Behind closed doors: the racist remarks of Splatoon competitive players
Yesterday, reports came out about various Splatoon competitive players making racist remarks as well as making other unpleasant statements. This included members of the top Splatoon competitive team in North America, Jackpot. This follows a banner of their team being added to Splatoon 3 after winning the World Championships earlier this year.
The Splatoon community is one of the most diverse gaming communities around and hearing the remarks made from role models in a community that doesn't judge people for their gender, sexuality or race was upsetting.
The entire situation has left the community in a big mess and I think it's worth recapping what has happened as well as linking to some resources. I'm going to try and avoid leaving my own opinions on this so you can formulate your own opinions about the situation.
To start, before I proceed further, some people related to Jackpot and other competitive teams have issued apologies for what has happened.
Jared (Jackpot member): https://xcancel.com/_isjared_/status/1800714380054864034 .q (Jackpot member, no allegations were issued about them): https://xcancel.com/Dotqueue/status/1800877986159427772 Leafi (Jackpot member): https://xcancel.com/Leafiiii/status/1800906151380582446 Zero (former Jackpot member): https://xcancel.com/_zeroto_/status/1800708706939683311 Ren (Jackpot coach, no allegations were issued about them): https://xcancel.com/_Ren97/status/1800686264879853746 ProChara: https://xcancel.com/ProChara/status/1800604097042841704#m Arashi: https://xcancel.com/Arashiisok/status/1800720509010874653#m
This is by no means a complete list, but I'm hoping this should assist with formulating an opinion.
My timeline of events
I'm not a Twitter user, but I want to provide a timeline of stuff I was sent.
This started with a message from @[email protected] in our Matrix linking to this post https://xcancel.com/adaptability_/status/1800557391404265812 which showed various pictures that show Jackpot members making racist remarks (which includes calling people monkeys and using the n word).
I was later tagged in a Mastodon post talking about it at https://mastodon.social/@CF_Exile/112599951815182737 and I decided to ask around for more information in the Squids for Palestinian Kids Discord server (I basically have no connections to competitive Splatoon so that was the best way for me to ask about it).
In the morning, I was sent a link to https://xcancel.com/sant4naaaa/status/1800609788809683209?s=46 which contained more screenshots of competitive players, including some that weren't members of Jackpot making racist remarks. The last image seems to be false, but if it is true, it could be very damaging for Madness (one thing that really is disappointing about this whole scandal is that people aren't really sharing the Discord handles of the people making these messages so we can check whether it's true).
I was also sent a link to to Leafi editing their original apology multiple times (the one I linked above was a revised apology) and it honestly looked like people rushed making an apology without putting enough thought into it which is quite damaging. See https://xcancel.com/negative235c/status/1800618308057632888.
That's mostly the timeline I have for this situation right now which influenced my reporting on the subject through Mastodon. If you have anything else to share, tag me at @[email protected] or @[email protected].
If you want for this to be summed up in a video format, I recommend watching this video (bearing in mind it misses some apologies):
The aftermath
This situation has now inflicted the community with wounds that will take a while to repair. It's extremely disappointing that this happened in the first place, but we can only hope people learn to never do these actions again.
As expected, Nintendo is yet to say anything (they might not even be aware, which I'm assuming is the case) and the original post announcing the banners remains at https://xcancel.com/SplatoonJP/status/1798187994475864126#m
I'm really hoping I covered the main posts and points that were worth reading to get a full understanding, thanks for reading!
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