance in Bella Poarch's 'Doll's' music video". Dot Esports. Archived from the original on August 18, 2022. Retrieved September 1, 2022.
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Primary sources

In the text, these references are preceded by a double dagger (‡):

  1. Ahgren, Ludwig [@LudwigAhgren] (July 6, 2021). "26" (Tweet). Archived from the original on July 6, 2021. Retrieved August 26, 2021 – via Twitter.
  2. Kanojia, Alok. Ludwig and Dr. K's Journey of Death and Consciousness. Ludwig (Video). Archived from the original on May 12, 2022. Retrieved March 11, 2022 – via YouTube.
  3. Ahgren, Ludwig (September 28, 2021). So Wikipedia Speedruns Exist…. Ludwig (Video). Archived from the original on May 18, 2022. Retrieved May 18, 2022 – via YouTube.
  4. Wired (January 4, 2023). "Ludwig Answers the Web's Most Searched Questions". Event occurs at 3:37. Archived from the original on January 6, 2023. Retrieved January 7, 2023 – via YouTube.
  5. "Stream on May 17, 2018 Katamari no Job". Archived from the original on January 28, 2021. Retrieved May 17, 2020.
  6. Ahgren, Ludwig [@LudwigAhgren] (February 18, 2019). "I've decided to go full-time with twitch streaming thank you everyone for the support <3" (Tweet) – via Twitter.

Further reading
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