Destiny (Person)

Bonnell, in 2020, during a debate with Vaush.

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Steven Kenneth Bonnell II (1988–), better known by his online nickname Destiny, is an American Twitch streamer and YouTuber. Though primarily a gaming channel, his YouTube channel has become better known for his centrist and neoliberal political content, initially debunking and criticizing Youtube conservatives and reactionaries, but then quickly began denouncing socialists and left-wing content creators in general. His moment of glory came in 2017 when he exposed JonTron’s white nationalist sympathies in a online debate, but since then has made a habit of occasionally engaging in apologetics for far-right personalities.

General positions[edit]

Below are a few examples of Destiny's centrist and neoliberal views:

• Throughout his debates, he consistently summarizes his philosophy as "rules-based utilitarianism".^[1]
• He supports neoliberal, capitalist,^[2] and free trade policies.
• Bonnell believes that voter ID laws are inherently racist.^[3]
• He used to hold a generally favorable view of Black Lives Matter,^[4] but later switched his position during the George Floyd protests, and claimed that police brutality can sometimes be justified, and has outright actively incited violent crackdowns and massacres against Black Lives Matter activists.^[5][6][7]
• Destiny’s YouTube content was initially pro-trans, especially since he strongly argued against Ben Shapiro’s conflation of sex and gender.^[8] However, he has repeatedly defended TERF activists such as Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling against accusations of transphobia, and argued that Rowling's comments are likely caused by ignorance instead of genuine hatred.^[9]
• He used to frequently use ableist slurs in his videos,^[10] but has since claimed he is trying to phase these words out of his vocabulary because he does not like the idea of using a group of people to mean something “bad”, comparing it to using derogatory terms for non-heterosexual people.^[11]
• He supports the European Union and its federalization into a superstate as part of globalization.^[12]
• He does not believe in the existence of natural human rights, and he instead claims that the only rights that exist are the ones that a government will grant and protect.^[13]
• He has a generally hostile and conservative view regarding increasing the national minimum wage to US$15 and beyond, claiming that rapidly increasing it would invariably hurt small businesses who may not be equipped to pay such a high amount. He has argued that tying minimum wage to inflation would be positive, however.^[14]
• He has a favorable view of a 2-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and stated that in his mind the Palestinians should negotiate lasting peace instead of choosing violence, that Israel must make concessions and pursue peace instead of fighting to maintain an untenable status-quo that is only benefiting its side, and that he has a negative view of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank.^[15][16]

Debates and other shenanigans[edit]

The good[edit]

Destiny has debated many alt-right personalities and their useful idiots, including JonTron,^[17] Lauren Southern,^[18] Nick Fuentes,^[19][20] and Sargon of Akkad.^[21][22][1] Former alt-right sympathizers, most notably Caleb Cain (Faraday Speaks, currently a leftist YouTube content creator), credit Destiny and ContraPoints, among others, for their de-radicalization and shift away from conservative extremism.^[23][24] However, in an attempt to balance out debating far-rightists and far-leftists, he has also debated some Breadtubers/LeftTubers, including Ben Burgis,^[25] Mike from PA,^[26] NonCompete,^[27] and his former friend^[28] Vaush. Finally, he has debated Marxist/"patriotic socialist" Caleb Maupin^[29] and Peter Coffin,^[30].

Destiny is a formal proponent of social justice, primarily focusing on the rights of minority groups, including trans people.^[31]

The not-so-good[edit]

In November and December of 2020, Destiny led a canvassing operation to help Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff win their important Senate races in Georgia,^[32] but upon arrival, he realized that he did not have any reliable voter data and campaign infrastructure, and was left completely unprepared for the event. When asked to pay for staff time and management with an organization that could help, he stubbornly refused any assistance.^[33] After the Democrats swept both Senate seats in Georgia, he decided to canvass for Mark Gudgel, a Democratic Party candidate for the Mayor of Omaha, Nebraska, which is Destiny's hometown. However, Destiny's past quickly damaged his legitimacy, and Gudgel promptly rejected Destiny's support due to his controversial past comments and actions, especially his incitement of violence against Black Lives Matter protesters and activists.^[34]

The bad[edit]

NonCompete: If they're hungry, why not just give them food? Why not just-

Destiny: Because this fantasy world where we can have maximum production to get everybody houses, food, clothing, it doesn't exist. It's not possible.

