DugMachine said:
So this has caused the latest shitstorm in the league of legends community lately.
As you can guess, these girls are getting a lot of hate for this video. I'm somewhat on the fence about it. On one hand, I think the video is really annoying because it's nothing more than "We are all girls, we are girls, all girl team, BTW did you know we are girls?" with nothing to show of their skill. On the other, these girls are better than me after I looked up their stats so I hope they do well but many want this team disbanded or are just downright saying nasty things to them JUST because they are female.
I honestly don't know what to think of it all. Anybody heard of this?
*Oh and I believe they are all gold 1 which honestly isn't good enough for competitive play but as long as you have fun who cares?
You don't know the situation, and you might want to do a little bit of searching before you do the whole white knight thing. I'm not a LoL player but even I have some knowledge of these events since it's been being discussed in a few games I do play where people also play LoL (I play multiple MMOs casually). I did a quick search for them to find some of the discussion and you'll find posts like this one:
http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=3520012
In of itself that doesn't mean much but it's simply an example of the type of post going around.
The thing to understand is that Team Siren is not under fire for being an all-girl team. Indeed, no matter how they want to present themselves there really isn't that much that's unique about them. Their ratings aren't all THAT high and we've seen professional and semi-pro teams of female gamers before, some even with sponsorship. Ubisoft's "Frag Dolls" being perhaps the most obvious example, being a team of female gamers that exist to promote Ubisoft's products and show their colors in various venues. While I haven't followed them for many years even as far back as Ultima Online you had multi-game guilds like "Da Valkyries" and "Black Widows", and of course Microsoft ran it's 360 "Gamer Chix" nights for all girls which lead to a number of girl-based clans deciding to play together in various games.
What Team Siren is in trouble for is over the top, rude, behavior. While online gaming is full of "trash talk" and tons of rude people, these ladies apparently take it to an entirely different level and have spawned tons of complaints. When complaints get to a certain level the mods/authorities step in, and the internet is full of stories about people being banned for how they acted in various online games. The difference is that Team Siren is playing the "we're girls" card with the admins to avoid being punished, and it's working. The point is that when a group of people become this infamous for their behavior and garner enough complaints that it can spark an anger from an entire gaming community, they really should be banned and/or disbanded, but that's not happening. While games like LoL might be full of racist, misogynistic, and otherwise rude comments, the thing to understand is that when you see enough complaints going back to specific sources the admins generally do step in, long before something gets to this point.
The thing about the video is that it's pretty much rubbing things in the face of critics, more or less a matter of "hahaha, we're getting away with it" than anything else. Nobody would care if it wasn't for what was going on otherwise, there is nothing wrong with a group of female roomies that play together, or an all-girl team making videos. There is nothing even remotely offensive in that video. On the other hand the behavior of this team in game is quite offensive, to the point where the free hand they have been given based on their gender is enraging the community. Anyone other than them would have been banned long before now with the amount of complaints they have generated.
Some might not care for the comparison, but it's one of those Anita Sarkeesian type situations, where a bunch of white knights running to the aid of troll-girls are creating increasingly big problems.
... and yes, I'm sure Team Siren would want a lot of you to believe that this anger is generated by misogynistic hatred due to their excellence in what is normally a male dominated field. That's not the case at all, they aren't even that good as some people have pointed out, their disproportionate infamy is based around their horrendous behavior and the extent to which it's gone unpunished, not due to their skill at the game. Don't get me wrong, they are good, but they are not THAT good for it to be an issue. From everything I've read (here and otherwise) I don't think they even qualify for most of the big tournaments.
Simply put it does seem like a case where LoL needs to dust off the banhammer, and do an internal investigation as to who has been giving them a free pass. For the most part it's not a matter for the general public (so to speak), the point of things like that video is to rally support and pressure to their aid under false pretenses.