Ah, thanks. Was nice to think there might be some logic behind their decision to make a sudden swap while they are missing a key player.

I would assume they are subbing in Cocco for OGE because they are worried about the language barrier without Effect there as a bridge. That said, very disappointing that they obviously have done nothing to improve these teamwork issues they've known about since the beginning of the season. At times, it feels like we're watching people who specifically don't want to play together.

It's sad, but this situation is actually quite common with guys around that age group. I cannot even count how many guys (online and in real life) have made sexual comments and advances towards me when I was 12-16, and at the time I was too young to understand that it was "wrong." Somehow, they made it seem so normal. And the ones who do it with a lot of girls know exactly how to reel them in.

I was 15 when I was pressured into a sexual situation with a friend of a friend (I think he was 20). He was basically a stranger, I'd only met him that day. It is difficult to describe how I felt at the time, but my thoughts were something like "He likes me, and he'll like me more if I do this," and I barely had enough time to ask myself if it was really what I wanted, let alone how I might feel about it later. I'm glad my nerves overwhelmed me and I stopped him before long. I learned later that he did this with many young girls with low self esteem--he knew they would be easy targets. And until writing this, the age difference never even came to mind, only the sleaziness and feeling like I was manipulated.

Even now, I'm not comfortable thinking about it.

Anyway...people here really underestimate the natural human desire of a young teenager to feel accepted, especially by those we look up to.

I think people are looking at this as a singular incident and the punishment, rather than at the consequences or implication if Blizzard chose not to reprimand him in a meaningful way. The danger of publicly using racist humor in a setting that is not explicitly built for it risks more than just offending people, it risks some people using it as validation for genuinely racist beliefs. This danger grows the larger the audience is, and grows even more when the individual/platform is sponsored by influential companies.

It is completely different for comedic settings. They are understood to be offensive for laughter, and not meant as discrimination.

Now, in this specific case, did the offense warrant the harsh punishment? I don't necessarily agree, but I think Blizzard is probably getting a bit tired of having to deal with these issues and are trying hard to make the punishment substantial enough for these players to start taking their public image much more seriously. They probably realized by now that a few thousand grand is not as important to them than their streaming.

Note I'm Asian, female, don't take offense to humor, often say words that many here would frown upon, but know better than to do that in front of people I am not familiar with.