Hi. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m rona. I play medic in Challenger and I’ve been playing in RGL since S3. This isn’t an anti-RGL statement, but it is about the RGL community.
As someone who has spent the last 2 years in RGL being harassed for my gameplay, gender, and appearance, I have many strong thoughts on the overall culture of our community. This document details my experiences and goes further into depth with my thoughts about harassment. It’s important to make people feel welcome in a community, and I have felt anything but welcome for much of my time.
Best posts made by rona
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Harassment in the RGL Community
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RE: Harassment in the RGL Community
@Rene
This is quite literally my goodbye post. I didn’t say it because I didn’t want what I said to be invalidated because ‘she’s leaving, why does it matter’ but I probably am done. Someone shouldn’t have to get harassed to the point of leaving the community though lol. That’s the whole point.
I’m not going to play anymore mostly because I dislike the game but the community definitely contributed to me not liking the game anymore, and it’s not okay for that just to be the way that it is. Yeah, the community sucks. Why do we tolerate it though?
It’s a smaller community and if we wanted to, we could stop letting every shitty person contribute and communicate with the community because as a smaller community, we have that power lol.
Saying that I should just move on because of being harassed is a stupid argument because I honestly stayed as long as I did half because of COVID and half because I didn’t want people to think they could bully me out of a community for a game I enjoyed. -
RE: Harassment in the RGL Community
I just want to put it out there that I didn’t intend for this thread to be about me.
the document was written by me, about my experiences, but I didn’t write it wanting an apology from someone or something. I wrote it to use my experiences to start a discussion about harassment, mistreatment, and bullying in this community. I’m not the only person who has dealt with stuff like this, as evidenced by others in this thread and my own personal conversations with others.
In my mind, this was something that needed to be addressed. This community continues to be a cesspool and parts of this thread prove that.
I would appreciate if people stopped using this thread to call me as a person out. I never said I was perfect/guilt-free, I simply listed my experiences and my thoughts. If you have issues with me, bring it to me but please stop putting it here. I’m not saying I shouldn’t be held accountable for times I acted poorly, but more so that this is not the place.
No matter how a person uses the internet personally, that doesn’t mean they should be doxxed. My personal instagram is private. The social medias that were found weren’t, but I shouldn’t have to deal with people going out of their way to find them. That’s stupid.
Stop saying that because I did whatever, I deserved it. That is such a stupid argument. Being dumb in-game does not give people the right to make the video that they did, or doxx me, body-shame me, whatever. There are different levels to bullying/harassment/whatever.
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RE: Harassment in the RGL Community
@Rene
why should I have to “take all the punches”? why does that thought even occur in your head?
the whole point is you shouldn’t single out females in the community for whatever reason (i.e the RGL fanfic or getting socials like TikTok leaked)
i shouldn’t have to “take the punches” because they shouldn’t happen in the first place.
i used to defend you when you were shitty towards people and people spoke towards you poorly but holy fuck off. -
RE: Harassment in the RGL Community
@Rene
then don’t joke about it : )
‘i said ___ shitty thing but i’m joking so it’s ok!’ -
RE: Harassment in the RGL Community
@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. -
RE: dlphn lft engineer
i have played w him for 3 seasons from s6 to s8
a dedicated teammate who is very invested in both tf2 and engineer + wants to improve
watch out for him dropping ur med -__- -
RE: Headsup for advanced teams
this was a simple scheduling error on the side of me and attention
it was not intentional lole, attention said he could m a y b e get a scrim with you iirc so i was lfs
never knew it was confirmed
our bad but no need to make a forum post about it like “don’t scrim this team >:(”, first time we’ve baited you
Latest posts made by rona
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RE: ghost lft spy/heavy
improved a lot throughout my time playing with her in s6
good person/friendlistens to advice well and can adapt playstyle
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RE: dlphn lft engineer
i have played w him for 3 seasons from s6 to s8
a dedicated teammate who is very invested in both tf2 and engineer + wants to improve
watch out for him dropping ur med -__- -
RE: Harassment in the RGL Community
I just want to put it out there that I didn’t intend for this thread to be about me.
the document was written by me, about my experiences, but I didn’t write it wanting an apology from someone or something. I wrote it to use my experiences to start a discussion about harassment, mistreatment, and bullying in this community. I’m not the only person who has dealt with stuff like this, as evidenced by others in this thread and my own personal conversations with others.
In my mind, this was something that needed to be addressed. This community continues to be a cesspool and parts of this thread prove that.
