Harassment in the RGL Community
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you would ring for open teams in s3 and every single one i talked to said you would flame them relentlessly, myself included. you said, “you are literally the worst team i have ever fucking rang for, please never ring me again” right after a scrim we rang you for knowing full well were scrimming an IM team and had more than one ringer/sub you then proceeded to rage quit so we couldn’t play a second half, because we wanted to play another despite us getting rolled https://logs.tf/2316484#76561198170939290
(we went 5-3 that season in open btw). that’s why you had a bad rep not because of your gender but because you were an asshole to new players and teams who as they moved up the ranks already had a bias against you. im sure many of those players had made a connection to the community at large and that made you a target.im not condoning the continued harrassment, albeit i thought it was funny as an uniformed spectator looking in at first before i knew how bad it was, but don’t pretend like you have been a victim of senseless bullying, because im sure there are plenty more players who silently feel the exact same way as i do and honestly don’t care enough to feel sorry for you.
thats my honest opinion
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@Benjy52 This kind of defeatist attitude is exactly why this continues to be such a problem in the community. Just because something will likely always exist on some level doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t work to combat it. “Oh, you got mugged? I would recommend just not reacting to it and just take it on the chin.” ??? What you’re saying is completely unreasonable in a real life context, and it should be here too.
Gossip and shittalking are inevitably part of gaming communities, and I think everyone agrees on that. Taking that in stride is part of being in the community to a certain extent. However, there’s absolutely no reason continued targeted harassment or personal attacks/insults unrelated to the game need to exist or should have any place in our community, and to say that we shouldn’t care because they’ll always exist on some level is just dumb.
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craaaazyyy shit, crazy post, crazy argument
but literally mad respect to you rona for calling out a community like this
we are aware of how shitty we can be, unfortunate.
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you dropped me in an uber 1 time. only interaction I have had with you idc to much to go out an BM you some people just need to grow up ig at the end of the day we playin a 10+ year old valve game I got harassed when i was young in UGC sometimes shit happens but we gotta get over it or take a break thats what i did 🦘
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@rona I appreciate the apology for it, we don’t care anymore, it was just an example. If you’ve changed then that’s great, and I have no problems anymore.
If you want to bring up sharing the video, then bring up something related to me sharing the video. I posted it one time ever since I was warned 3 or 4 months prior to when I actually posted the link, and I had zero intention of harassing you by sharing the video; the entire context was another player asking what the video was and if he could have a link to it. It was something that I looked past and that is my fault and I am sorry, and at no point did I claim that I was not part of the problem by being ignorant and sharing the video. That being said, this does not mean that I am not able to give my thoughts on the video. If you want to discuss my recent ban then we can take it to DMs and discuss it there. I brought up the video because I know that there were several people that thought I made that video, when while I may be friends with them, I had no impact in making it. I didn’t know if you knew that the actual creator has been punished for making it or if you were one of the people that thought it was me.
After you left, we tried clearing things up so there wasn’t any problems with it, and I wanted to give you time to let everyone be calm and such, so I DMed the person who had the most communication with you at the time and he said that if you wanted to talk about the situation that you could DM me when you got the chance, and that I would appreciate it to avoid beef. You did not do this, which is fine, but what I don’t think is fine is when you started spreading lies about people associated with and on our team to the rest of the community. I don’t care about this now, I brought this up as a point that you can’t be part of the problem you want to fix, and since I haven’t interacted with you in a while, you may have changed which is great, and my statement becomes irrelevant. Until I see that you don’t do that kind of thing myself though, I’ll stand by that statement.
Again, if you want to discuss this further, you can DM me and discuss it there.
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@cayorne
I’m gonna be honest, I don’t remember this time at all but I’m sorry if I ever made you or others feel shitty.
That being said, that is an in-game interaction and if you wanna say I’m an asshole, sure, I might’ve been, but that isn’t an excuse or justification for how much out-of-game harassment I endured.“that’s why you had a bad rep not because of your gender but because you were an asshole to new players and teams who as they moved up the ranks already had a bias against you. im sure many of those players had made a connection to the community at large and that made you a target.”
Many of the people I remember who at first started BMing me were in like main/adv or were not active in HL. Also sure, you can say my gender isn’t a part of it but it really is. There are people who are assholes everywhere in this community, in-game and out-of-game, and so many of them are still parts of groups and never harassed to the point that I was.“but don’t pretend like you have been a victim of senseless bullying, because im sure there are plenty more players who silently feel the exact same way as i do and honestly don’t care enough to feel sorry for you.”
