Sun Xiaochuan

Sun Xiaochuan (, born 1990) is a Chinese Douyu and Twitch streamer. He gained popularity in 2015 for his aggressive and funny interactions with his viewers. On 13 January 2018, after playing a music track with lyrics intentionally edited by his subscribers to imply Falun Gong, which is illegal according to Law of the People's Republic of China, his channel on Douyu has been permanently shut down, further leading himself to be banned from various Chinese video streaming platforms. Sun continued to stream on Twitch, but ceased all streaming-related activities on 9 February 2018.

In 2019, Sun resumed his career by uploading videos on Bilibili, and the number of his subscribers reached 1 million one year after he started.

Early life and education Sun Xiaochuan was born on 12 May 1990, in Xinjin, Chengdu, Sichuan, China. He lived in a single-parent family with his mother, who worked as a local draper. Sun viewed himself as an introvert and "bad student" in school. After graduating from university, he worked as a safety supervisor in various construction areas, but eventually quit in September 2015, when he claimed that "the work is boring and I have had enough." In the same month, Sun started streaming on Douyu, with the majority of generated contents being about League of Legends.

Douyu and Twitch Channel

Timeline

Gaining popularity (2015–2018) On 1 September 2015, Sun set up his Douyu channel and start working as a video game streamer full-time. He is marked for his aggressive verbal conflicts and humorous interactions with both his in-game teammates and stream viewers while playing League of Legends. Some of his words derived a number of Internet memes, such as "NMSL" (initialism of the profanity "", , lit. "your mother is dead").

Being banned from Chinese streaming websites (January 2018) On 13 January 2018, Sun played a song from one of subscribers on his Douyu channel. The lyrics of the song were intentionally changed from the original one, in which the first letter of each line are replaced and can be read as "everybody comes and practice Falun Gong" when aligned together. Sun was unaware of the hidden message, and appreciated the production of the song after playing the whole track. His subscribers then submitted numerous reports on his content for delivering unpermitted "cult" contents against Law of the People's Republic of China, and Douyu permanently shut down his channel after receiving the reports. This event furtherly rendered him being banned from other Chinese video streaming platforms.

Reception On 27 August 2018, Guangming Daily commented on Sun's activities, stating that Sun did not "manage" his fanbase properly and the memes he created are "a sort of cyberbullying". Sun reacted to the comment immediately, claiming he is always against personal attacks and viewing being legal as a top priority.

The term "NMSL", which was popularized by Sun, became known outside China since the Internet flaming between Thai and Chinese netizens in 2020, and there are also term such as "NMSLese" derived from this slang.