StarCraft 2 Tournament Boots Player for Rape Comment

[JimB]

How hard can it be not to talk about rape?

I was about to post something ironic about how first they came for my rape jokes and I didn't say anything, but I'm afraid that if I did, someone would take it seriously.

Around here, you never know. I almost got docked for 'Silly' once. Explained that one down, though.

Hell, I wasn't even thinking about the mods. I just meant it was way too easy for me to imagine someone replying with some earnestly-meant slippery slope fallacy about how if I don't fight for a gamer's right to Tweet about how he's gonna go rape some chick, then the gamers will be shipped off to gulags and won't be able to fight for me when the PC Thought Police [insert dramatic orchestral sting and/or thunderclap here] comes to take away my right to say things not on their approved list of sentiments permitted to express.

 

[angryscotsman93]

I sometimes wonder how Rape became such a ubiquitous term in gaming.

Baserape
Spawnrape
Statsrape
Stackrape

Even just using the phrase rape or raped to describe winning by a large margin. I guess the root cause is that competitive games have been a complete sausage fest and to the average young man rape is kind of an irrelevance, it probably won't happen to them, it's an abstract thing that happens to other people (and thinking back, at 13 I didn't have many female friends, so purile discussions always came from a male viewpoint).

It's good that at a pro level at least these things are being addressed (or at least starting to) and it shames me to admit that I spent most of my CS and CS:S career yelling/typing that word at just about every opportunity, I hope it's something that 'gaming' as a hobby slowly grows out of over time, it's not going to change over night that's for sure.

I think the use of the term "rape" in online gaming comes from the "unwilling domination" angle.

This is in no way condoning this douchebag- they were right to kick him out. Unprofessional, callous garbage like what he was spewing has no place in an organized event like that.

If you ask me, though, the real tragedy is that this incident highlights just how poor this sod's vocabulary is. There are so many words in the English language you could use to describe destroying an opponent. Reminds me of my old theater teacher, when he'd admonish us for constantly using obscenities in descriptions. Diversify your vocabulary, people!

 

[AgedGrunt]

Rape may be a colloquial slang for totally dominating someone in a game, but that only tells us how immature gaming culture still is. It doesn't necessarily make this "lighthearted" use of the word alright.

Where it's common to be called a ******, racist names, told that your mother does everything with your opponents, face death threats and people have had SWAT teams sent to their homes by psychotic trolls who either want teh lulz or mentally cannot handle a gaming rival, you need a vulgar slang like rape to tell you how immature gamers can be?

Can we just admit that people mostly accept the shit in gaming culture but they view rape/misogyny to be an exception beyond anything because some feminists and Jimothy Sterlings of the world told them it is?

 

[Falling_v1legacy]

Rape may be a colloquial slang for totally dominating someone in a game, but that only tells us how immature gaming culture still is. It doesn't necessarily make this "lighthearted" use of the word alright.

Where it's common to be called a ******, racist names, told that your mother does everything with your opponents, face death threats and people have had SWAT teams sent to their homes by psychotic trolls who either want teh lulz or mentally cannot handle a gaming rival, you need a vulgar slang like rape to tell you how immature gamers can be?

Can we just admit that people mostly accept the shit in gaming culture but they view rape/misogyny to be an exception beyond anything because some feminists and Jimothy Sterlings of the world told them it is?

Again. People keep trying rope Starcraft into the capital G, Gamer culture. We are not a subset of bro-shooters/ the Halo crowd. Nor are we a subset of the Fighting Game crowd. The foundations of Starcraft 2 gamer culture was laid in Starcraft BW, which looked up to Korean Starcraft. And Korean was very professional, very respectful, and yet contained good-natured trash talking. Being called a ****** and racist names was not a part of mainstream Starcraft culture.

Yes, you can find individuals and certain sub-groups within Starcraft that spew offensive language, but even bad boy Idra had his leash pulled by his own team over some comments he made. Over on our forums on Team Liquid, you might be able to flame a person if you're clever and/or a veteran, but you will last much longer if you are respectful:

If you must flame, be smart or creative about it, and make sure the flame was deserved. In general, you'll never go wrong by being nice, polite, and mature.

