- Hi, I'm Ludwig.
I stream sometimes,
and this is the Wired Autofill Complete Interview.
[upbeat music]
Bottom of the barrel these days, huh?
You guys had like Ryan Reynolds not too long ago.
[upbeat music]
What Ludwig...
What is the Ludwig subathon?
Oh, okay.
Good question.
Basically it's a thing that you do as a streamer,
where every time you sub,
it increases the amount of time you stream.
And I did one that went for a month straight.
And I was on camera the whole time.
I got the most subs anyone ever has
and made a lot of money that month,
and that was pretty cool.
And I will never do that again
'cause that was way too long of my life.
That's like a percentage point of my life.
But it was fun. It was fun while it lasted.
What is Ludwig's net worth?
Getting right into it, are we?
Do people ever answer honestly?
Never?
When you're a big streamer,
it's kind of like a basketball player,
and you get to be signed by a team.
And YouTube signed me and they gave me millions.
Thank you, Susan Wojcicki.
And so it's millions now, which is cool I guess for me.
And I appreciate that, Susan.
What chair does Ludwig use?
Wow, people care about this.
What chair am I using now?
It's like some Ikea brand.
[chair squeaking]
It's pretty nice. I like it.
I use...
It's the fancy chair brand.
Herman Miller Aeron.
It's their office chair.
It's like $1,400.
It's one of those buy it,
use it for the rest of your life items.
Oh, I think gaming chairs are generally a scam
based off the branding that they jack up the price.
Except for PewDiePie's if he's watching this.
In which case, that one's very cool and not a scam.
What does Ludwig play Pokemon on?
Okay, I know why this is Googled
and it's because I use, allegedly, an emulator.
And every time people come to my stream and ask me,
I say, "Hey, I'm not gonna tell you
how I play this illegally.
Just Google it."
But why were you googling what does Ludwig play Pokemon on?
Just Google how to play Pokemon on an emulator
and you'll get there.
The Internet's a wild west.
You'll get there.
What personality type is Ludwig?
It's four letters.
I don't know the exact ones.
I think I'm ENTP or J.
ENTPJ I think.
What to say to Ludwig.
You know when people ask me for pictures?
For a period, I thought I would have a code,
and if they gave me the code...
I would never say no to someone who has a picture,
but I would really put a hundred percent effort in.
And the code was wow, Ludwig,
you're looking awfully hot today.
Damn. What did you do to that hair?
Whoo.
And then you're supposed to say a sheesh at the end.
Only one person ever said it to me,
and it was at Disneyland,
and he was incredibly nervous,
and I was incredibly uncomfortable.
So, just say hi and that's good enough.
That's a good start.
Dusty back there.
All right, great.
Did Ludwig...
What did I do?
Did Ludwig beat "Elden Ring"?
I did.
I did a stream where I started playing "Elden Ring"
and I didn't end until I beat "Elden Ring",
and it took me 102 hours, which was a while.
Twin gargoyles were the hardest part
and the most fun part was when I never had to play it again.
Did Ludwig beat Ninja record?
I did. Suck it, Ninja.
Sorry. No.
But I did. I did.
It was the most subs,
which is kind of an arbitrary metric of success,
so it doesn't super matter,
but I do have it still
and I'm the most subbed Twitch streamer,
and I'm not a Twitch streamer anymore,
so that's fun.
Did Ludwig play Smash?
I did.
I was a competitive "Super Smash Brothers Melee" player,
which is different than the new one.
People think because I played "Smash",
I'm good at the new one.
I'm dog shit. I'm bad.
And so, if you want to take on my Donkey Kong in "Ultimate",
you'll probably win.
And so, don't expect too much.
But for the GameCube one,
I'm better than a thousand people in the world.
But a thousand people are better than me, so I'm like 1,001.
Did Ludwig graduate college?
Yes. I went to Harvard of the Southwest,
Arizona State University and I got two degrees,
one in Journalism and Mass Communications
and the other in English Literature.
But I'll be honest,
the English literature one is kind of fraudulent.
I mostly sparked noted my way through, but I still got it.
Don't take it back. Thank you.
Did Ludwig retire?
No.
No, I think you just stopped watching.
I'm here. I'm here still.
Hope you're having a good day.
Oh. [board thumping]
When Ludwig...
When did Ludwig leave Twitch?
December 1st, 2021 I think.
The brief answer is that YouTube
seemed to care more about wanting me,
both in how much they were offering me,
and how much they were sweet talking to me.
And Susan Sweet talked my ear off enough
that I switched over.
When did Ludwig start streaming?
May 16th, 2017 was the first day
that I started part-time streaming,
and I played "Mario Party 2" at Adventure Mode.
It was pretty fun.
