About
“Emily Faked Cancer” is a copypasta often repeated in Twitch chats when referring to rumors that Twitch streamer Emily Schröder, better known by her online handle EmilyIsPro, lied about having cancer in order to get donations from fans on the video-streaming site.
Origin
Sometime in 2012, Runescape streamer EmilyIsPro discussed being diagnosed with leukemia in November earlier that year. Within the Runescape community, players began speculating that Schröder had faked having cancer to get donations, leading to the copypasta phrase “Emily faked cancer.” While the original video has not been found, footage of Schröder discussing the incident in 2013 subsequently emerged on YouTube, in which claims she had been “diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia” (shown below).
Spread
On November 10th, 2014, Redditor ClearingTheAir636 submitted a post to /r/2007scape[1] titled “Clearing the Air About Emilyispro,” which claimed to be Schröder’s ex-boyfriend, David, and saying “she never faked anything.” On January 24th, 2016, YouTuber Jmac uploaded a clip from an EmilyIsPro Counter-Strike livestream in which she is removed from the game after attacking a teammate who calls her a “cancer whore” (shown below).
On March 19th, YouTuber Vexxed uploaded a video discussing the controversy, which gathered upwards of 222,000 views and 680 comments over the next two years (shown below). In the video, Vexxed concludes that there is “no evidence” that Schröder faked cancer, and that it is “just a meme.”
On March 29th, YouTuber Vexxed uploaded an edited stream in which Schröder denies that she faked having cancer (shown below, left). Over the next 17 months, the video received over 70,000 views and 600 comments. That day, YouTuber TriHard Cx uploaded footage from Thebaby123’s stream in which he discussed the cancer speculation (shown below, right).