StarCraft 2 Tournament Boots Player for Rape Comment

[roseofbattle]

StarCraft 2 Tournament Boots Player for Rape Comment

A regular European StarCraft 2 competitor tweeted he would rape his female opponent.

Professional StarCraft 2 player Mihaylo "Kas" Hayda competed against fellow competitor Madeleine "Maddelisk" Leander in the Fragbite Masters tournament on Friday. Shortly into their match, Hayda tweeted a rape comment. Fragbite Masters organizers have since disqualified Hayda.

In a now deleted tweet, Hayda wrote, "Going to rape some girl soon #fragbitemasters."

Leander screencapped the tweet and wrote about it on eSport. [http://esport.aftonbladet.se/team/maddelisk/enggoing-rape-girl-soon-fragbitemasters]

Leander was the only woman invited to participate in the tournament. "My first reaction was 'but I'm not good enough,'" she said. She decided to take a chance and participate. She noticed the game was paused for a moment early on, which she later determined was due to him posting his tweet.

"I don't even know what to say," she said. "I was very surprised to say the least. This coming from a pro player is scary. The organizers did what they could. They asked Kas to apologize and talked about it after."

Leander went on to play her match and try to let go of it. Later on she wrote on Twitter [https://twitter.com/MaddeLisk/status/535921164288540672], "With that said. If you didn't know: joking about rape is never ok. Ever. If you think it is, please unfollow me."

Several apparently male Twitter users responded to her tweet to call her a "stupid crybaby" and tell her she was a "trash" player.

Hayda did apologize on Twitter [https://twitter.com/cScKas/status/535853027866198017] after he was disqualified. Fragbite Masters called Hayda's behavior inappropriate and stated it does not "tolerate this kind of behavior."

"First of all, I have to say that this is terrible," Pontus Eskilsson, head of Fragbite Masters, said. "We will never stand for this kind of behavior, and therefore a disqualification is highly appropriate. We need to show the players that these kinds of toxic acts have consequences."

The eSports community is often male-dominated and unfriendly toward women. Earlier this year, the International eSports Federation less visible in competitive gaming tournaments [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/135836-Finnish-Hearthstone-Tournament-Changes-Policy-on-Women-Update] thanks to sexism, marketing strategies overlooking them, and gender norms that treat games as a male hobby.

Hayda's comment is just one example of how the eSports community pushes women away.

Source: The Daily Dot [http://esport.aftonbladet.se/team/maddelisk/enggoing-rape-girl-soon-fragbitemasters]


Permalink

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Well that was fucking dumb of him.

I think that whole thing when the guy at E3 said "Just let it happen" was overblown as hell, but this was just so blatant and said in such a way that it can barely even be considered a joke.

As shitty as it is to be firing people because of twitter, this does reflect pretty poorly on them if they didn't get rid of him.

Slightly unrelated, but the article itself could use a tad less opinionated rhetoric.

 

[Dragonlayer]

Between this, that Labour politician in the UK losing her job and really, just about everything ever said by anyone ever involved in or opposed to GamerGate, it continues to boggle my mind as to how incredibly stupid people are in regard to making statements on social media. It will be found, it will be saved and it will come back to bite you in the arse!

 

[Phasmal]

Honestly, I'm glad that he was disqualified. It shows we're still working to make eSports better, and that people are willing to take action to do so.

I'm not sure what kind of person thinks that this sort of thing is okay. It's stupid and it makes us all look bad. It certainly doesn't help anything.

But I'm going to leave before all the angry people show up and say it's wrong to punish people for doing things.

 

[jayzz911]

Maybe women are less visible because there are fewer female competitors.

^ this
in before i get a warning/ban
This was an incredibly dumb guy making a dumb statement about raping his opponent. The problem i have with this is the following:Had this been a guy saying the same about another guy and the consequences would've been the same i would've been all for this. But now the mindset is oh it's a girl better fire the guy right away. I have no problem with him being fired over this but hate the double standard. The mindset of oh you can joke about anything but rape is pretty dumb. Comedy and jokes (no matter how bad you are at it) can be about anything. Murder is a worse crime but you can joke about that. There should be more girls in e-sports, and there's definitely immature people in the e-sports scene (like the guy that got fired) But if you let smack talk get to you so bad that it actually makes you play worse. Maybe you shouldn't be trying to get into any competitive (e-)sport regardless of your gender.
/rant

 

[Renegade-pizza]

Its not beating your wife or making dogs fight, but I'm very happy that they kicked him out. If they're willing to kick competitors for misconduct like that, then hopefully, it will ensure that it won't happen again or escalate to more severe actions

 

[Combustion Kevin]

I wonder what part of him thought this was a bright thing to do. >>

as a side-note: get off twitter, nothing good has ever come from twitter, it's basicly the YT comment section without the videos.

