Nick Mercs responded to the ongoing backlash against his sponsor Artesian Builds after the company allegedly refused to honor a PC giveaway won by a small streamer named Kiapiaa and belittled her on stream. Despite calling out Artesian Builds, however, Mercs appeared to hedge against the idea that there should be any real consequences for the company in follow-up comments he made about the dangers of cancel culture.

"I don't like it": Nick Mercs calls out Artesian Builds

Nick Mercs addressed the controversy surrounding Artesian builds on his stream Tuesday.

"I saw the stuff on Twitter today, for sure, we are partnered with Artesian Builds, you know that," Mercs said on stream. "What the homie said on that stream, and the way he did it was very weird, very very odd, and very weird. I don't think anyone is going to watch that and think anything good of it. You know? I don't like it. Very simply put, I don't like it. Nor do I want to support that."

Right after saying he doesn't want to support it, however, Nick Mercs continued onto a tangent about how he dislikes "cancel culture", appearing to argue that even if what Artesian Builds did was wrong, people shouldn't call for them or the people they sponsor to face consequences. He concluded his comments saying: "be careful with the way [they] handle this stuff" before moving on to another topic. 

He also made no commitments to adjust his sponsorship with the company in the clip, even if he doesn't support how they handled the giveaway. 

The internet outraged at Artesian Builds over PC giveaway controversy

In the video being discussed by Mercs, the CEO of Artesian Builds Noah Katz can be heard making comments that the streamer Kiapiaa claimed were "belittling" her, including making fun of her for having less than 5000 followers on social media. This is in addition to allegedly refusing to honor their original contest rules and give Kia the PC. 

"If you haven't heard @ArtesianBuilds do not care about their small streamer ambassadors," Kia said on Twitter. "They have monthly PC giveaways for their ambassadors, great, right? Except they don't care for small streamers. I got chosen and they changed their rules last minute I won the PC Fair and square. The rules say that you need the Artesian panel in your twitch About, and I do have it. So what's the issue @AretsianBuilds?"

The reason for them allegedly refusing to honor the giveaway, according to the CEO on stream, was that "this person has three months of ambassadorship and not a single click", thus claiming she isn't a proper ambassador, despite her claiming she followed all the official contest rules.

In response to the backlash against his comments, Artesian Builds posted a series of Tweets, apologizing for "the way we did parts of the giveaway today" but not appearing to promise to send Kia her PC.

The company stated: "Hey Twittersphere, I’m really sorry for the way we did parts of the giveaway today. We’ve given a lot of people a lot of awesome free tech and that’s not going to stop. If you want to talk, I’m here- that’s kind of the point of being live so much."

Many followers called out this apology for not addressing the actual criticism, with Jake Lucky calling it a "lack luster response" and numerous people calling on them to give Kia the PC she was allegedly promised.

Artesian Builds sponsors Nick Mercs, and has worked with major names like Mr Beast in the past as well. They run an ambassador program, which offers streamers a percentage of the sales that come through their links or affiliate codes, which is the program being discussed in the latest controversy.