And I got the world record in that video game.
And now I do a lot of different things.
When does Ludwig stream on YouTube? [chuckles]
Not that frequently.
Okay, I'm kind of bad at maintaining a schedule,
and YouTube doesn't have a hub where streams stay,
so it's a little bit irregular,
but I try to stream like five days a week,
about four hours each time I stream.
Just maybe go to the channel and roll the dice.
Maybe I'll be live.
When is Ludwig's merch coming out?
I do it in drops,
so the next one will come out at my next event,
which is a chess boxing event,
where I'm gonna have people chess
and then fight each other with their fists,
and they'll either win by checkmate
or knocking out their opponent.
And I'll release clothing then if that excites you.
Is Ludwig...
Is Ludwig part of Mr. Beast?
You would think
'cause I've done like three Mr. Beast videos,
but no, I'm his backup.
I'm his sloppy seconds.
And when one of their members is sick,
he calls me up the day before
and usually I'm not doing jack shit,
So I fly on over to North Carolina
to film something with Mr. Beast.
But not technically part of Mr. Beast's crew.
I don't think I could to be honest.
It's really stressful.
They film like 20 hours and I'm not that funny for 20 hours.
One hour? Maybe.
20? No.
Is Ludwig CEO of Twitch?
[chuckles] Wow.
Where where did you get lost?
No, no.
It is funny that you asked that
because the CEO of Twitch is kind of hard to find,
but his name's Emmett Sheer.
But maybe, no, not even maybe one day.
No, that's not me.
I'm not that.
Is Ludwig a chess grand master?
I wish.
I wish I was.
A chess Grand Master requires a life of dedication
and about like a 2,600 rating.
And I have a 1,200 rating, so a little bit far off.
But I did convince the people at www.chess.com
to give me the title for one day,
so for one day I was technically
a grand master on www.chess.com.
Is Ludwig a good person?
You know what?
It's all relative.
And also, the only time you'll see me
is when I'm trying to be my best person possible
'cause that would never upload me
when I'm be being a bad person
or at least when I think I'm being a bad person.
So, you would've to make the judgment call.
But end of the day, anyone you see online,
you'll never truly know if they're a good person.
So, always think it with a grain of salt.
I try my best though.
Is Ludwig related to Beethoven.
I have no relation to Mr. Beethoven.
My parents are simply from Europe
and enjoyed his music enough,
that they called me Ludvig at birth.
And then I bastardized it when I was a small American child
and called myself Ludwig,
which is not technically how you pronounce it.
But no, no relation.
[board thumping]
Damn it. The lights.
All right.
Oh, how did Ludwig get famous?
You know what getting famous is? Is a lot of luck.
What it requires is for you to have all the things
set up necessary for when the luck strikes,
to be able to capitalize on it.
I streamed for about three years,
and then there's something called COVID that happened,
and the website that I streamed on called Twitch
tripled in size, and so I also tripled in size.
And then the ball kind of keeps rolling.
I'll be honest, the rich get richer,
and that also applies to streaming in YouTube.
So, that's kind of how I got famous in a nutshell.
How did Ludwig and QTCinderella meet?
She tried to come to my stream to make fun of me,
and then I tricked her by having her date me for four years,
so jokes on you.
Nice trick, huh?
Ludwig, how to be a streamer?
I think this is just looking up a video that I made,
but I did make a video on how to be a streamer.
I'm gonna try to make a new one
'cause I think the game has changed a bit with TikTok
and how that influences live streaming.
You'll see it all the time,
but there's a big TikTok thing, which is posting a video,
and it's like I'm playing "Call Of Duty" right now,
but every time you fall, this noise plays, burr bruh.
And then you go over and they have like 5,000 viewers,
and they'll promote a more sustainable livestream website
like YouTube or Twitch.
I think that's the future.
It seems like TikTok is where the culture is made
and where you have the best chance to thrive
as someone without an audience,
if you just have a good enough idea
and can make people watch you.
How many subs has Ludwig gained?
Tough question because YouTube and Twitch
have confusing words.
But on Twitch, at one point, I had 283,000 subs,
which was the most all time.
And then on YouTube, I'm at like three something million.
But you don't have to pay for those subs, they're free.
I also lost them all.
I have the record for the most subs lost ever by anyone.
The biggest fall off of all time from 283,000 to zero,
so it's not all it's cracked up to be.
How tall is Ludwig from Twitch?
Ludwig from Twitch, according to the government,
is 6 foot 3 'cause every time I go to the DMV,
I add 1 inch to my height,
and I've done that three years running now.
Before that, I put myself at 6 feet,
but you know, depends on the day.
I have 5-11 days like every other guy.
Does Ludwig...
Does Ludwig rock climb?
I quit.
