Boards›General Discussion

People seem to miss the point on why the name "Neeko" is offensive

Ozzie Storm·11/21/2018, 8:29:33 AM·9 votes·2,658 views

look, imagine if instead of "Faker" he was named "%%%%er" or "Foker", a probably totally fine name in Korean yet inappropriate in the western world. I doubt in the LCS they would be saying "%%%%er" over and over for years straight without asking him for a name change.

Yes, this is a player's name vs a character's name but i'm taking about the environment in which said names/ words are getting used. Different language or not, the language used should be friendly to a degree due to the targeted audience being relatively.

One thing people seem to miss about why the name Neeko is offensive. While an acceptable and technically speaking "%%%% him" is a correct translation, the word is more used as a more uglier and direct offence as in "Rape him" which i don't think anyone is ok with.

Also it's not that Riot is oblivious about meanings in Arabic. Taric is an arabic name and was inspired said the language meaning "the knocker" (confirmed by riot), so i'm surprised they let the name Neeko, which is highly offensive, slip through like that.

19 Comments

Jinzaburo11/21/2018, 8:33:50 AM9 votes

They're facing a lawsuit right now, it aligns with their political agenda. They need to create an entity to show people women have not lost the "battle of the sexes" at their company

Worst Brad Japan11/21/2018, 8:39:00 AM2 votes

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/2d/Niko_Bellic.jpg/200px-Niko_Bellic.jpg https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/facts-of-everything/images/5/51/Niko_B.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150110113141 https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/the-libertonian/images/a/a9/NikoUser3.png/revision/latest?cb=20170919022018 http://i.imgur.com/EHuxhyP.png

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oD8tj3eBls

How's that for being offensive ?

Stand Alone Wolf11/21/2018, 8:52:44 AM2 votes

About as insulting as Enfart, and Asfart. (Don't think I spelled those correctly.) Neeko means something in 12 different languages. It's only natural that kids immediately take from it the negative connotation. With people constantly pointing it out, I do believe it should be changed. Take an "E", and change it to an "I". Even if it's pronounced differently ie: Neko, or different stressing of the "E"'s.

Then again, it would be an embarrassing move on Riots part, and they wouldn't want their pride hurt having thrown the name out there, and then said: "Due to such-and-such, her name has been changed through her story/bio, as well as in-game."

Stand Alone Wolf11/21/2018, 9:21:39 AM2 votes

Okay, so I've done some looking, and it seems it was looked over, because League of Legends doesn't specifically cater to that region, which explains why it went through. Although still embarrassing for them, Arabic people live all over, and to the ones that do play League, they need to connect using the EUW region.

That's not justification no, but again it explains how it got through. Since it's not where they release their game, it is over-looked, but with how much popularity League has, it should've been expected that something like this could happen.

Jinzaburo11/21/2018, 8:53:26 AM1 votes

All I'm saying is Neeko is a symbol to women's rights. I don't care what her name means in whatever languages lol.

ModStyx11/21/2018, 9:02:21 AM1 votes

If it's a deep concern of yours, you can always bring it up to Riot's attention directly by submitting a support ticket here, and selecting the "General League of Legends question" request type.

Within every language there are bound to be certain phrases/words that will sound similar to a derogatory one. It isn't Riot's stance to try and purposely offend people, and clearly this isn't the case with Neeko.

Stand Alone Wolf11/21/2018, 8:42:16 AM1 votes

I've been seeing a lot of "Their political agenda" posts (Without any actual information/proof) Whats going on?