I would appreciate if people stopped using this thread to call me as a person out. I never said I was perfect/guilt-free, I simply listed my experiences and my thoughts. If you have issues with me, bring it to me but please stop putting it here. I’m not saying I shouldn’t be held accountable for times I acted poorly, but more so that this is not the place.
No matter how a person uses the internet personally, that doesn’t mean they should be doxxed. My personal instagram is private. The social medias that were found weren’t, but I shouldn’t have to deal with people going out of their way to find them. That’s stupid.
Stop saying that because I did whatever, I deserved it. That is such a stupid argument. Being dumb in-game does not give people the right to make the video that they did, or doxx me, body-shame me, whatever. There are different levels to bullying/harassment/whatever.
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RE: Harassment in the RGL Community
@Res
Thank you.I addressed my side of it above.
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RE: Harassment in the RGL Community
@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. -
RE: Harassment in the RGL Community
@lucki
I really don’t think I yelled at everyone for the whole game but whatever. I don’t remember joining and leaving before I left for good.
You didn’t cut me lol. I literally remember being in VC w everyone and you/Jas yelling at me after and then leaving for whatever reason (probably because I was too frustrated to have an adult conversation) and saying something along the lines of ‘you can just give the spot to kasper’ in general or something. it doesn’t matter.
discussion w another team member -
RE: Harassment in the RGL Community
@Jas
I’ve been meaning to defend my part of this for awhile because people always think ___ happened and I haven’t been able to give my side of the story.
I wasn’t cut, I left.
The weekend that I left, it was the weekend in March last year that COVID shut everything down, so I was being sent home from school. I didn’t have a reliable PC at home, and probably wasn’t going to be able to play the weekend. As I remember it, you basically said that if I didn’t play the weekend, you would have Kasper play (since his team had just died) and finish the season if he did well. IDK if you directly said the last part because it was a while ago, but he was better friends w/ everyone on the team, a free agent, and you had a negative attitude towards me so maybe I just assumed it.
Either way, I showed up to scrims. I tried my best but was on 24 hours-ish of being awake and honestly was in a really shitty mood. Yeah, I was a little harsh but when you’re expect to show up or else you can’t play the weekend/lose your spot, you have to show up.
I got frustrated because we were playing an 8v9. Our pyro kept going AFK and yeah, it’s frustrating to feel a double standard of ‘why do I have to be here trying if he’s not going to try’. I could’ve approached the situation in a better way but when you’re in such a stressful moment of time, it’s hard to be rational.
I did apologize for this by having a teammate post something in team chat once I left.
After the scrim, you yelled at me for being frustrated. The team had an awful mentality week after week, everyone was a little rage baby. You yelled at me, I said Kasper could have the spot, and I left the discord. If you wanna say you cut me, sure, but I left of my own volition.
I really don’t appreciate you talking about the BM video like that because just recently, you got banned for sharing it. You are part of the problem when you share things like that, don’t just say “Also btw the video hasn’t been taken down because the creator refuses to take it down, even after being asked by the admins,” when you were still actively sharing it at the beginning of the season.
If anyone still holds issues with me for having a frustrated team environment and cracking under the stress S5, I’m sorry. In general, I apologize to anyone I’ve ever hurt or wronged in this community, whether directly or indirectly. -
RE: Harassment in the RGL Community
@Rene
This is quite literally my goodbye post. I didn’t say it because I didn’t want what I said to be invalidated because ‘she’s leaving, why does it matter’ but I probably am done. Someone shouldn’t have to get harassed to the point of leaving the community though lol. That’s the whole point.
I’m not going to play anymore mostly because I dislike the game but the community definitely contributed to me not liking the game anymore, and it’s not okay for that just to be the way that it is. Yeah, the community sucks. Why do we tolerate it though?
It’s a smaller community and if we wanted to, we could stop letting every shitty person contribute and communicate with the community because as a smaller community, we have that power lol.
Saying that I should just move on because of being harassed is a stupid argument because I honestly stayed as long as I did half because of COVID and half because I didn’t want people to think they could bully me out of a community for a game I enjoyed. -
RE: Harassment in the RGL Community
@Rene
then don’t joke about it : )
‘i said ___ shitty thing but i’m joking so it’s ok!’ -
RE: Harassment in the RGL Community
@Rene
why should I have to “take all the punches”? why does that thought even occur in your head?
the whole point is you shouldn’t single out females in the community for whatever reason (i.e the RGL fanfic or getting socials like TikTok leaked)
i shouldn’t have to “take the punches” because they shouldn’t happen in the first place.
i used to defend you when you were shitty towards people and people spoke towards you poorly but holy fuck off.