However, spewing racist crap will get you banned. We don't tolerate it, and we have never tolerated it, long before SJWs and tumblr feminists became a thing. When you defend saying 'rape' on the basis of being able to say '******' and racist names, you are not defending mainstream Starcraft culture. Offensive things are said by certain Starcraft players, but that is not what we have aspired to. There was a time when we turned our noses up on bro-shooter gaming culture. When SC2 went big, I'm not sure that our crowds are that different anymore, but that elitist 'we're above this' is still in our DNA.

tldr: so-called Gaming Culture is not monolothic. Not all gaming communities value the same things. If you defend using 'rape' on the basis that gamers also say ****** and racist names... you aren't defending Starcraft culture, and please stop. We don't actually want you to defend the right to say any of those words in our tournaments. The majority of us don't want our tournaments to devolve like that.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

So does that mean we're not allowed to use the word "beat" then? As in "I am going to beat my opponent?"
What about "murder?" Can you not say "I'm going to murder him?"
Or "crush" or "stomp" or "annihilate?"
Because they are all also alluding to (not the equivalent of) doing bodily or mental harm against their will.
It sounds to me like you have a problem with trash talking in general, not the usage of the word "rape."

Except "beat" also carries the meaning to "prevail over" or "defeat", which is an apt description of what the winner does. Likewise crush(ing) is a normal way to describe a steamrolling victory or total defeat. Murder and annihilate might well be apt description of what will happen in game (murder in shooters, annihilate in strategy games).

The difference between all these and rape are that they are either common descriptors of victory/defeat or a literal description of what will happen within the make believe of the game. Rape is not. My problem is with the usage of the word rape, not with the fact that people trash talk.

Where it's common to be called a ******, racist names, told that your mother does everything with your opponents, face death threats and people have had SWAT teams sent to their homes by psychotic trolls who either want teh lulz or mentally cannot handle a gaming rival, you need a vulgar slang like rape to tell you how immature gamers can be?

Can we just admit that people mostly accept the shit in gaming culture but they view rape/misogyny to be an exception beyond anything because some feminists and Jimothy Sterlings of the world told them it is?

Not really, no. But lots of bad behavior doesn't really excuse even more. This case is significant because the tournament arrangers made an example of the immature player. Which is something that should happen when people decide to act as immature morons in official circumstances.

Also, I am not going to admit to the view you want me to have. I am mostly amazed by the people, like Kopikatsu, who either thinks this guy did nothing wrong or that he, at least, should be excused because "hey, making offensive jokes is a right/not that bad/actually funny/some other reason". The actions taken by the arrangers of this tournament was the only sensible one, regardless off if the "joke" made was sexist, homophobic, racist, ableist or whatever else you can think of. That people try to defend rape as "not actually that bad" is just sad.

 

[Falling_v1legacy]

How has this thread become a debate? I'm confused. Surely it should just be "raep jokes among friends is fine but publicly posting a "joke" about raping your opponent, regardless of their gender, is so massively unprofessional that this dumb kid deserved to lose his spot in a professional tournament."

I can't take you seriously.

While I would normally live or die by the approval of people I've never met whose personal view I disagree with, I shall nevertheless reach deep inside myself for the strength to overcome this grievous blow to my self-esteem.

I think I love you a bit

Sorry, but how "professional" can a tournament really be when it can won simply by getting offended? I don't know about you, but any game you can get offended your way to first place isn't one to be taken seriously. A professional tournament would be one in which the winners and looser would be determined by who actually wins the game.

Maddelisk did not have power to dq her opponent, nor did she take first place by getting offended by her opponent. She did not contact the organizers, asking for her opponent to be dq'd. The tourney chose to dq on their own, without her requesting anything.

A tournament has the right to control how it's image and to define what sort of behaviors it deems acceptable from participating players. Kas directly linked his tweet to the tourney with his hashtag. Twitter is a very public space online and those sorts of tweets tarnish the their tournament in the minds of the organizers. They are allowed to crack down on this behaviour, it's their tournament, their money and they want to create a tournament where 'raping' someone is not used in common parlance. Considering this is a Starcraft tournament and not a bro shooter, that's exactly what I would expect.