 

[nightmare_gorilla]

Personally I might have disqualified the guy just for pausing a game during a competitive match to tweet anything. it's dumb and the tweet he chose to send is even dumber. dude got what he deserved. joking around about stupid stuff on your own time is one thing but to say something that unprofessional and include the organization by using the hashtag, also doing it while your on the clock? dumb dumb dumb. You want to joke about rape? that is ok actually i have no issue with rape jokes but when you're at "work" you behave in a professional manner and you most certainly don't direct rape jokes at real people.

 

[NiPah]

Maybe women are less visible because there are fewer female competitors.

^ this
in before i get a warning/ban
This was an incredibly dumb guy making a dumb statement about raping his opponent. The problem i have with this is the following:Had this been a guy saying the same about another guy and the consequences would've been the same i would've been all for this. But now the mindset is oh it's a girl better fire the guy right away. I have no problem with him being fired over this but hate the double standard. The mindset of oh you can joke about anything but rape is pretty dumb. Comedy and jokes (no matter how bad you are at it) can be about anything. Murder is a worse crime but you can joke about that. There should be more girls in e-sports, and there's definitely immature people in the e-sports scene (like the guy that got fired) But if you let smack talk get to you so bad that it actually makes you play worse. Maybe you shouldn't be trying to get into any competitive (e-)sport regardless of your gender.
/rant

Honestly I agree, we should have exactly the same punishment for a guy saying he'll rape another guy, I applaud the event for taking a step in the right direction.
Smack talk is one thing, threats are another, honestly even smack talk is annoying though.

 

[deleted+75193]

DELETED

 

[Mr Cwtchy]

Honestly, I'm glad that he was disqualified. It shows we're still working to make eSports better, and that people are willing to take action to do so.

I'm not sure what kind of person thinks that this sort of thing is okay. It's stupid and it makes us all look bad. It certainly doesn't help anything.

But I'm going to leave before all the angry people show up and say it's wrong to punish people for doing things.

This is the internet equivalent to calling someone a doodoohead and then running away before they can respond. Rather lacking in maturity to be honest.

OT: Kicking him out seems to be the right move to me. Not because it's 'sexist' or 'offensive to women', but because it's a very dumb thing to say, and frankly is poor form for any competitor. That said I have to echo Johnisback in saying that rape jokes should not be considered 'off-limits'.

 

[Tiamattt]

I like this DQ, esports wants to look like they're legit and any other professional sport would've done the same thing if one of their players did this, if not worse. Good on them, and hopefully the next person that's tempted to do something idiotic like this will just focus on the task at hand instead of crap like this.

 

[marioandsonic]

I'm not opposed to the idea of trash-talking, as long as everyone playing is cool with it.

But I'm glad this guy got banned, because that was a really stupid thing to say.

And posting it on Twitter, where everyone can read it...really? You didn't think anyone was going to complain about that?

 

[Erttheking]

...Well what the shit did he think was going to happen?

 

[Phasmal]

This is the internet equivalent to calling someone a doodoohead and then running away before they can respond. Rather lacking in maturity to be honest.

Spoiler: Yeah, that's about right

Hold on, I'm putting my mature face on.
I forgot how srs business the internet is.

I'll certainly think twice before putting sarcastic remarks at the end of my posts.

 

[erbkaiser]

On the one hand, "rape" means something really different in gaming than it does IRL -- had he been facing a male opponent, it would simply be seen as stupid trash talk.
On the other hand, it is definitely not something you should ever say about anyone. I am absolutely certain he didn't mean anything sexual with his tweet, but with all the uproar about women in gaming going on right now something like this is so incredibly stupid him getting booted from the tournament is justified in my opinion.

The whole trash talk, sexism, racism, and verbal violence is making online gaming an unsafe environment for everyone and especially in pro gaming it should be prevented as much as possible.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

*Slowly facepalms*

Jeez, did he not see how unprofessional, unsportsmanlike and offensive statements like that would bite him in the ass? ESPECIALLY AT A TOURNAMENT?!

Look, I get it. A lot of people use "rape" when playing games to mean "totally demolish in a spectacular way". I think it's really dumb, but some people use it, and it'll take time to fully purge it from the language into thinks like "Rekt" or whatever is hip these days. But you can't go around saying stuff like that in a tournament setting. This isn't some match you're playing in your time off. This is a TOURNAMENT Match with lots of people watching, and is meant to be taken seriously.

Just like a hockey player can't say "Imma kill that (N-word)" when in the playoffs without being disciplined, you can't be making really retarded tweets like that during a gaming tournament. It reflects badly not only on yourself, the hobby, and the game you're playing, but ALSO badly on the tournament organizers who have the right to kick you out of the even that they're hosting.

Seriously, is it THAT hard to have even a shred of decorum and respect for some people?