Who is SimpleFlips?
Eddie Cruz was born on 14 September 1995, in California, USA, and is a YouTube personality as well as a Twitch streamer, best known for his YouTube channel SimpleFlips. He rose to fame playing various platformers, often involving the Super Mario Bros. franchise. He’s also known for his speed run attempts at these types of games.
The Riches of SimpleFlips
As of mid-2020, SimpleFlips’ net worth is estimated to be over $1 million, earned through a successful career online. He has significant advertising revenue from his YouTube channel, thanks to his many subscribers, as well as from donations and advertising revenue while streaming on Twitch.
Early Life and Gaming Beginnings
While SimpleFlips hasn’t disclosed a lot about his past, it is known that video games were a big part of his life. He often makes convoluted stories about his past to his followers to confuse them on what is real or not, but he has mentioned a few things that stand out as truth. He first started gaming through the Nintendo 64 console – launched in the mid-1990s, it competed with both the Sega Saturn and the PlayStation. It is considered by many as one of the greatest consoles of all-time, responsible for helping deliver numerous Nintendo exclusives to a wider audience.
It was during this time that he began to play a lot of the video game “Super Mario Bros.” It is a platform game that was initially released for the NES or Nintendo Entertainment System, and which he had played during his youth, and was very attached to it. The game helped bring about the popularity of Mario and the wider universe in which he lives. It is considered one of the greatest video games of all time, praised for its precise controls and its achievement of helping revive the then over-saturated video game world.
YouTube Career
As years passed, SimpleFlips went mostly under the radar, but continuously gamed as a hobby.
Eventually he discovered the world of speedrunning – speedrunners’ goals in a game are to finish it as fast as possible, taking advantage of techniques, glitches and other possible exploits to ensure that they have the best clear time. Speedrunning has become a niche within the community, that slowly grew to gain a lot of attention for the ingenious ways of completing games and the world records they’ve become known by. Nearly every game has speedrunners testing things out, before they get into completing the game as fast as possible.
One of the earliest games that speedrunners played a lot were platformers, as these games were often designed without constraining time, meaning one can go through a level quickly, provided that they are agile enough to overcome the many obstacles within each level.
As YouTube became more well-known, he began considering a career on the platform, as it was a means to earn income while doing something he loved. So he then created his SimpleFlips channel.
Rise to Fame
SimpleFlips started his channel playing a variety of games, often related to the Mario universe. He recorded some of his speedrun attempts, and began posting them online. He had a small dedicated following at the start, which grew slowly as his achievements became more impactful. Since YouTube wasn’t very ideal for him to begin with, he needed another source of income, and at that time, streaming had become a way for many content creators to earn money regularly.
He began streaming regularly, showcasing some of his attempts and communicating with fans. Eventually, he was able to beat records, including achieving the record for “Super Mario Star Road” in 2016, which bought him a bit of attention within the gaming community. He gained more fame for discovering an exploit in “Last Impact” which boosted his popularity significantly. As he streamed regularly, both his channels on Twitch and YouTube grew, and it wasn’t long before he was earning from his advertising revenue, while also gaining regular donations.
Controversies
While SimpleFlips has not shown any hostility towards others in his videos or streams, he’s known to joke with his followers from time to time.
He isn’t a well-liked person within the speedrunning community, with a lot of hate directed towards him, but no one seems to know the reason why. A lot of people suspect that some of the speedrunners don’t like his nonchalant attitude when it comes to some of his speedrunning efforts, while others don’t like the fact that he jokingly downplays the achievements of others. Other people don’t like his voice and his style, hitting him based on his appearance, his jokes, and his content in general.
Some traced the hate back to his early speedrunning days, when he used the phrase “speedrunners hate him” every time he achieved a complicated maneuver, or discovered something that would save time.
This may have spurred a lot of others who didn’t like him in the first place to speak out against him. He uses the catchphrase mainly as a meme, hearkening back to widespread internet ads about various nutritional products that scientists or trainers supposedly hate. Others state that they dislike him for saying that, as it is an overused meme.
Personal Life
SimpleFlips was in a relationship with former streamer Leah, otherwise known as Loohhoo. She was known for being one of the streamers who moved to the platform Mixer, but she eventually quit streaming to pursue other endeavors.
The two were apparently together for a some time, but they broke up after SimpleFlips moved to a different area. Rumors are spreading that Flips is gay, but it is mainly due to him joking around, leading to some confusion.
A few months after they broke up, he pursued Leah once more, wanting to mend things so that they could get back together. He was successful and while Leah no longer streams, she works as a part of Flips’ team, handling editing and other behind the scenes work. The two announced on social media sometime later that they had become engaged in 2020.