Remember that video games are now the largest media industry in the world. Remember that gamergate happened almost 10 years ago now, and that Valorant is only 3 years old.
The kids playing and watching Valorant probably don’t even know enough about the controversy to make the connection. They just know an asshole when they see one.
Honestly I don’t even think capital-G Gamers play games anymore. It’s an aging demographic that is too bitter and stupid to keep up.
There are 100% capital G-Gamers in basically every fandom.
Hell, xqc is the biggest streamer on the planet and outright got kicked out of overwatch for being a bigoted piece of shit, is building an army of incels because of how much he hates his ex-wife, and outright used knowledge of sexual assault as a threat to prevent people from speaking out against his gamblign streams. And before him we had ninja and pewdiepie who had sexism and racism on lock. And on a MUCH lower tier you have people like destiny and hasan who can’t stop using racial slurs “for the right reasons”.
Hell, I LIKE Toast but I definitely get the vibes that he is one misunderstanding away from deciding it is no longer a joke and he has to go full “Fucking cancel culture” as a response. Which is basically how so much of “thedonald” and 4chan were populated. Everyone was joking. Ha ha ha, they aren’t really anti-semitic but isn’t it funny to talk about how all the Jews should be executed? Oh, they aren’t racist, they are just spamming monkey emotes every time a black person is on screen. ha ha ha. This is also probably the basis of musk’s current insanity. He was “just shit posting” until people turned on him and he remembered the good old days of having an emerald mine run by borderline slave labor.
Also… kick and rumble exist. And even a lot of the “good” influencers are doing everything they can to downplay how evil those places are (Ludwig had a really okay take on his Mogul Mail where he “jokingly” pulled up a few clips that even he wouldn’t repeat as a way to say “hey, I am not picking this fight, but holy fucking shit”).
Gamergate was ten years ago (probably, can’t be bothered to verify). We still see the exact same talking points regarding how games media is lying to you and we still see the same attacks on women and other “Other” influencers.
Just because they don’t realize they are fighting in an army that was endorsed by Total Biscuit (or even know who Bain was) doesn’t mean they aren’t still “fighting the good fight”. Just like how most alt-right jackasses have no idea they are literally being manipulated by what was documented in klan and neo-nazi “recruitment books” decades ago.
Hell, The Last Of Us 2 having the AUDACITY to… have a muscular woman
spoiler
go to fucking town on the asshole who murdered her family and her entire community
somehow managed to condense a year or two worth of gamergate doxxing and hate over the span of a few months. And we saw the other side of “don’t you dare say I am doing anything wrong” with terf-wizards last year (?).
The hate and bigory is still there. And it is still being manipulated and nurtured by the same groups who have been radicalizing kids for literally decades. Like, I literally watched one of my old clan mates from Unreal Tournament “get really shitty” because he was 'hanging out with the wrong people" on the old BU forums. And I only realized later that one of the most prominent users there was straight up following, almost word for word, the recruitment guidelines in some former neo-nazi cultist’s autobiography that I grabbed from the library (maybe after American History X? Been a minute).
It is just that we have more voices out there who will shout them down. And being called a “social justice warrior” is no longer the greatest of all insults. But that doesn’t mean you don’t still get critical mass of chuds and I could easily see this going the other way if it were a League event. Or, honestly, if it was an FGC event where the more prominent “activist” players weren’t in attendance to remind people that trans rights are human rights.
This boils down to “bad people are everywhere” which is universally true, to the point that it’s barely worth mentioning. You will find shitty takes and hateful people everywhere if you go out looking for it.
The question is whether the bad people are running the show, or if the bad is endemic to the culture. I don’t think you can say that of every fandom, or of gaming enthusiasts in general in 2023. And specifically I don’t think it’s fair to compare to the Valorant fanbase to something like the 2004 Smash Bros Melee fanbase.
There’s still progress to be made and bad eggs to be found in every basket, but I think there’s been enough mainstream attention and a hot enough crucible of scrutiny that we are for the most part beyond the era of “this tournament brought to you by actual rapists and chomos, don’t forget to bring your racist slurs, misogyny, and homophobic taunts to the stage for everyone to enjoy”
Tyler1 is still worshipped among many crowds and his schtick is to be ridiculously toxic and encourage mobs to attack people he doesn’t like.
