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.
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.