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I opened a nice looking drama thread on TL, and got to see a Destiny screenshot. Cute. But the thread is huge. How did such a thread get so big so fast? I investigate and what do I see, but Destiny defending his word choice. Oh my. What...what is he saying? And he’s sniping at a mod as well? Not the best choice. More bothersome than anything was that it was only two TL mods that were really coming out strongly against Destiny on the argument front. Well, time to test a theory. My theory: people on the internet have no idea how little racial slurs are tolerated in modern America.
I’m not one for writing letters (once to the current president, and once a missive to a TL moderator regarding a moderation decision). It’s typically not a rewarding experience. Mostly I tend to write things and then close the window before I send, bringing some Abe Lincoln into the modern era (his desks were full of unsent letters). But something about the word choice struck me. Gook? What an odd choice of word. The only time I’ve really heard it has been in Vietnam movies (the word originated in the Philippines, but really ‘came of age’ as it were during the Vietnam war).
It was the word choice and the ‘explanation’ that finally made me push the send button to Razer. I’ve heard my dad put out some classics in his time (the one I remember most being his use of ‘nigger 500’ to describe the Dan Ryan Expressway in my hometown, Chicago). Shit always bothered me. Finally we had to have a little intervention, and explain that we couldn’t bring people to the house and couldn’t bring him places if he talked like that.
Perhaps it is this overly paternalistic part of me that made me write, the need to just say ‘no, this is not acceptable in society.’ But I felt it needed to be said. I felt that Destiny, and the voices defending him in that thread ought to hear it from some authority, that this was simply wrong. But who is an authority in Starcraft? Clearly the TL mods were not exactly getting the best of it-not that they weren’t trying, just that there were many in the opposing view.
I accept that maybe it hurts esports a bit, and in a different case I might have acted differently. But Destiny is a player known for his attitude, his strong language choices, and he was chosen by Quantic in what I viewed as a cynical choice to accept his impolitic language and attitudes due to his popularity. Perhaps I misjudged. But I truly believe that writing Razer was the best choice available.
So I wrote Razer. I felt the emotion leave my body. The frustration released, as it so often does when you write something down. I go back to check the TL thread. As expected, Destiny was banned for attacking the moderators.
They send you an auto-message, an acknowledgement of receipt. Later the next day, a brief message “Thanks for taking the time to email Razer regarding this incident. We are aware of Destiny’s actions, and will review this matter and take appropriate action..”
Then today I see he has left Quantic. I presume there were others. I wonder how many. Did I damage esports? I did what I thought was right.
But for the record, it wasn’t about esports.
 
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there's been so much esports hate in blogs recently. what gives.
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On May 04 2012 19:33 Fishgle wrote:
there's been so much esports hate in blogs recently. what gives.
Not hating, just noting that they were unrelated (my writing to Razer and esports). I watch both SC (love me some Sayle) and SC2, so I would say I am a fan of esports. Many Destiny supporters were indicating that esports was behind the petitioning. I just didn't like the word usage or his defense of it or the opinions in the thread. Guess I wasn't clear enough :/
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...fuck you
if people are upset that destiny used those words.. fine. don't watch him and know that if he gets featured again he won't be able to say "bad words" anymore. but you call the company who sponsors our awesome game and want to get them involved? to make a big deal out of a small issue hoping to deter a sponsor from a team that depends on the sponsors support? FFS
you have 50 posts. what have you ever done for the community? yet you somehow feel the need to "defend it", or stand up for teamliquid's principles? all you did was escalate something that shouldn't even be your business.
people like this.. make me lose faith in the human race.
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Thanks for posting a clear and concise reasoning behind why you sent an email to Razer. This is much more useful to me as a person who wants to understand things better as opposed to the mindless hate and bandwagoning going on in the other threads related to this.
For what it's worth, I think you emailed them with the right intentions, regardless of whether it's damaged "esports". Was it the right thing to do? Who knows.
