A journalist reports on homophobic remarks in the Overwatch League. He apparently forgot that the nasty words used to be part of his own vocabulary.
In the Overwatch League, a bunch of twenty-somethings play. It shouldn’t be that way, but time and again, words are used that are politically incorrect. One of these words is “faggot.” That is a derogatory term for homosexuals in English. In German, you might translate that as “Schwuchtel.”
Player curses, says: “It wasn’t meant to be that toxic”
Especially a player from Dallas Fuel, xQC, has already stood out as someone who often loses his temper and uses inappropriate language in his stream during the first weeks. The Overwatch League, concerned about its image, punished him with suspensions, and even his own team took action against the player.
But this time it wasn’t about him, but about his teammate “Taimou.” He cursed in a Twitch stream on January 23, saying “Fucking faggot kid.” This was reported through the support system, but there was no response from Blizzard.
Taimou himself said later in the stream that he was “accidentally toxic.”
ESPN reports on “homophobic insult”
Nonetheless, the incident caught the attention of journalist Jacob Wolf from ESPN, who reported on it. ESPN is a massive sports platform in the USA. In his article, the author criticizes that “anti-homosexual” language had been used and that the Overwatch League had not responded, even after being pointed out.
There were a few statements, and actually, that should have been the end of it.
But as Kotaku reports, something unfortunate happened for the author of the article. Users scoured his own Twitter biography and found numerous tweets from 2014 and earlier, in which the author himself regularly used words like “faggot.”
According to Kotaku, the author even tried to delete these tweets, but screenshots were already circulating.
There’s apparently no statement from ESPN on this yet.
In eSports, young journalists can quickly build a career
Mein MMO says: The ESPN author Jacob Wolf is himself a gamer who became a journalist and is involved in eSports. He has had a steep career in eSports so far, is closely linked to the subject, and therefore has great career opportunities in the booming business of “eSports.”
As far as this can be traced through interviews, Wolf apparently started at the eSports site Daily Dot as a teenager and quickly moved from there to the giant ESPN. He is said to have started there at the age of 19.
The author is now only in his early 20s. The tweets with the homophobic terms he made when he was around 14, 15, 16.
The incident shows that most people in this eSports business are young but are already fully in the public eye. This leads to problems: Many words and terms that are part of everyday youth language are, when looked at soberly, hurtful and absolutely not okay. From professionals, one expects that they are aware of being in the public eye and maintain complete control. Now it shows: This also applies to journalists, and retroactively.
There is a huge hype around eSports. Companies like ESPN want to get in there aggressively. Young authors have the opportunity to rise quickly. Perhaps, on their way up, they should take the time to review their Twitter accounts.
The internet doesn’t just see and hear everything – it also forgets nothing.
Journalist apologizes
In a tweet, Jacob Wolf now apologizes. He stated that he made the tweets at the age of 13 to 17. He regrets these words and asks for forgiveness. Since then he has become more mature and no longer uses these words. Wolf continues to strive to learn from his mistakes and become a better person and journalist.
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