I have been a victim of a lot of unwarranted harassment. Think I’m an asshole? Sure, call me an asshole/don’t talk to me but there was never an excuse for it to get as personal as it did. How many shitty people in this community have ever had their socials leaked/been bullied for appearance?My whole point was there is a difference between in-game interactions and out-of-game interactions. BM me for gameplay/whatever all you like, but even if I was a shitty person, it’s not an excuse to use my appearance as a scapegoat or way to harass me.
Once again, I’m sorry if you felt wronged.
Edit: also here is the 2nd/1st half of those logs https://logs.tf/2316463#76561198313603013 https://logs.tf/2316484#76561198313603013
you weren’t there for that half. -
Hey all.
As a courtesy reminder, we do encourage people that are experiencing harassment inside of the community to use our misconduct report system here - https://rgl.gg/Players/Reporting/Misconduct.aspx
Through this method, the report team will be able to take the proper actions that are necessary to address the case. Thanks.
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@nukanga I don’t think saying “grow up cuz it’s just a game” works when the harassment has involved real life things such as body shaming and leaking social media accounts.
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There are a lot of posts here excusing unacceptable behaviour because of a specific player’s interactions. Maybe Rona was an asshole, but she’s not the only woman/non-man in this game who’s received gender-based harassment and it’s misleading to focus only on her interactions, since I believe the point of this thread was to start a wider discussion on abuse/sexism in the community. Additionally, comments on gameplay, regardless of how rude or unwarranted they might be, are also not at all equivalent to comments about someone’s appearance, gender, or other out-of-game personal attributes (or videos/leaking pictures/socials wtaf??) .
To broaden the conversation, I’ll share that I’ve experienced degrading sexual comments directed towards me by an otherwise respected community member. It’s not just Rona receiving sexist abuse (although hers appears to have been particularly awful), and it’s definitely not being perpetrated by just a few “bad apples” or only players in certain divisions. It’s something that’s embedded into the culture that, as a community, we’ve fostered.
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@nukanga There is a larger difference between being flamed for poor play and things such as sexism or body shaming.
@rona Take care of yourself I enjoyed our games when you were on FBH.
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@Grynn said in [Harassment in the RGL Community](/post/
It’s not all on RGL though, we have to do it as a community. No one is gonna give you shit for banning a toxic person from your discord server.
As much as I’d like to agree with you, I do not believe that ends up being the case in actuality. There is only so much the league can do compared to the individuals in a community. People virtue signal all day, but when it comes down to actually backing up any meaningful action or change, the reception tends to be rather silent and temporary.
People love to support these sorts of moral sentiments, but turn a blind eye to the behavior if it concerns their friends or people they associate with. Wittingly or otherwise, continuing to involve people who cause these sorts of issus in the community makes yourself part of the problem. This is why association is something to be considered. While it is not good to entirely form your opinion on someone based off of their friends, I think it is safe to say that involvement with certain individuals is a clear sign of a lack of character and moral standards.
Every time you try to do something good, you’ll end up experiencing more blowback than you do any form of support or encouragement. You’ll see a small portion of people showing token support on threads and friend discords, but that is never going to be enough. I do not feel like this is a sustainable social structure whatsoever.
I am of the mindset that people who harm the community should be isolated rather than embraced.People can speak all they want and these discussions are not a bad thing, it’s always great to see more people coming forward. But at the end of the day, none of it means anything if they aren’t prepared to burn bridges and pay a personal cost to see real change through. The vocal minority will always overpower the silent majority unless these systematic social issues are responded to systematically wherever they happen to show. There is no excusing or justifying these behaviors such as harassment whatsoever; every single person who turns a blind eye directly contributes to said issues, and should be held accountable by the community. As long as we have people who still rationalize and defend these behaviors, we are not going to see change.
There is no such thing as casual racism, and there is no such thing as justified harassment. These behaviors should not be seen as normal or acceptable in any form. There is no moral gray area here, there are only individuals who put the conscious thought and effort into behaving like individuals deserving of any respect whatsoever, and those who do not. I feel nothing but disappointment and contempt towards individuals who refuse to hold themselves, their friends, and their peers accountable to their own actions. These people go around harassing. apologizing, and talking about how they’ve changed, but fail to realize that true change shows through actions instead of words they never intend to follow through on. They ask for chances time and time again, without ever wanting to change how they act; only speaking to get what they want. This primarily comes in the form of seeking forgiveness from victims to avoid punishment, as well as in the form of pleading to get into groups.
