SSSniperWolf

Alia "Lia" Shelesh (born ), better known as SSSniperWolf, is a British-American YouTuber. She started uploading YouTube videos in 2011 and launched the "SSSniperWolf" YouTube channel in 2013. Initially uploading ''Call of Duty'' Let's Play videos, she shifted to reaction videos in 2017; in that year, her channel had over 5 million subscribers. According to ''British Vogue'' in 2020, she is one of the most recognizable social media personalities associated with online video games.

In 2023, after receiving criticism for " freebooting" TikTok videos in her reaction content, she was involved in an internet scandal when she doxxed a critic, YouTuber jacksfilms, by livestreaming the front of his home, resulting in temporary demonetization.

Life and career

Early

Alia Shelesh was born on October 22, 1992, in Liverpool, England. Her family moved to the United States when she was six, at which age she started playing video games.

Shelesh started uploading videos to her YouTube channel "sexysexysniper", consisting of Let's Plays of games such as ''Call of Duty''. This channel was active in 2011 and 2012. She moved to the SSSniperWolf channel in 2013, on which her first video was a compilation of fails in '' Call of Duty: Black Ops II''. She derived her handle from Sniper Wolf, a character from the ''Metal Gear'' video game series.

Shift to reaction videos

In 2016, she featured on ''Day of Doom'', an event that was hosted by id Software. In 2017, she hosted the show ''Clickbait'' in which social media influencers competed in unusual challenges. The show aired on the subscription service Fullscreen. She also made an appearance on ''FANtasies'', an anthology series.

In early 2017, the genre of her content changed from entirely gaming-oriented to primarily reaction videos. That year, her channel grew to over five million subscribers, and she was among the ten entrants in Forbes' "Top Influencers" list in the "Gaming" category for 2017. In 2018, she appeared on an episode of ''Fear Factor'' and on an episode of '' Ultimate Expedition''. In 2019, she was nominated in the 2019 Teen Choice Awards in the category "Choice Gamer" and won the "Favorite Esports Star" award in the 2019 Kids' Choice Sports. In 2019 and 2020, she won the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards in the category "favorite gamer".

In 2021, YouTube ranked Shelesh third on its "US Top Creators" list. In the same year, she won the Gaming Influencer of the Year Award at the American Influencer Awards.

In 2021, Chinese video game publisher HoYoverse, paid Shelesh $100,000 for reaction videos promoting the gacha video game ''Genshin Impact''; the videos, according to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), "depict a fake loot box prize win, in a way that would have been impossible in the Genshin Impact game". The FTC alleged that these videos were one of the instances of HoYoverse's deceptive microtransaction practices targeting children, and the company settled the FTC case against it by paying a $20 million settlement fine to the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 2025.

Legal dispute with Evan Young

On August 1, 2023, it was reported that Shelesh was one of the highest-paid YouTubers with a net worth of US$16 million. On August 17, 2023, Evan Young filed a lawsuit against Shelesh for breach of contract and financial misdoings in relation to content produced by Channel Red, their joint company. He accused her of not paying him for work he did for Channel Red. Young also claimed he curated and scripted her content for years. Shelesh filed a motion to dismiss on October 5, 2023, claiming the accusations were "vindictive". In the dismissal, attorneys claimed that not long after filing for divorce, Young was locked out by Shelesh of several YouTube channels they managed together, including the main SSSniperWolf channel and SexySexySniper, as well as building new channels using the brand built by Young and Shelesh with third party entities. As of October 15, 2024 a Motion of Continuation has been filed and the case has been updated, and is currently awaiting a settlement agreement.

Conflict with jacksfilms

YouTuber Jack Douglass, known as jacksfilms, accused Shelesh of profiting from other creators' work through monetizing her reaction videos, while frequently not providing proper credit, and characterized her content as rudimentary and not transformative enough for fair use. In 2022, he began using the "JJJacksfilms" account to parody Shelesh's videos. In response, she made several social media posts accusing him of sexism and plagiarism.

On October 13, 2023, Shelesh, while filming near Douglass's house, asked her followers if she should pay him a visit, stating that he lives near Shelesh's studio. She showed his house in an Instagram story captioned "let's talk like adults", which was quickly removed, but her followers shared screenshots. Douglass responded by accusing Shelesh of doxing him, called her actions "creepy, gross, violating", and asked YouTube to demonetize her. Douglass's wife expressed safety concerns, and the pair contemplated moving. Shelesh said that she had found the Douglasses' address on Google, that she "had no idea how to dox", that Douglass was "creating drama to pay (the pair's) bills", and that he was a "creep". Shelesh discussed seeking a restraining order against Douglass, whom she called "obsessed" over the matter.

On October 18, YouTube's Twitter account posted "would it be too meta to do a reaction video to a reaction video", which multiple users interpreted as an offhand comment on the situation, causing a backlash. By October 19, a Change.org petition to remove SSSniperWolf from YouTube gathered 13,000 signatures. The next day, YouTube temporarily demonetized her channel, while expressing disapproval of "both sides'" behavior. Multiple YouTubers saw the latter as unfair. Shelesh subsequently apologized to Douglass in a tweet, saying that her actions were "inexcusable" and that she respects YouTube's decision. She continued to upload videos on her "SSSniperWolf Top Videos" channel, but it was later also demonetized.

Personal life

In 2019, Shelesh and Evan Young, her partner at the time, bought a house in Henderson, Nevada for $2.9 million, through an entity named Red Channel Living Trust, which they sold for $4 million in 2022, after which they bought 2.25 acres of vacant land on Mummy Mountain, Arizona for a little under $7 million. In September 2023, they were reported to be legally married, though they had separated in September 2022 and filed for divorce in late 2022.

Reception

In a review of her main channel, Kennedy Unthank from ''Plugged In'' commended her for seeking to "make people laugh through daily uploads" and the quantity of available videos. However, Unthank voiced concern that she "may be profiting from someone else’s work" with her reaction videos through YouTube's monetization system. According to Unthank, while some of her reactions provide additional insight or have a transformative nature, many of her videos did not offer anything substantial over the original clip that was being reacted to.

Linguist John McWhorter of the ''New York Times'' commented on her use of Black English words and idioms, using her language as an example of "effortless infusion of Black English expressions".

References

Works cited

Video sources

External links

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{{Portal bar, Biography, Internet, Video games

1992 births
Commentary YouTubers
English emigrants to the United States
English gaming YouTubers
Fullscreen (company) people
Living people
Mass media people from Liverpool
People from Henderson, Nevada
YouTube channels launched in 2011
YouTube channels launched in 2013
YouTubers from Merseyside
YouTubers from Nevada