I never said they don't have the right to do it. As a private organization they can do whatever they want within the boundaries of the law, but that doesn't make them professional. They could just make the winner the tallest one, or even the lightest-skinned one and nobody even plays starcraft, and they'd have that right as a private tournament. Doesn't make them professional. A professional tournament is one where the game, and how good you are at it, is the only thing that determines the winner, and this was not the case here. That simple. They can do whatever they want, but when your desire to control your image trumps the ability for the tournament contenders to win the tournament purely by doing well in the game, then it's not about the profession (playing the game) anymore, and is, therefore, not professional.

I disagree that image does not matter. Nor do I agree that a professional tournament is one that ignores player conduct outside the game. A tournament has the right to disinvite players they formally invited if a player behaves in a way that the tournament do not want associated with them. That is what professional tournaments do.

I will give you examples from the past. Certain players were lined up to be in a tournament. It was then discovered they used map-hacks on ladder. They were good players and not using map-hacks during the actual tournament, so the only thing that should matter is that the best player wins, right? No. The tournament (TSL) disinvites the maphacker because the tournament wants nothing to do with maphacking behaviour regardless if they only maphack on ladders and not in tournaments. Professional tournaments can and do call Starcraft players to task for out of tournament behaviour... furthermore the tweet was during the tournament (Kas actually paused the game to fire off the tweet), and directly linked the tournament to an offensive comment with a hashtag. Maybe he shouldn't have been banned outright, but I maintain that a professional Starcraft tournament can and should enforce a certain standard of behaviour for their participants during a tournament.

we'd like to see who the best starcraft 2 player is, regardless of how despicable a human being they might be, thank you very much.

Honestly, I think you are a minority in the Starcraft community. Despicable behaviour is not so easily passed over and there aren't very many cases of despicable behaviour in the top echelons of Starcraft players anyways. I don't even think Kas is despicable. He tweeted something dumb and regretted it. He's not even sticking to his guns like you, who are supposedly defending him. He didn't seem to want to defend his actions, but expressed considerable regret.

 

[Falling_v1legacy]

Well, yes cheating within the tournament is not equivalent, but then neither is your burger example. What I mean is a player that maphacks on ladder to troll other player (or rapidly increase their stats), but plays legitimately in tournaments. Outside behaviour that does not impact the actual tournament is still fair game imo.

We do agree they can. We disagree on whether it is a good thing. I'm saying it is a good thing, and furthermore the majority opinion in the Starcraft community is that it is a good thing. That sort of behaviour was never something we wanted to see from our players and most of us are fine with seeing it shut down even if some might think the actual dq was overly harsh.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Nobody ever said rape is not that bad, they just recognized it as a joke.

These tournaments don't exist for people like you to enforce their social justice on the gaming community at large, the contest isn't to see who checked their privileged the most, they exist to see who's the best at playing a game. Take your soapbox and "patriarchy" and "privilege" somewhere else, we'd like to see who the best starcraft 2 player is, regardless of how despicable a human being they might be, thank you very much.

I know why the tournament exist. However, a gaming tournament should not be exempt from the basic decency we as a society has come to expect. Being offensive towards your competitors, the audience, the staff or anyone else should have consequences. So why don't you back off and realize that I never said "patriarchy", "privilege" or even used a "soapbox", you are not responding to my arguments, you are making ad hominems based on the fact that you think/know I am a feminist and you clearly have an axe to grind with feminism.

 

[Loonyyy]

How has this thread become a debate? I'm confused. Surely it should just be "raep jokes among friends is fine but publicly posting a "joke" about raping your opponent, regardless of their gender, is so massively unprofessional that this dumb kid deserved to lose his spot in a professional tournament."

I can't take you seriously.

While I would normally live or die by the approval of people I've never met whose personal view I disagree with, I shall nevertheless reach deep inside myself for the strength to overcome this grievous blow to my self-esteem.

