An Overwatch League player who told a 17-year-old streamer that she was his teammate’s “second wife” has been fined one month’s salary and denied a bonus payment, the team announced today.
The streamer in question was Aspen, a successful Overwatch player who is partnered with esports organisation Cloud 9. During a match streamed on Aspen’s channel yesterday, Chengdu Hunters DPS player Zhang “YangXiaoLong” Zhihao, 22, dropped a comment into her Overwatch chat with a message that he said was from another member of Chengdu, tank player Ding “Ameng” Menghan.
“Hey aspen,” Zhihao wrote in Overwatch’s in-game team chat. “Ameng say u r his second wife.”
Aspen grimaced, facepalmed, and laughed off the remark, writing “LUL” in the chat. Menghan, who was also in the match, responded with a question mark, seemingly taken off guard by the comment. Shortly after, he apologised for his teammate’s behaviour. “So sry,” he wrote in an Overwatch DM to Aspen, which she viewed publicly on stream. “He like to play jokes… He brain problems.”
Zhihao’s team, the Chengdu Hunters, have proven to be one of the most exciting teams in Overwatch League this season, with an uncanny knack for unpredictable, meta-defying comps that somehow work. Today, the team apologised and said that Zhihao has been reprimanded for his comment.
“On behalf of the Chengdu Hunters, we apologise to Aspen and all people involved,” the team wrote on Twitter. “We have already severely reprimanded and educated our player, YangXiaoLong, on his misbehavior.”
Zhihao will be fined a full month’s salary, as well as a bonus he would have received for playing during stage two of Overwatch’s second season. If he makes a similar mistake in the future, Chengdu said, “the punishment will be doubled.”
“Chengdu Hunters will take this as a lesson to more thoroughly educate each of our players, and prevent such incidents from happening again,” it wrote.
Comments
12 responses to “Overwatch League Player Fined One Month’s Salary For Inappropriate Comment To Streamer”
Slow news day clearly
it’s not a slow news day it’s just Nathan digging for nuggets of stupidity as usual.
What an overreaction. Everyone’s scared of the social media mob these days. We are back in the Dark Ages where no-one wants to be accused of witchcraft for fear of being lynched.
Wow. a single comment and he loses an entire MONTH of pay. that’s pretty absurd. I mean yeah it’s innapropriate but, are these guys even earning enough that this won’t affect them? Does he have a history with this?
A reprimand sure and probably a mark against him if it’s his first time would be fair enough. losing an entire month of pay is just crazy though.
Yeah I can’t believe the response against him. Apart from the fact the comment wasn’t exactly insulting (just inappropriate), if he really did say that out of the blue (thinking it was funny), it sounds like he’s on the spectrum.
For something like this they should be taking a step back and asking why the comment was made, not just punishing the guy and threatening further punishments.
Thats a huge leap going from someone making an awkward joke to saying ‘He’s got a mental condition’ which, in all fairness, his teammate said, but which again would be completely inappropriate if he doesn’t actually have a mental condition. Otherwise, all the off the cuff bad jokes I make would intimate that I… hmmm… never mind.
I didn’t mean it as an insult and I did say it only sounds like it, mostly because the way this article makes it sound he just made the comment without any instigation. I could be reading to much into but knowing several people who are on the spectrum (to various degrees), this just feels familer (one friend in particular to be honest, reminds me a lot of the random jokes he makes).
Nah.
If you don’t know not to be a dick by now then it’s your own fault.
User: idonegaminggood
Charge: Using gendered insults. (D*ck)
Penalty: Permanent Ban
Justification: Should have known by now [$CURRENT_YEAR]
Ah yes 2019, year of the “that offends me”, continues to follow its trend
Or you could call it the year of “I have to think for a micro-second before talking”. Either way it works.
If only this kinda stuff would happen with footballers.