Realistically, is it a good thing for a professional team with sponsors who have a public obligation to be moral be associated with someone who has and is using racist insults, justified behind a veil of entitlement and ignorance? Of course it isn't.
A guy in the UK was jailed recently for racist comments on twitter. The majority of society no longer accepts racism, and agree with it or not, sponsors have an obligation to reflect morals in the decisions they make.
Is a sponsored player making racist remarks bad for the gaming scene? Yes.
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
I don't like the language destiny used, nor do I like his defense of it on TL. That being said, justice was meted out-- he was banned and his stream unfeatured for the duration of that ban.
I feel like when people take justice into their own hands like this... I feel like something bad happens. I feel that we become something baser, something worse. You may be able to tell off your dad and make him shape up, but he's your dad. If you don't like Destiny, don't watch his stream. I don't! I have no problem avoiding his stream.
When people jokingly talk about witch-hunts and pitchforks, I think about what witch-hunts were actually like. I think about the horrors of mob mentality, the justice of the mobs. And I think that you did this to feel better about yourself. Destiny isn't your father. If you don't support him, that's fine, don't support him.
I guess I'm having trouble expressing exactly what I find *wrong* about this sort of thing, but I do truly feel like what you did is bad. Sure, it'll hurt esports and the Sc2 community that Razer might drop quantic or destiny or whatever, but I feel like what you did makes us less like civilized men and more like angry savages. Less like what we ought to be, and more like what our baser instincts make us.
You don't have my hatred or derision. You have my sympathy and pity.
I hope you understand.
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On May 04 2012 19:42 -Exalt- wrote:
...fuck you
if people are upset that destiny used those words.. fine. don't watch him and know that if he getsfeatured again he won't be able to say "bad words" anymore. but you call the company who sponsors our awesome game and want to get them involved? to make a big deal out of a small issue hoping to deter a sponsor from a team that depends on the sponsors support? FFS
you have 50 posts. what have you ever done for the community? yet you somehow feel the need to "defend it", or stand up for teamliquid's principles? all you did was escalate something that shouldn't even be your business.
people like this.. make me lose faith in the human race. Dude, the whole point of this blog is that he didn't do it to defend the esports or TL community in any way. It's possible to have principles that aren't "esports principles" or "TL principles".
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On May 04 2012 19:42 -Exalt- wrote:
...fuck you
if people are upset that destiny used those words.. fine. don't watch him and know that if he getsfeatured again he won't be able to say "bad words" anymore. but you call the company who sponsors our awesome game and want to get them involved? to make a big deal out of a small issue hoping to deter a sponsor from a team that depends on the sponsors support? FFS
you have 50 posts. what have you ever done for the community? yet you somehow feel the need to "defend it", or stand up for teamliquid's principles? all you did was escalate something that shouldn't even be your business.
people like this.. make me lose faith in the human race.
All I've ever done is watch. They are bad words. No quotes. They add nothing positive to anything. In my opinion. Not surprisingly, Razer agrees with me.
What does FFS mean?
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Player uses bad word. Sensitive kids (as mature adults can usually let things like this go without making a big deal out of nothing) online act as couch heroes and write sponsors, which is known to be the abslute worst thing you can do. If you for some reason is so overly offended by his choice of words, mail him or mail quantic about it. DON'T MAIL SPONSORS.
What's even worse is that you did something really dumb (dumb in the sense that it ruins the fun for everyone just so you can feel high on your horse in not accepting bad words form a player of a game), and you write this blog post as if you're proud of it. Ugh.
EDIT: updated it to sound less like a "moron".
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On May 04 2012 19:50 willll wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2012 19:42 -Exalt- wrote:
...fuck you
if people are upset that destiny used those words.. fine. don't watch him and know that if he getsfeatured again he won't be able to say "bad words" anymore. but you call the company who sponsors our awesome game and want to get them involved? to make a big deal out of a small issue hoping to deter a sponsor from a team that depends on the sponsors support? FFS
you have 50 posts. what have you ever done for the community? yet you somehow feel the need to "defend it", or stand up for teamliquid's principles? all you did was escalate something that shouldn't even be your business.
people like this.. make me lose faith in the human race. All I've ever done is watch. They are bad words. No quotes. They add nothing positive to anything. In my opinion. Not surprisingly, Razer agrees with me. What does FFS mean?
