EwOk, the World's Most Famous Deaf Professional Gamer

Emilio Ferreiro
September 12, 2019
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We saw in Unusualverse that the video game has been one of the last conquests of Sign Language. Now, from the industry's point of view, Deaf people are also rampaging as professional gamers and streamers. This is EwOk, a Deaf gamer and online streamer with so much talent that people want to learn Sign Language to communicate with her.

Professional deaf Fornite player, EwOk with a World Cup t-shirt

Her Talent Led Her to Success and Fame

EwOk could be a teenager playing video games. However, she has a great talent for video games and is a specialist in the famous electronic game Fornite. His fame began in March 2019 when it was sponsored by other famous gamers such as TimTheTatman and Mizkif. They both admired her performance in Fornite despite being Deaf and so young. At the age of 13, she already had hundreds of victories in the game and thousands of eliminations.

EwOk quickly received hundreds of new subscribers and by May 2019 had reached 100,000 Twitch subscriptions (Twitch is the world's leading platform for streaming live video games). Soon, in June 2019, she was invited to the Block Party, the tournament held at E3, by Epic Games (E3 is the world's largest video game convention and Epic Games is a famous video game development multinational). The media became increasingly interested in her.
It's clear that you have to follow this player very closely because she has an enormous quality and she's going to give a lot to talk about (eSports)
Since the end of July 2019, she is the first female Faze Clan player and also Deaf (Faze Clan is a longstanding organization of professional videogame players in the United States who participate in competitions). EwOk is the second youngest player in the club and her presentation on social media had an enormously positive reaction. For example, in Twitter she got more than 55k likes and 9,5k retweets. This is a video of her presentation:


EwOk's real name is Soleil Wheeler, she is 13 years old and his father is a teacher of American Sign Language in a secondary school.

One of the effects of their success is that videogame players all over the world now want to learn Sign Language. During tournaments, they are interested in her and Sign Language and, EwOk answers questions from his followers to teach them signs.

How does She Play Without Sound?

In a videogame like Fornite, the sound is a very important feature that provides clues, for example, about the approach of an opponent in the game or to know where an attack comes from. To do this, EwOk uses a video game accessibility feature called "sound visualization," which activates a visual indicator on the screen reporting how many enemies are nearby, the location of the enemy before they appear on the screen, and the direction the shots are coming from.

This feature can also be used by anyone who is not deaf but will have to do without some sounds and get used to a battle mode in-game very visual because when there are several enemies, the screen is full of icons

Sound visualization in fornite: white arc for footsteps of enemies and reddish for shots
Sound visualization in Fornite: the slightly white arc shows the footsteps of enemies and the reddish arc shows the origin of a shot.

Professional and star of social networks

EwOk is now a professional player, which means that she can earn money in her tournaments and in other ways, such as possible sponsorships, advertising on her social media or subscriptions to live streaming game channels such as Twitch. However, she is also supportive: she once donated $20,000 to youth programs within the National Association of the Deaf (NAD).

EwOk currently has more than 270k followers on Twitch, but you can also follow it on other social networks:
  • Twitch:
  • Twitter:
  • YouTube:
  • Instagram:
Depending on the time, you may be able to watch her live on her Twitch channel: www.twitch.tv/ewokttv


EwOk is inspiring and a role model

The specialized media say that she is a role model, emphasizing her positive attitude and contagious joy. EwOk is an inspiration not only for women, who are under-represented in electronic games despite their talent, but for any gamer who aspires to become a professional.

EwOk has been very grateful several times in the media: for her support in Twitch, her admission to the Faze Clan club and even the game she enjoys or the developer of the video game Fornite.

Bravo for her. EwOk is talent and attitude.

[Update 11/22/2020: EwOk has recently declared that it is transgendered]


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Emilio Ferreiro

Emilio Ferreiro

E-learning specialist by profession, dreamer by vocation | PhD student in Health Sciences | Independent blogger | Deaf activist

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