In a ban spanning several lifetimes and then some, the third-party Counter-Strike tournament service ESEA has banned a user until 3016 for allegedly harassing a minor.
The ban was dolled out to Reece “bloominator” Bloom, whose ESEA account will remain banned until June 6 in 3016, or 365,000 days to be precise. The official reason given is “Malicious Activity”, although the specifics for the ban come down to a series of chat logs and photos between Bloom and an alleged 15 year old.
The chat logs, which are still available online, show Bloom saying things like “there’s just something about being able to influence young minds” and “I just don’t care that I’m a paedophile”.
Bloom was unveiled as a member of Armor Esports earlier this year, although most of his profile in the Counter-Strike community was courtesy of his time on the ESEA Invite team Exertus. Exertus has since disbanded, but it once sported players that would go on to gain prominence in other teams, including Mike “shroud” Grzesiek and Jaryd “summit1g” Lazar.
Bloom’s ban makes him the highest profile player in North America, and certainly in recent Counter-Strike history, to be effectively abandoned from the community for their behaviour outside of the game. Counter-Strike has never been the most welcoming community at times, but the publication of this Twitter conversation (WARNING: EXTREMELY NSFW) and several responses in an ESEA thread, including “calm down boys, hoes r [sic] hoes” and “she will realise how retarded she is in 2-4 years from now” didn’t help.
In a post that inadvertently highlights the nature of the Counter-Strike community and the general reaction, user “FAGGOTREDDITMEMER” replied to Bloom’s response to it all with “I hope this post doesn’t get nuked just so the prosecutor can read it back to you at trial”.
Bloom later posted an apology via on Twitter. His account has since been deleted, but a copy of the apology was cached by Google. “No excuses, obviously incredibly stupid of me to do what I did,” Bloom wrote. “But please keep the hate on me, don’t give crap to to any of my friends or [organisations] I’ve associated with. I hope some people can forgive me, but I understand if not,” he continued.
Armor eSports is currently sitting 6th in the ESEA’s Main division for North America. Main sits under ESEA’s Premier and Professional divisions, and the last time Bloom was adjacent to the top tier of North American Counter-Strike was when he played for Grandpa Berets a few years ago, squaring off (but mostly losing) against more well-known teams such as Echo Fox, Team Liquid, Counter Logic Gaming and Cloud9.
Kotaku Australia reached out to ESEA for a comment about the ban, as well as a statement regarding what steps they might take in the future to prevent users from such actions. A representative replied saying that Bloom was “banned due to his interactions with a member of the community”, and that “these types of actions are not acceptable”. Their statement did not outline any specific actions as a reason for the ban, but said “any reports of similar actions are taken very seriously and will be fully investigated by our team”.
Comments
16 responses to “Counter-Strike Player Gets Banned For 1000 Years For Allegedly Harassing A 15 Year Old Girl”
SMH
Funny, I just saw this on SMH (yeah, I know which one you meant) and the headline there didn’t pull any punches, called him a pedophile straight up. Came here to see if the headline here was still the same and there’s your comment.
WOW What a creepy bastard….
I don’t know what it is, but somehow a 1,000 year ban just sounds so much better than “lifetime”.
Good.
Was just about to say, “At least he didn’t get life” but you beat me to it.
Yeah, I can’t explain it. But it just sounds so much more satisfying.
For me it reminds me of the Garfield and Friends segment, Wanted, Wade.
Orson: I sentence you to 9,999 years in prison!
Wade: Phew! At least I didn’t get life.
Ah yeah haha, I remember that even though I watched it decades ago. He ripped off the mattress tag. When his cellmates were talking about their gruesome crimes, they recoiled in disgust when Wade told them about the mattress tag. Funny episode.
This one I think is funnier.
Orson: “Wait a minute! You’re not a doctor!”
Roy: “Yes I am. Just yesterday I cured a patient.”
Orson: “For what?”
Roy: “$500”
Orson: “No, what was his issue?”
Roy: “The $500”
Orson: “No no! What did you remove from him?”
Roy: “$500”
Orson: “NO! What was his complaint?”
Roy and Orson (sighing): “The $500”
I want our vampire overlords to make their public debut in instance like these…
“1,000 year ban? guess what!” **poof** turns into a bat “c u then suckaaaaa’s!”
Can we get a follow-up article in 3016 to make sure his account has been unlocked?
What a friggin creepy tool…
Reminds me of when the XB360 came out and people got 1,000 year bans on XBL
This bloom guy sounds like a Major douchebag, hope Karma gets a few good hits in on him
Good. Sends a clear message that this shit won’t be tolerated. More organisations should do this kind of thing.
Toxicity is a massive problem on the internet and is almost always perpetrated by young men who absolutely know better but think that doing wrong shit on the internet gives them a pass.
Do it in real life and see what happens you spineless pieces of shit.
Isn’t this a crime?
It’s a sad day when user “FAGGOTREDDITMEMER” is the voice of reason.
Trump admits to a lifetime of sexual assault and pretty much the whole world reacts in the same way as the morons who just do not care because it’s a famous person who did it. Bloom obviously isn’t famous enough like Trump.
Jokes going to be on them when we all upload our consciousness into machines.
Humour aside, this seems literally excessive. The odds of him living to serve even a tenth of this ban are really quite low.