It's client side only, there are at least 3 people in the lobby here. The two players fighting may or may not have mods visual mods installed, we have no way of knowing. The third person in the lobby is just a spectator and we're getting their version of the game streamed, he definitely has the booby mod installed. Since the mod is only changing the way the game looks it doesn't cause issues when playing online, a gameplay affecting mod would cause the game to desync. Although there are some mods that show players the normally invisible hurt boxes and hitboxes that would definitely count as cheating.

Chun Li is legendary levels of thicc for sure.

We get it, you jerk off to cartoons.

nah most of them are using SFM, which runs on a game engine. Meaning game quality models. In fact it's pretty likely anyone making 3D chun li content uses the same model, as a lot of the professionals focus on animation and using models made by others, and a lot of those models are based on game rips.

They don't want ludicrously high quality productions using better models. They want Chun-Li. And under their control.

This isn't my thing, but I mean, you like what you like. It's like asking why anyone reads porn when video is available. They just don't scratch the same itch, and you like what you like.

It's done for reactions, like this one.

There's a video in a tweet in the linked article.