People are STILL obsessed with Herschel “Dr Disrespect” Beahm even after he literally recorded a little boy in a public bathroom.
kaicenat is one of the biggest streamers on the planet (basically second only to xqc at this point?) and literally helped one of his friends violently rape at least one woman. He also started a riot a few weeks back?
And all the kick fuckers range from open bigotry to calling for genocide to thinking rape threats are just how you say hello.
The infection still runs rampant. Again, there is better work out there to tell people to shut the fuck up and stop being assholes. But when it “really matters”, everyone decides it is more important to play the terf wizard game than to even acknowledge the problematic creator. And those hateful bigots are still getting their center stage moments and the vast majority of influencers (and by association their communities) aren’t speaking out because it is a good way to get blacklisted (all racist connotations intentional)
Hell, the keighleys (and Sony?) platformed the ever living hell out of David Cage who has a long history of REALLY fucked up shit including, but not limited to, showing an actress a binder full of pictures he had stalkingly collected of her and ordering his team to model her “anatomically correct” for no reason other than the obvious.
And all this “#NotAllGamers” bullshit you seem fixated on does is let people pretend it isn’t their problem.
Again, there are countless situations where musk would have been cheered. It is just kind of interesting that enough of the bigger names in Valorant ain’t for that shit… even as they continue to use twitter anyway.
Nah, they are an avid gamer, too. A German themselves, in your analogy.
This is just what Twitter poisoning looks like. Full visibility and obsession of the negative, completely blind to growth, improvement, and positivity.
Some of the top eSports representatives in the world today include people like SonicFox, a gay black furry, and Scarlett, a trans woman. Still operating at the peak of their arenas and with huge fanbases of their own. And that’s only two examples; the FGC in particular has recently seen an almost comical amount of LGBT+ folks getting comfortable enough to finally reveal themselves. But instead of celebrating that, or even just celebrating any incident in which Musk gets booed, we’re still talking about that one time a journalist was slut-shamed a decade ago.
There are no capital-G Gamers following Valorant.
Remember that video games are now the largest media industry in the world. Remember that gamergate happened almost 10 years ago now, and that Valorant is only 3 years old.
The kids playing and watching Valorant probably don’t even know enough about the controversy to make the connection. They just know an asshole when they see one.
Honestly I don’t even think capital-G Gamers play games anymore. It’s an aging demographic that is too bitter and stupid to keep up.
There are 100% capital G-Gamers in basically every fandom.
Hell, xqc is the biggest streamer on the planet and outright got kicked out of overwatch for being a bigoted piece of shit, is building an army of incels because of how much he hates his ex-wife, and outright used knowledge of sexual assault as a threat to prevent people from speaking out against his gamblign streams. And before him we had ninja and pewdiepie who had sexism and racism on lock. And on a MUCH lower tier you have people like destiny and hasan who can’t stop using racial slurs “for the right reasons”.
Hell, I LIKE Toast but I definitely get the vibes that he is one misunderstanding away from deciding it is no longer a joke and he has to go full “Fucking cancel culture” as a response. Which is basically how so much of “thedonald” and 4chan were populated. Everyone was joking. Ha ha ha, they aren’t really anti-semitic but isn’t it funny to talk about how all the Jews should be executed? Oh, they aren’t racist, they are just spamming monkey emotes every time a black person is on screen. ha ha ha. This is also probably the basis of musk’s current insanity. He was “just shit posting” until people turned on him and he remembered the good old days of having an emerald mine run by borderline slave labor.
Also… kick and rumble exist. And even a lot of the “good” influencers are doing everything they can to downplay how evil those places are (Ludwig had a really okay take on his Mogul Mail where he “jokingly” pulled up a few clips that even he wouldn’t repeat as a way to say “hey, I am not picking this fight, but holy fucking shit”).
Gamergate was ten years ago (probably, can’t be bothered to verify). We still see the exact same talking points regarding how games media is lying to you and we still see the same attacks on women and other “Other” influencers.
Just because they don’t realize they are fighting in an army that was endorsed by Total Biscuit (or even know who Bain was) doesn’t mean they aren’t still “fighting the good fight”. Just like how most alt-right jackasses have no idea they are literally being manipulated by what was documented in klan and neo-nazi “recruitment books” decades ago.