I speak all of this in reflection of my own experiences in running community groups. It is a matter I have seen a lot of and experienced personally. I apologize if this is somewhat incoherent, it is a collection of my loose thoughts and experiences. I do not intend ill will towards any one person or group of people, but this is a very real issue regardless of whether people think it is or not, regardless of if they know they contribute to the cycle or not. I do understand that a lack of maturity plays into this, but it is very much not an excuse for individual nor collective behavior. I am not claiming to be entirely fair in how I treat individuals in my groups, but I do not think standing by and knowingly allowing for harm to happen is fair. Every platform these people get only serves to validate them and their actions. Things such as pug groups are a part of the community, and should hold themselves to standards.
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Rona, let me preface by saying I’ve had relatively little in-game interaction with you. However, that experience, combined with other logs and jokes made at your expense (and the stories I’ve heard), have led me to have a very negative view of you. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for any part I might have played in propagating that perception to people who had never met you.
That being said, I respect your decision in writing this, and your decision to leave. No person should have to go through the kind of shit you did, especially when it led to IRL stuff, and I’m glad you decided to say something about it. I wish you luck.
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you still haven’t addressed the loxic situation, though
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@Res
Thank you.I addressed my side of it above.
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bruh moment
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@Kastaling said in Harassment in the RGL Community:
after reading almost everything posted here, I’m starting to think that people here just don’t know that the “block” button exists. In RGL you really don’t have to communicate or associate with people you don’t want to, and if you do it’s always in a protected format, like matches or scrims even (and those are optional against those people).
Really curious how the block button would solve someone making an entire video about you that involves body shaming.
also y’all should really do a better job managing your online presence, stuff that they taught to us in like 3rd grade about the internet. I keep my online alias separate from my real life stuff as much as I can. Of course I don’t post on social media at all, but if you do, there are clear risks associated with it, so you can’t entirely blame others. and just to be clear this isn’t victim blaming. there’s a difference between telling people to take preventative measures because people can be shitty and full-on victim-blaming.
So you’re not victim blaming but you think it was rona’s fault for putting pictures out there.
also I’ve never met you before rona but sorry if you did get body shamed, I’ve dealt with that a lot IRL and its not very good, my sympathies.
“You didn’t follow basic safety precautions a third grader should know, but my sympathies”
Also, this you?
Because I feel like you may in fact be one of the toxic people we are talking about here. -
@Kastaling said in Harassment in the RGL Community:
after reading almost everything posted here, I’m starting to think that people here just don’t know that the “block” button exists.
the block button won’t help with doxxing someone’s identity or appearance. i definitely do agree that making your social media profiles private is a good idea though.
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@WolfTeeth said in Harassment in the RGL Community:
So you’re not victim blaming but you think it was rona’s fault for putting pictures out there.
There is a reason most normal people keep their social media private except to their friends. How else is he supposed to frame it, just curious.
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@lucki said in Harassment in the RGL Community:
@WolfTeeth said in Harassment in the RGL Community:
So you’re not victim blaming but you think it was rona’s fault for putting pictures out there.
There is a reason most normal people keep their social media private except to their friends. How else is he supposed to frame it, just curious.
This isn’t the norm you think it is. Everyone in the tf2 community keeps their identity under wraps because this place is a cesspit. In non-gamer communities I’m in people do share selfies, post pictures if they’re happy with their outfit, think they look good today, or whatever. When I wasn’t active in tf2 I did share selfies on my social media platform of choice. All of that got scrubbed when I became active in tf2 because I knew what would come of it.
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@Bliztank said in Harassment in the RGL Community:
@Grynn said in Harassment in the RGL Community:It’s not all on RGL though, we have to do it as a community. No one is gonna give you shit for banning a toxic person from your discord server.
People virtue signal all day, but when it comes down to actually backing up any meaningful action or change, the reception tends to be rather silent and temporary.
I’d like to first reply to Grynn. You would be surprised. People will give you shit if you own a Discord server that they care about. Pug groups, friend servers, etc. I’ve had first-hand experience with this and people apologize way too quick for what they have done when in actuality it leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
For Bliztank: This is true, when someone gets banned there’s usually some virtue signaling that people do for selfish gain and never actually take action afterwards. These type of pushbacks for positive action are just trends and fads and rarely ever take off.