Belarusian streamer Mellstroy has recently hosted a broadcast with over 730K+ Peak Viewers, reaching a record audience among Russian-speaking streamers. The stream also marked a personal record for Mellstroy and the second-highest result in the history of the platform Kick. Only WestCol's Stream Fighters 2 managed to attract more viewers. So, who is Mellstroy, and why are his streams so popular?
Who is Mellstroy?
Mellstroy's real name is Andrey Burim. He was born in Gomel (Belarus) in 1998, and began his streaming career in 2015, when he dropped out of college. Initially, Mellstroy was a classic game streamer who broadcast Minecraft, CS:GO, Dota 2, and other popular games on YouTube. Despite his efforts, these streams were not very popular among viewers, so Mellstroy gradually switched to IRL.
Mellstroy / Photo: instagram.com/mellstroy
In 2016, Burim often broadcast on chat roulette, where he looked for beautiful girls and... well, approached them in a pretty blatant manner. His audience liked the format, although it violated many platform rules. For example, Mellstroy was accused of flaming minors, distributing adult content, etc. However, it was precisely such “bad boy” streams that brought Mellstroy his first fame.
Trash streams and problems with the law
In 2019, Mellstroy moved to Moscow, where he continued his trash streams on a new scale. At that time bookmaker companies and online casinos paid attention to him: they considered Burim the ideal influencer, whose type of broadcasts and whose audience suited them best. So, Mellstroy began regularly broadcasting online casinos, which brought him a lot of money: he started to receive about $20,000 for a single stream. His 'trash' content did not go anywhere, and the more money Mellstroy got thanks to gambling advertising, the greater the scope of his IRL broadcasts became. The streamer happily squandered his money: he bought expensive things, luxury cars and, in general, led a very bohemian lifestyle.
Most of Mellstroy's trash streams were IRL parties with the use of large amounts of alcohol, promotion of a depraved lifestyle, etc. Because of the trash streams, Mellstroy had a lot of problems with the law: criminal cases were opened against him in Belarus and Russia. Ultimately, Mellstroy moved to live in the UAE for a while: and a criminal case was opened against him in this country, so he fled to Turkey.
Mellstroy / Photo: instagram.com/mellstroy
Every year Mellstroy's streams gather more and more viewers. His income from advertising online casinos increased, and drunken parties became even larger and more amoral. Over time, such trash streams led to Mellstroy receiving channel bans on YouTube, Twitch, and Trovo. Now he broadcasts only on Kick, and mainly communicates with fans on Telegram and Instagram, where he has more than 1.6 million subscribers.
Mellstroy was close to hitting #1 in Kick's all-time rankings
Mellstroy is far from the only streamer who has made a name for himself thanks to gambling. There are numerous examples abroad too, there are also many fans of gambling who throw money away in front of viewers. These include ROSHTEIN, TrainwrecksTV, and, to some extent, even Adin Ross.
How Mellstroy went viral
Now Mellstroy's name is heard not only by Russian-speaking viewers — the streamer has also gained global fame thanks to his crazy antics and throwing money around. Cooperation with bookmakers and online casinos made him a multimillionaire (apparently), but he manages his capital in a very unusual way. For example, he started paying money to his viewers to make memes about him. The streamer promised to pay $200 for every million views on TikTok, so users began making memes en masse with him in the hope that some of them would become viral. This phenomenon has become widespread: according to Mellstroy himself, he pays his viewers about a million dollars for memes on average every month. Mellstroy's photos & footage filled TikTok, Instagram, and other social networks in a matter of days, and the streamer’s popularity skyrocketed.
In 2023, Mellstroy began making content based on donating large sums to other streamers for various actions. For example, he asked them to blow up their cars, cut their hair bald, strip on stream, etc. The amounts offered were huge and many streamers agreed to these conditions, thereby attracting even more attention to the Mellstroy.
Mellstroy / Photo: instagram.com/mellstroy
At the beginning of 2024, Mellstroy used the same trick, but for viewers: he offered a lot of money for tasks that anyone could complete. For example, he promised to pay $330,000 to any person who gets Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappe, Erling Holland, or other famous personalities to send him a video greeting. The streamer promised the same amount to anyone who would run onto the field wearing his jersey in the Champions League final. Mellstroy also promised to pay $1.6M to anyone who gets popular YouTuber MrBeast to follow him on Instagram. The streamer also offered $490K to anyone who would take his photo to Everest and Moon. Mellstroy exchanged money for hype, without putting any effort into it. In return, he received fame and virality in media and social networks.
Record-breaking stream
Big money helped Mellstroy set a new record in the Russian-speaking internet sphere. On March 20th, he announced a collaboration with Russian artist Morgenstern, who received a million dollars for a single stream. Another significant factor contributing to the stream's record-breaking audience was the substantial amount of money content creators were poised to gamble: $3.2 million.
So, what is the Mellstroy phenomenon? Even though the streamer demonstrates completely antisocial and marginal behavior, many viewers continue to watch him with pleasure. People love his trashy content, which is radically different from what most other streamers and bloggers offer, who are limited by the strict rules of their platforms.
Mellstroy exchanges money for hype and content, while making a minimum of 'actual' effort to maintain his popularity at a high level. He happily remains in the image of a “meme fool” who drives luxury cars in slippers, throws money around, shows viewers his penis, attacks random passers-by, and embarrasses girls with obscene proposals. Nowadays it’s difficult to find another such crazy streamer, and even more difficult to find one equally popular.