Hell, The Last Of Us 2 having the AUDACITY to… have a muscular woman
spoiler
go to fucking town on the asshole who murdered her family and her entire community
somehow managed to condense a year or two worth of gamergate doxxing and hate over the span of a few months. And we saw the other side of “don’t you dare say I am doing anything wrong” with terf-wizards last year (?).
The hate and bigory is still there. And it is still being manipulated and nurtured by the same groups who have been radicalizing kids for literally decades. Like, I literally watched one of my old clan mates from Unreal Tournament “get really shitty” because he was 'hanging out with the wrong people" on the old BU forums. And I only realized later that one of the most prominent users there was straight up following, almost word for word, the recruitment guidelines in some former neo-nazi cultist’s autobiography that I grabbed from the library (maybe after American History X? Been a minute).
It is just that we have more voices out there who will shout them down. And being called a “social justice warrior” is no longer the greatest of all insults. But that doesn’t mean you don’t still get critical mass of chuds and I could easily see this going the other way if it were a League event. Or, honestly, if it was an FGC event where the more prominent “activist” players weren’t in attendance to remind people that trans rights are human rights.
This boils down to “bad people are everywhere” which is universally true, to the point that it’s barely worth mentioning. You will find shitty takes and hateful people everywhere if you go out looking for it.
The question is whether the bad people are running the show, or if the bad is endemic to the culture. I don’t think you can say that of every fandom, or of gaming enthusiasts in general in 2023. And specifically I don’t think it’s fair to compare to the Valorant fanbase to something like the 2004 Smash Bros Melee fanbase.
There’s still progress to be made and bad eggs to be found in every basket, but I think there’s been enough mainstream attention and a hot enough crucible of scrutiny that we are for the most part beyond the era of “this tournament brought to you by actual rapists and chomos, don’t forget to bring your racist slurs, misogyny, and homophobic taunts to the stage for everyone to enjoy”
Tyler1 is still worshipped among many crowds and his schtick is to be ridiculously toxic and encourage mobs to attack people he doesn’t like.
People are STILL obsessed with Herschel “Dr Disrespect” Beahm even after he literally recorded a little boy in a public bathroom.
kaicenat is one of the biggest streamers on the planet (basically second only to xqc at this point?) and literally helped one of his friends violently rape at least one woman. He also started a riot a few weeks back?
And all the kick fuckers range from open bigotry to calling for genocide to thinking rape threats are just how you say hello.
The infection still runs rampant. Again, there is better work out there to tell people to shut the fuck up and stop being assholes. But when it “really matters”, everyone decides it is more important to play the terf wizard game than to even acknowledge the problematic creator. And those hateful bigots are still getting their center stage moments and the vast majority of influencers (and by association their communities) aren’t speaking out because it is a good way to get blacklisted (all racist connotations intentional)
Hell, the keighleys (and Sony?) platformed the ever living hell out of David Cage who has a long history of REALLY fucked up shit including, but not limited to, showing an actress a binder full of pictures he had stalkingly collected of her and ordering his team to model her “anatomically correct” for no reason other than the obvious.
And all this “#NotAllGamers” bullshit you seem fixated on does is let people pretend it isn’t their problem.
Again, there are countless situations where musk would have been cheered. It is just kind of interesting that enough of the bigger names in Valorant ain’t for that shit… even as they continue to use twitter anyway.
Lots of “this not all Germans are Nazis bullshit” vibe you got going suggests you may need to look in the mirror a bit more before posting your rants.
Nah, they are an avid gamer, too. A German themselves, in your analogy.
This is just what Twitter poisoning looks like. Full visibility and obsession of the negative, completely blind to growth, improvement, and positivity.
Some of the top eSports representatives in the world today include people like SonicFox, a gay black furry, and Scarlett, a trans woman. Still operating at the peak of their arenas and with huge fanbases of their own. And that’s only two examples; the FGC in particular has recently seen an almost comical amount of LGBT+ folks getting comfortable enough to finally reveal themselves. But instead of celebrating that, or even just celebrating any incident in which Musk gets booed, we’re still talking about that one time a journalist was slut-shamed a decade ago.
Precisely the point I was trying to make. Thank you for making it better.