Overwatch's racism problem

I think now is the perfect time for the community to reflect on this issue.
Why is it that koreans are bashed relentlessly just because they were hired to represent a western team?
Why is bumper bashed and put down for crying over a loss that was clearly extremely emotional?
I see black people get “try hard 7” spammed at them every time they are on screen for league and recently within my first few games on PC i noticed someone typed spanish into chat and when someone responded they were berated by the 2 stack who originally typed it.
Im disgusted and i cant keep silent anymore. I can only hope something is done before its to late. This game is supposed to a safe space for everyone! Not a havent for the hateful few.

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They aren’t.

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They are. Even on here almost daily i see people complian that the teams from their hometowns are full of koreans

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I saw this a lot when the OWL team rosters were announced. I haven’t seen it basically at all since then(in game or on the forums) so I’d be curious to hear where you’re supposedly seeing it at.

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In wyomings threads often as well as any other OWL related thread. It may not be as popupar since then but its around forsure

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First of all, even if it was something acutally racist being said… that’s just a handful of people. That doesn’t translate to “relentlessly” being abused.

Second, what you are complaining about isn’t even racism it’s just a misunderstanding of what OWL is. You see, some people are confused by the geographic naming convention and they think of it like it’s a world cup. In reality, it’s just a professional esport league. IF you see someone making this mistake, just explain their error to them.

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I disagree; people literally actively go “I’m rooting for [x] because there’s no Koreans”.

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TriHard 7
Is a solute and has nothing to do with racism.
There is a minority of people who use emotes and spam racist garbage , but this could be said with any game at any given moment. By giving it attention it makes people wanna do it more, the twitch chat is highly moderated and racist comments are deleted very fast.
:ok_hand: :ok_hand: :ok_hand: :ok_hand: —> not racist

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Eh, I definitely still see some of the people who think it’s hilarious to say “London” Spitfire, with a heavy emphasis on the quotation marks.

I don’t see this as Overwatch’s problem, though. It’s just a problem with society at large. I’d say it’s mostly kids who don’t know better and are looking to say something shocking and edgy to get a gasp or a laugh from their friends, but most of the time I hear someone being overtly racist in voice chat in-game, they sound like adults… which is just sad.

But yeah, as for OWL in particular, twitch chat culture is some of the most poisonous garbage out there. A few communities are oases of kindness and respect, but most are full of edgelords, nihilists, and genuinely hateful people. At least, those are the ones who are the most obnoxiously vocal, and as a result they stick out the most and help set trends.

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Ahh I haven’t checked his threads out.

Let’s not sugarcoat it, it’s racism. People know, especially by now that talent is basically sourced from all over. The things I’ve seen in the past have literally been anger about how many Koreans are in the league.

Yeah this is the type of stuff I saw back then, if it’s still continuing, it’s just clear cut racism.

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IT’S NOT AN OVERWATCH PROBLEM IT’S A HUMAN PROBLEM.

Jesus Christ it’s not the dev team’s problem that a decent portion of humanity is cruel

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I mean, people even do it here. Let’s not pretend like people are saying “but WHY are there so many KOREANS in the OWL” because they have a non-Korean fav in mind who is actively being blocked by all the Koreans. It’s just racism, sis. Even if the people saying it aren’t racist.

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Stating that someone is Korean, or Russian, or Chinese or Canadian is not racism.

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That isn’t hating Koreans. That is them being disappointed that their own country isn’t being represented by local players.

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Those adults likely started by just being “edgy”

Yep, there’s already people being purposefully obtuse in this thread.

Case in point. Just stating where someone is from is fine. Complaining that a team has too many damn Koreans, is racism, pure and simple. That is what is being talked about, not your strawman.

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The whole trihard thing is that it’s about context. Anyone who spends time in the open sewers of twitch chat knows that the emote is used almost exclusively in a way that boils down to “black person on screen! black person on screen!”, and in many instances is used whenever a negative stereotype is mentioned (someone committing a crime, literally any mention of monkeys, etc). It sounds ridiculous, and it’s honestly pathetic, but that’s the context that some are either unaware of, or willfully obtuse about when they’re called out for spamming it (usually when, you guessed it, Malik is on camera).

The same thing sorta goes for the ok emoji. I don’t really want to get into that because it’s one of those things that’s just caked with a thousand layers of irony and plausible deniability, but just because it was a joke started by 4chan to see if the media would take the bait (they did), that doesn’t change the fact that a lot of white supremacists and ethno-nationalists have since adopted it. I find it sad that we live in a time where something so innocuous is given such a heinous meaning (in certain circles and contexts), but here we are. I see Blizzard’s stance on this as the most cautious imaginable, wanting to present OWL as the most squeaky-clean, mass-marketable product possible. If there’s even a chance of something being connected to a despicable subculture like white supremacy and ethno-nationalism, they’ll err on the side of caution and cut it out entirely.

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Where’s this sudden nationalism coming from? Why does it matter–it’s not the world cup? Why do non-Londoners make those “”“london”"" spitfire jokes someone highlighted above if this was the reason? They’re needlessly vitriolic towards the proliferation of a specific race in the OWL. It’s prejudice.

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It’s exactly this and people are so annoyingly ambivalent about it. They go “it’s just a funny face xd” but it ONLY pops up when Malik pops up on-screen? Sounds sus.

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I understand about the TriHard thing , but the emote itself isnt racist. By removing TriHard people will only do it more as they know it causes drama so other emotes like KevinTurtle or CmonBruh will be used. Its impossible to remove this sort of thing as its the person typing is the one at fault which can never be changed as these people exist unfortunately. This can be said in all games and community which is not just exclusive to Twitch chat .

Okay. People are racist.

Got that.

How exactly under any blue sky do you see this as being the games or communities fault or responsibility.

Do you hold entire nations to that? Or just a few cities? How about 300 people who play a video game?

This is a stupid notion at best that literally has no impact. One that doesn’t offer solutions. Nor implore discussion. It’s a non-argument.

“I know these people are racist, so let’s do something about it”. There is nothing you can do. Those people are ignorant and won’t be convinced 99.999999% of the time. So why waste your time at all? Bored. Whatever. Still a waste of time being an SJW basically.

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