FFS typically stands for "for fuck's sake" but it could also mean "furry friendly squirrels"-- though I think in this context he meant the former definition.
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Personally I don't think that writing directly to sponsors is a good idea. It's like when two kids are fighting and one of them runs to its mother and complains. It just shows that the involved parties can't solve their issues on their own. Someone has to call a higher instance to solve the problem for them. In the end it hurts everyone involved. The community is oversensitive, Razer and Quantic get bad reputation and Destiny is a racist.
Also the problem with writing sponsors is that it most likely harms the players that still get sponsored by these companies and who possibly are dependent on that money. If the companies get the impression that ESPORTS causes too much bad reputation since all they get is drama emails they might just pull out of this "business".
I just fail to see how this stuff benefits anyone.
Edit: To clarify a bit after reading the other responses: I don't support Destiny or racism in any way, I just don't think emailing sponsors is a good way of solving problems in this community.
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On May 04 2012 19:48 Blazinghand wrote:
I don't like the language destiny used, nor do I like his defense of it on TL. That being said, justice was meted out-- he was banned and his stream unfeatured for the duration of that ban.
I feel like when people take justice into their own hands like this... I feel like something bad happens. I feel that we become something baser, something worse. You may be able to tell off your dad and make him shape up, but he's your dad. If you don't like Destiny, don't watch his stream. I don't! I have no problem avoiding his stream.
When people jokingly talk about witch-hunts and pitchforks, I think about what witch-hunts were actually like. I think about the horrors of mob mentality, the justice of the mobs. And I think that you did this to feel better about yourself. Destiny isn't your father. If you don't support him, that's fine, don't support him.
I guess I'm having trouble expressing exactly what I find *wrong* about this sort of thing, but I do truly feel like what you did is bad. Sure, it'll hurt esports and the Sc2 community that Razer might drop quantic or destiny or whatever, but I feel like what you did makes us less like civilized men and more like angry savages. Less like what we ought to be, and more like what our baser instincts make us.
You don't have my hatred or derision. You have my sympathy and pity.
I hope you understand.
I understand what you are saying. I thought I should write down my entire mentality (as best I could reconstruct it). No one else was, even though clearly there were other people offended.
We will have to agree to disagree on whether I was wrong. But I respect your telling me I was wrong.
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On May 04 2012 19:49 munchmunch wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2012 19:42 -Exalt- wrote:
...fuck you
if people are upset that destiny used those words.. fine. don't watch him and know that if he getsfeatured again he won't be able to say "bad words" anymore. but you call the company who sponsors our awesome game and want to get them involved? to make a big deal out of a small issue hoping to deter a sponsor from a team that depends on the sponsors support? FFS
you have 50 posts. what have you ever done for the community? yet you somehow feel the need to "defend it", or stand up for teamliquid's principles? all you did was escalate something that shouldn't even be your business.
people like this.. make me lose faith in the human race. Dude, the whole point of this blog is that he didn't do it to defend the esports or TL community in any way. It's possible to have principles that aren't "esports principles" or "TL principles".
LOL it's not about e-sports? in that case, write destiny a letter and kindly tell him how deeply offended you are.
but when you call a major sponsor of an E-Sport (razer).. and make a big deal out of something that we could have moved on from, you hurt everybody. whether you like it or not, this is about "e-sports"..
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On May 04 2012 19:42 -Exalt- wrote:
...fuck you
if people are upset that destiny used those words.. fine. don't watch him and know that if he getsfeatured again he won't be able to say "bad words" anymore. but you call the company who sponsors our awesome game and want to get them involved? to make a big deal out of a small issue hoping to deter a sponsor from a team that depends on the sponsors support? FFS
you have 50 posts. what have you ever done for the community? yet you somehow feel the need to "defend it", or stand up for teamliquid's principles? all you did was escalate something that shouldn't even be your business.
people like this.. make me lose faith in the human race.
