It seems the spread of the Ninja death hoax, or Ligma Meme, has actually managed to claim the life of something in the end. Reddit user CaptainOfAwesome took to the XboxOne subreddit yesterday to reveal that his Xbox gamertag, Ligma, had been reported and changed in the wake of the internet meme’s spread.

The gamertag Ligma, which CaptainOfAwesome had been using for twelve years without complaint, had begun to draw attention after the Ninja death hoax earlier this year, with other Xbox players sending messages regarding “some sort of sickness”. As CaptainOfAwesome goes on to explain the messages continued, “Asking if I was sick. Asking if I got other people sick. References to unmentionable body parts that may or may not also be sick.”

After some time and a lot of messages, CaptainOfAwesome set his profile to private, in the hopes that the attention would die down, however it seemed the damage was done, with his gamertag being changed by Microsoft to “AngryKitten1025”. After appealing to the subreddit, CaptainOfAwesome went on to explain that his wife had gone as far as to make an Xbox gamertag to match his, “MrsLigma”, which was also changed shortly after his Reddit post.

Thankfully there is some good news, with none other than Xbox's Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb posting in the Reddit thread that he would look into the situation, but not making any promises just yet. It seems that that was enough, with CaptainOfAwesome getting his original Ligma gamertag back safe and sound, though at this stage his wife is still missing “MrsLigma”, so there is evidently more work to be done.