NonCompete: Six times more empty houses in the United States than there are homeless people. We throw away-

Destiny: Wait, how do those two numbers connect at all? What does that have to do with anything at all?

NonCompete: Why should anybody be homeless when we have empty house-

Destiny: I don't know what an empty house has to do with a homeless person. Are you going to steal those houses from people who own them, or what?

NonCompete: Yes, why not?

Destiny: Okay, I mean I'm not… it's strange that as an anarcho-communist, you're telling me that the state needs to seize property from other people. I don't understand! [laughs for 5 seconds]^[35]

Expectably for someone who spends so much of their time criticizing notable right-wingers and anti-SJWs, Destiny has garnered a sizable leftist fanbase, but in spite of that fact, he openly hates the leftist portion of his fanbase for not fully agreeing with his neoliberal politics, and even went as far as to say:

What God do I have to pray to to get rid of my lefty following? I'd almost rather have fashies at this point, ugh.^[36]

Oh sorry also by "lefty" I meant commies and shit, not just people who are progressive/lean left.^[37]

In December 2020, he had a acrimonious barfight with @RespectableLaw on Twitter, taking a section of an LSAT practice test to prove that it was extremely easy to become a lawyer, and he even changed his Twitter profile picture and description to claim that he earned an implausibly high score of 184 on the test despite the highest possible score being 180, although this was likely done as a joke.^[38] He was subsequently suspended from Twitter for evading his permanent ban on the website.^[39] In addition, Destiny repeatedly claimed that the CIA had nothing to do with Pinochet's coup against Salvador Allende in Chile,^[40] despite the CIA itself explicitly admitting its main role in triggering the coup and sabotaging Chile's economy.^[41] In April 2021, Destiny engaged in a live online debate with Marxist economist and professor Richard D. Wolff.^[42]

The ugly[edit]

Destiny has an unfathomably long record of everything ranging from bad takes to bad jokes, to borderline inexcusable behavior. It would be near impossible to make a complete list of everything ugly he's ever done. Here are just a few of his most-well known worst moments.

In September 2020, Destiny's long-standing partnership with Twitch.tv was terminated for inciting violence and illegal conduct after defending the far-right Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse and he openly called for Black Lives Matter protesters to be shot to death by far-right militias:^[43]

The rioting needs to fucking stop. If that means white redneck militia dudes mowing down dipshit protesters that think they can torch buildings at 10 PM, at this point they have my fucking blessing. Holy shit, this shit needs to stop. It needed to stop a long time ago.^[44]

Destiny made a particularly embarrassing blunder during a debate with anarcho-communist Emerican 'NonCompete' Johnson, where he trivialized and outright denied the atrocities and war crimes committed by American soldiers in Vietnam in the direct presence of his Vietnamese co-host and current wife, Luna Oi.^[45] (Destiny is in good company, however, as Luna Oi is a Vietnamese nationalist who denies North Vietnamese war crimes committed during the same conflict.)^[46]

A significant controversy in Destiny's career involves his distinction between the public and private use of the N-word. He defended this stance in a lengthy online post that focused on documenting what he described as the bad-faith debate tactics and hypocrisy of his opponents. This post is often mischaracterized by critics as the '10,000-word N-word manifesto,' a title which is factually inaccurate regarding its length (approximately 4,000 words) and its format. ^[47]

In relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in the months before the Israel–Hamas war in 2023 he has made the heinous and ignorant comment while talking to friends saying "honestly, I'm pro-genocide..." while giggling when asked about the conflict.^[48] Later, after talking to his friend that actually had some background knowledge, he demonstrated that he knew nothing about the conflict and took everything back.^[49] After the 7^th of October, while the war was going on, he has stated that "if October 7th would've happened to the settlers, I wouldn't give a fuck, ..., I wouldn't feel bad for any of them".^[50]

Destiny also mocked the death of Corey Comperatore, a man who was killed during the failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump in July 2024.^[51] This led to streaming platform Kick temporarily suspending his account.^[52]

See also[edit]

• Vaush
• HasanAbi

External links[edit]

• His website
• "Destiny and the Liberal Mind Prison", Thought Slime

References[edit]