...*random swear, indicating I'm smart and know what's up*
if people are upset that destiny used those words...okay. Try and get him to change it, and write to the person with his paycheck. Those people then take a reasonable action, given that one of their employees or person that they are funding is swearing, yet simultaneously being presented as a public case.
I have about 1.5 times your post count. Post count doesn't matter.
people like you...make me feel sad inside.
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On May 04 2012 19:49 munchmunch wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2012 19:42 -Exalt- wrote:
...fuck you
if people are upset that destiny used those words.. fine. don't watch him and know that if he getsfeatured again he won't be able to say "bad words" anymore. but you call the company who sponsors our awesome game and want to get them involved? to make a big deal out of a small issue hoping to deter a sponsor from a team that depends on the sponsors support? FFS
you have 50 posts. what have you ever done for the community? yet you somehow feel the need to "defend it", or stand up for teamliquid's principles? all you did was escalate something that shouldn't even be your business.
people like this.. make me lose faith in the human race. Dude, the whole point of this blog is that he didn't do it to defend the esports or TL community in any way. It's possible to have principles that aren't "esports principles" or "TL principles".
LOL it's not about e-sports? in that case, write destiny a letter and kindly tell him how deeply offended you are.
but when you call a major sponsor of an E-Sport (razer).. and make a big deal out of something that we could have moved on from, you hurt everybody. whether you like it or not, this is about "e-sports"..
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United States24494 Posts
"fuck you" ?
"lose faith in the human race"?
"like angry savages"?
"you have my sympathy and pity"?
"sensitive kids"?
"you did something really dumb"?
You can disagree with the OP on the issues brought up in this thread without overreacting and/or coming across like a moron, you know.
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On May 04 2012 19:51 Tobberoth wrote:
Player uses bad word. Sensitive kids online act as couch heroes and write sponsors, which is known to be the abslute worst thing you can do. If you for some reason is so overly offended by his choice of words, mail him or mail quantic about it. DON'T MAIL SPONSORS.
What's even worse is that you did something really dumb, and you write this blog post as if you're proud of it. Ugh.
He said he didn't care. Quantic was pretty clear they didn't care, as I tried to explain. Whether it was dumb...well, I disagree.
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On May 04 2012 19:56 willll wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2012 19:48 Blazinghand wrote:
I don't like the language destiny used, nor do I like his defense of it on TL. That being said, justice was meted out-- he was banned and his stream unfeatured for the duration of that ban.
I feel like when people take justice into their own hands like this... I feel like something bad happens. I feel that we become something baser, something worse. You may be able to tell off your dad and make him shape up, but he's your dad. If you don't like Destiny, don't watch his stream. I don't! I have no problem avoiding his stream.
When people jokingly talk about witch-hunts and pitchforks, I think about what witch-hunts were actually like. I think about the horrors of mob mentality, the justice of the mobs. And I think that you did this to feel better about yourself. Destiny isn't your father. If you don't support him, that's fine, don't support him.
I guess I'm having trouble expressing exactly what I find *wrong* about this sort of thing, but I do truly feel like what you did is bad. Sure, it'll hurt esports and the Sc2 community that Razer might drop quantic or destiny or whatever, but I feel like what you did makes us less like civilized men and more like angry savages. Less like what we ought to be, and more like what our baser instincts make us.
You don't have my hatred or derision. You have my sympathy and pity.
I hope you understand. I understand what you are saying. I thought I should write down my entire mentality (as best I could reconstruct it). No one else was, even though clearly there were other people offended. We will have to agree to disagree on whether I was wrong. But I respect your telling me I was wrong.
I don't mind that you wrote the actual blog post. Whether or not you write the blog post doesn't change the letter you wrote. In fact, it's better you wrote this since we can have a discussion on the topic!