I used to rock climb.
It's like the most fun way to exercise,
but every single person I know who rock climbs
gets injured inevitably within 6 to 12 months of doing it.
And I don't want to do that 'cause I'm getting old.
And so a shoulder injury means 6 months outta commission,
so now I work out at a boring gym with boring weights.
Does Ludwig have a cat?
I have two cats,
but the cat you might be thinking of is Coots,
who's a young little kitten,
who I got 'cause my girlfriend had been wanting it.
And when I say I got it,
I mean she bought it, but I took a lot of the credit.
Does Ludwig have a tattoo?
I have two tattoos and maybe I can show you.
Can you see that?
I'll tell you the story first.
When I hit a thousand subs on Twitch,
I promised I would get a tattoo
of anything my viewers wanted,
which was stupid on hindsight,
but the memory's still sweet.
And my roommate did this to me prison style.
Stick and poke.
Took about four hours.
I almost cried.
And what it's supposed to be
is a sentient cereal bowl with a smiley face
and a hovering crown, like from a fairly odd parents.
What it kind of looks like is a shitty ramen bowl,
but I still like it.
And then I have another one on my thigh
that I won't show you 'cause I have to pull my pants down,
but it has my best friend's names on it.
Does Ludwig speak Spanish?
No shot.
My mother is from Spain and is a Spanish teacher,
but I never learned Spanish from her.
I learned French 'cause she also is a French teacher.
So, French, yes. Spanish, no.
Does Ludwig like anime?
Many would think that I do,
but I only watch anime to understand the cultural impact
on the youth, who I also have a job of entertaining,
and so that's why I've watched 1,020 episodes of "One Piece"
and not because I'm a weeb.
'Cause that's not me.
I'm not a weeb.
[cardboard thumping]
Where Ludwig...
Where does Ludwig live? [chuckles]
Feel like everyone gets this question
and it's always the same answer.
I can't tell you that.
I will tell you the police did find out a couple times
'cause they swatted me.
But outside of that, we try to keep it low key.
You know what I mean?
Los Angeles. That's the easiest answer.
Where to find Ludwig?
Now we're getting creepy.
Fortnite? Whoa, that's a mix up.
What?
This is like AI wrote this.
I don't know.
Is this a thing in Fortnite?
Is Beethoven in Fortnite?
I could believe that.
I played Fortnite when it originally popped off like 2017
and not since, so I really don't know where it's from,
but [knocks on board] I hope you find me in Fortnite.
Where does Ludwig get his clothes?
Almost all of my clothes are either gifts
or given to me by sponsors,
and that's pretty much everything I wear.
I'm not very fashionable.
I tried my best today.
I'm wearing my "Princess Mononoke" jacket,
which my girlfriend got me from.
One of the best movies of all time.
But yeah, outside of that,
I'm not a good guy to get clothing tips from.
I usually wear Crocs.
Last one.
Just Ludwig. Just Ludwig.
Is Ludwig vegan?
I went vegan for six weeks in college,
'cause a girl I liked was vegan,
and then somebody brought Raising Cane's to my house
and put it in my fridge,
and I don't believe in letting leftovers go to waste,
so I broke that pretty quick.
I also don't think I was the best vegan.
I just ate peanut butter and jelly every day,
but counts, technically.
Can Ludwig sing?
I do have a Christmas album.
People do say it's like the Mariah Carey of the 2020s.
What a singing coach told me
is that I don't have a great singing voice,
but I sing pretty poorly with a lot of confidence.
And so, with a bit of pitch correction it,
ends up sounding really good
'cause half of singing is blind confidence.
Was Ludwig a pro gamer?
Depends who you ask,
but I did make some money playing video games,
which I think makes me at least a somewhat pro gamer.
I semi-pro gamer.
I made about $60 in my career, so not bad.
Ludwig...
This is a long one.
Photographic memory?
No, no, I think I have bad memory.
No, bad memory, but I'm flattered
that you thought I had photographic memory.
I think it's 'cause I played one chess game blindfolded
and I did okay, but that's all I did.
I did okay.
I did not do that well.
Ludwig Ahgren dance.
The Luddy?
It is taking over the internet.
Do I have to do it?
All right. Here?
Big smiles.
Imagine you were on "Toddlers & Tiaras"
And then
just gotta double pump the feet.
Hand goes.
I thought it was dumb.
I've been doing it for three years,
but now all of a sudden people are doing it,
so I'll take it.
Try the Luddy at home or not. I don't know.
[chair thumping]
Here's the thing. [upbeat music]
I think most people, celebrities,
and I'm a very minor celebrity, are just people,
and they have pretty boring lives and pretty boring answers.
But hopefully they satiated your curiosity.
And that's all I want to do.