I think I love you a bit

Sorry, but how "professional" can a tournament really be when it can won simply by getting offended? I don't know about you, but any game you can get offended your way to first place isn't one to be taken seriously. A professional tournament would be one in which the winners and looser would be determined by who actually wins the game.

Maddelisk did not have power to dq her opponent, nor did she take first place by getting offended by her opponent. She did not contact the organizers, asking for her opponent to be dq'd. The tourney chose to dq on their own, without her requesting anything.

A tournament has the right to control how it's image and to define what sort of behaviours it deems acceptable from participating players. Kas directly linked his tweet to the tourney with his hashtag. Twitter is a very public space online and those sorts of tweets tarnish the their tournament in the minds of the organizers. They are allowed to crack down on this behaviour, it's their tournament, their money and they want to create a tournament where 'raping' someone is not used in common parlance. Considering this is a Starcraft tournament and not a bro shooter, that's exactly what I would expect.

Expanding on the DQ, complaining that someone "got" someone disqualified is entirely childish. That's the little shit who throws rocks in primary school beating up a kid for telling the teacher and "Getting them in trouble". No, they got themselves in trouble, and it's pretty clear that they know what they said was wrong. No-one gets in trouble if they don't do this shit. And what they did is stupid. If you want people who aren't already in the scene to enjoy it (And 10-1 most clans and organisations do), then they have to clean this stuff up. And it's really easy not to do these things. It's not as if people can just claim offense to win, unless you cannot avoid saying repugnant things.

 

[JimB]

I'm not seeing what puts the word "rape" on a pedestal above these other words that have the exact same meaning in this context.

Standard theory, and one I tend to subscribe to, is that unlike murder and annihilation, rape is a thing that happens to a lot of people and that, far too often, happens because the rapists don't understand what rape is. Victims of rape tend to be traumatized by the assault and to internalize the trauma out of fear and shame, which makes them less likely to discuss it and therefore increases the likelihood that you're talking to a rape survivor; for instance, at least two rape survivors have spoken up in this thread. A lot of rape victims feel that pain and fear and shame when they're reminded the the most hurtful and traumatic moment of their life is a joke to the rest of the world.

So, in short, "rape" is a word that hurts people, and prioritizing their pain below a person's right to be crude strikes me as unconscionable.

 

[QuietlyListening]

I disagree with the whole "eSports pushes women away" argument. I think the organizers did the exact correct thing. And at least the guy apologized. The problem isn't so much that people who use such language are bad, just inconsiderate, and, in this case, unprofessional in the extreme. I'm glad people are holding eSports to a high standard of behaviour, and happy to see these standards enforced.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

But annihilate, crush and rape all carry the same meaning in this context.
"to rape the countryside," "to crush the countryside" and "to annihilate the countryside" all refer to the same set of actions.
I'm not seeing what puts the word "rape" on a pedestal above these other words that have the exact same meaning in this context.

Except no. We are not talking about the countryside here, we are talking about either a virtual representation of a player or the player itself. And in the context of the game there is a large difference between "I will annihilate [your forces"]/"I will murder [your avatar]" and "I will rape [your forces/avatar]".

As a side note, there's a pretty big difference between the meaning of annihilate/crush the countryside (which implies the destruction of the countryside) and rape the countryside (which implies the violation or devastation of the countryside). You are essentially trying to push a false equivalence on words with different meanings to suit your argument. It is kind of unclassy, not to mention dishonest.

Then punish him in the way the law lays it out, having a game-based punishment is ludicrous. If somebody wants to sue him, then sue him. Handle it like adults, in court. Basic decency doesn't actually have to exist everywhere, if you expect it everywhere, that's your baggage, but i'm actually fine with a bit of competitive spirit in competitive sports.

Why would the arrangers of the tournament push legal action? They want a specific kind of mood and spirit in their tournament and they enforced that mood by removing someone who was about to, intentionally or not, ruin that mood. Taking someone to court over a bad joke (even if it is offensive) seems to me like the less adult way of going about it. Just saying "that's unacceptable here, you are out" strikes me as the more adult, sensible and benevolent way of going about it.

Also, I love how you managed a begging the question fallacy without a question by implying that I can't stand "competitive spirit". Classy. But not really.