Even assuming a total ambivalence towards the health of esports (which is the only reasonable assumption on which to begin this statement, I believe) I don't like what you did. I don't like the idea of the general public getting involved with sponsors and things like that, writing letters and boycotting. I may have a bit of a double standard on this, though-- I feel sympathetic towards people who boycott companies that lobby for certain internet bills like SOPA, and that's basically the same as this. Pressuring a supporter seems like an indirect way to get things done. In fact, the very FACT that we had to boycott COMPANIES to stop SOPA (rather than simply asking our government, which is supposed to be a democracy...) is an indication that something has gone horribly wrong.
In this extended metaphor, we're clearly not asserting our political voting power properly and end up arguing with a corporation rather than the agent (our government)-- and in that way, we are denying it agency.
Your father was racist around you and your mother, and around your friends. He was in your life-- you had a right to do what you did.
Destiny, though? He's a guy with a webshow. To get rid of him, all you have to do is NOT tune into his stream. I think your right to assert your economic influence to coerce others is limited to people who directly impact your life and/or can't be easily avoided.
Destiny is easily avoided.
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On May 04 2012 20:00 micronesia wrote:
"like angry savages"?
"you have my sympathy and pity"?
You can disagree with the OP on the issues brought up in this thread without overreacting and/or coming across like a moron, you know.
I'd like to note that there was context around both of those. I mentioned that we became less like civilized men and more like angry savages, not that we actually become angry savages. For the latter, I was explicitly stating that my negative emotions towards him were not malicious. I could have phrased that better though-- especially since "savages" is a racially charged word and "pity" is a bit strong.
I believe I come across as inarticulate, perhaps, but not moronic. I put a fair amount of effort into my posts in this thread.
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On May 04 2012 20:03 willll wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2012 19:51 Tobberoth wrote:
Player uses bad word. Sensitive kids online act as couch heroes and write sponsors, which is known to be the abslute worst thing you can do. If you for some reason is so overly offended by his choice of words, mail him or mail quantic about it. DON'T MAIL SPONSORS.
What's even worse is that you did something really dumb, and you write this blog post as if you're proud of it. Ugh. He said he didn't care. Quantic was pretty clear they didn't care, as I tried to explain. Whether it was dumb...well, I disagree.
I don't care either, like a ton of other people. Razer probably don't care either. A minority of sensitve people care, like you, and they ruin it for everyone else since Razer DOES care when people mail them about it, making it into a big deal. Do you think Razer are blind? They knew what they went into when sponsoring Quantic who has a player like Destiny on their team.
Result of going "Destiny, I really dislike your use of words":
* You get to let people know you don't like this kind of word usage.
* If enough people complain, destiny stops doing it (he makes money from his fans), or quantic does something about it.
* Destiny can keep using bad words on his stream now and again.
Result of mailing razor:
* Forcing razor to take a strong stance, pulling money away from e-sports and hurting the scene. Less good content for everyone.
* You get to write a blog post about how civilized you are. Yay.
* Destiny can keep using bad words on his stream, he just has a harder time to compete competitively, which is bad because he's a good player who is fun to watch.
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On May 04 2012 19:56 uNiGNoRe wrote:
Personally I don't think that writing directly to sponsors is a good idea. It's like when two kids are fighting and one of them runs to its mother and complains. It just shows that the involved parties can't solve their issues on their own. Someone has to call a higher instance to solve the problem for them. In the end it hurts everyone involved. The community is oversensitive, Razer and Quantic get bad reputation and Destiny is a racist.
Also the problem with writing sponsors is that it most likely harms the players that still get sponsored by these companies and who possibly are dependent on that money. If the companies get the impression that ESPORTS causes too much bad reputation since all they get is drama emails they might just pull out of this "business".
I just fail to see how this stuff benefits anyone.
Edit: To clarify a bit after reading the other responses: I don't support Destiny or racism in any way, I just don't think emailing sponsors is a good way of solving problems in this community.
I think that is a totally fair opinion to have. I felt there were extenuating circumstances that justified it, but of course the actor always does.
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