Yesterday, a thread full of conversations between a handful of speedrunners gained traction on Twitter. Said to be screenshotted from a private Discord, these conversations included derogatory comments about women as well as transphobia and antisemitism.
After some initial hesitation, speedrun charity organisation Games Done Quick said last night that these streamers will no longer represent them at events.
The Twitter thread, posted by a speedrunner named Andrea, contained screenshots of conversations primarily involving two fellow speedrunners, R. White Goose, who chronicles the history of speedrunning on his YouTube channel and has done speedruns of games like Super Mario 64 and Goldeneye, and Graviton, who plays games like Doom 64, Goldeneye, and Pilotwings 64.
Graviton had been scheduled to play Doom 64 at the upcoming Awesome Games Done Quick 2019, which takes place in January.
“I’m thinking I might ban women from my discord tbh,” R. White Goose said in one of the screenshots, complaining that they dominated chat and singling out one who he said “fucked 70 dudes,” which he found “disgusting.”
“The worst part isn’t even the trannies,” said Graviton in another screenshot. “It’s like having the tranny fear for all women that are actually normal – you like zooming in on pic looking for adams apple or man hands or the chin.”
In other screenshots, the two—along with a handful of other people—discussed everything from Jordan Peterson to women’s role in society (care-giving, of course) to the “Jewish question,” referring to rhetoric used by the Nazis in the early 1900s.
Initially, GDQ elected not to take action against the speedrunners, saying it couldn’t verify the conversations’ veracity.
“To be clear: the statements made in the reports are unacceptable,” read a message from the official GDQ Twitter account posted yesterday evening.
“They do meet our criteria for action. But we cannot verify that the statements were made, or who made them, due to the private nature of where they were purported to have occurred.”
This did not sit well with Andrea, who felt she’d provided ample evidence, both in the form of Discord screenshots and further information, which she told Kotaku about in a DM shortly afterwards. “I have Discord IDs that are from all messages,” she said, “and they can use those in a report with Discord. I also sent active images from all channels and with userlists and names.”
It didn’t take long for members of the GDQ community to speak up in opposition of GDQ’s decision.
“In regards to your notice of non-action to this evidence, I, as a long time view [sic] and donor, am absolutely disappointed,” one community member said to GDQ on Twitter. “Gaming is already a knife pit for women, POC, and LGBT people. You choosing to do nothing only reinforces that behaviour as acceptable. Smh.”
“Extremely disappointed that Games Done Quick doesn’t feel that this warrants a serious investigation,” said another. “You can’t claim to help children while abiding misogynists, transphobia, and just straight-up nazism.”
A few hours later, GDQ reversed its non-decision.
“After receiving additional information on the situation that was brought to our attention today, we were able to confirm the authenticity of the screenshots we received,” the organisation said. “As such, the people in question will not be representing us at any GDQ events indefinitely.”
It did not specify exactly who “the people in question” are, however. GDQ did not respond to a request for comment.
R. White Goose confirmed to Kotaku last night that he will not be able to participate in future GDQ events, though it’s worth noting that he’s been a divisive figure for a while now and hasn’t done a run at a GDQ since 2014.
“I completely understand GDQ’s decision,” he said in a Twitter DM. “Those screenshots show conversations which contain hurtful concepts, ideas, and conspiracy theories which I have come to fully and completely reject. What I’ve said in the past is indefensible and inexcusable. I completely understand why people are hurt and angry, and the reaction to my comments is absolutely justified.”
Kotaku also reached out to Graviton, but as of publishing, he had yet to reply. He did, however, react to the recent turn of events on Twitter. “When your wrongthink gets you more followers than your GDQ run would have got,” he said.
Comments
25 responses to “Games Done Quick ‘Indefinitely’ Splits With Speedrunners Over Sexist And Transphobic Comments”
See I get the dislike the subject matter, but I don’t know how I feel about private conversations being thrown into public as a weapon against people.
If you don’t want something to be made public, don’t say it on a platform that can be recorded.
Smart phones mean everything can be recorded though.
Smart phones make it a lot easier to record people.
You’ve been able to have a portable recording device for a long time though.
Yes, but previously that required forethought.
Luis CK has the following joke (para phrased here)
“How am I meant to enjoy a line of coke at a party when every **** has a video camera in their pocket.
The conversations seem to have happened in a public Discord server, not sure ‘private’ holds up in that circumstance.
Isn’t it his private discord?
In the Twitter thread there are a few screenshots that include the name of the server, which I searched for and it has a public invite link. The rank colours in the ones with the server name match up with the ones with the bad comments. It’s possible he named his server the same as a public one but since it’s a URL it seems like a stretch.
It appears it wasn’t on a private medium as Zombie Jesus said. There’s a difference between tossing it up on Discord or Twitter versus private direct messsages or SMS etc.
Either way nobody cares about privacy anymore, especially if there’s moral high ground to claim.
Swing and a miss. People care about privacy. Dickheads only care about privacy when they’ve been busted being dickheads publicly and are being called out for it.
Lol. Clearly many of these people don’t, or they wouldn’t be constantly posting shit on social media now would they?
You and I might care, but a cursory glance of Facebook or Google shows most people have no real concept of online privacy until some media outfit drops a scare mongering article. People care even less about it if there’s some way to vilify someone (whether deserved or not).
It’s not a private conversation ffs.
Its his private discord? So someone leaked it out. So I guess his mistake was not making sure that the people on it weren’t offended.
i get the point that your private life shouldn’t hurt your public life, but only when your private life doesn’t intersect with your public life. If someone is a public figure and they – for example- say the same words as actual, literal nazis when talking about a particular ethnic minority, the public should expect better and the person should expect that the public will want to know.
How private were they if someone got a hold of them? This Andrea person isn’t some sort of hacker, are they?
Idiot should have kept these opinions private. When you’re involved with organisations that deal with corporate sponsorships and charity (charities that support the groups you’re demeaning no less) you’ve got no one to blame but yourself when they kick you out for expressing such views.
Fucking arseholes.
Love how everyone talking about her ignores the stuff she has posted. Tbh she is as bad as they are and its imbarrasing for all involved. Antifa Andrea or Andrea as this article calls her has some shocking stuff posted on twitter but who cares about that when you can bury a few cis white males for something they said in a private discord. Im aware it’s not private but its a lot less out there than tweets.
“but whatabouuuut…”
It wasn’t ignored, I even addressed it in reply to a post that is currently either deleted or in moderation. The essence is who she is and what she’s done has no bearing on this story, which is about what Goose and Graviton did. Dismissing or misdirecting from a claim because it came from someone with their own chequered past is called a tu quoque fallacy.
I honestly dont get why this sort of stuff is still considered a good thing. These two random dudes opinion (albeit not the best choice of words) was just a random discussion. Yet just because someone got ‘triggered’ and ‘dissapointed’ by it, its suddenly time to ban and blacklist them?
I understand that what they were talking about was crass and not exactly appropriate for a public forum but at the end of the day its not like it was on twitter or facebook and shouldnt really stop them from continuing to raise money for charity at an event that is in no way politcally themed.
All I see when these sorts of articles pop up is an ever shrinking puddle of conversations that we are “allowed” to have without being castrated in the public eye. Where does it end?
I think it probably ends when people stop being sexist shitbags. Having sexist or homophobic opinions in private is like putting a piece of human shit in a cake box when you take it out of the house. That’s about where it ends. Fighting back against sexist and racist people isn’t going to lead to some kind of free speechless nightmare. It’s like batman killing the joker. Who gives a shirt