The 14 Day Ban Experience

Game 1 TheFoxWolf: that four bot TheFoxWolf: :/ TheFoxWolf: Right after TheFoxWolf: I die TheFoxWolf: :/ TheFoxWolf: Saltaric TheFoxWolf: we'll rape late and in team fights TheFoxWolf: Keep outnumbering us TheFoxWolf: =/ TheFoxWolf: Yo, thanks for the help Karth TheFoxWolf: This karthus TheFoxWolf: is giving me brain-auids TheFoxWolf: we got big ass ganks TheFoxWolf: smh TheFoxWolf: so fucking useless TheFoxWolf: I'm pretty certain Karthus is feeding TheFoxWolf: And I've muted him because he's a f-- TheFoxWolf: F--

The Karthus said things that got to me early on and I exploded at them way later even though I muted them a long time ago. I'm not going to defend how I acted. Overall though, I don't know how to feel about the entire thing. On one hand, I never got punished before and bam 14 day ban. The second highest punishment possible. On the other - to be painfully honest probably to my own detriment - I know that I've raged at people before and it's typically been trolls. So maybe this is just catching up.

The thing that's always crawling in the back of my head though is something that I actually do have a contention with. So suppose I never said F** and we replace it with any other kind of verbal attack. Would I still get a 14 day ban then or did dropping two F-bombs specifically make the punishment more severe? If the latter is the way it is then I'm cool with that. Otherwise, I think the hate speech policy needs to be challenged. The only thing that deserves a zero tolerance policy are zero tolerance policies because they lack nuance.

I genuinely feel a part of my soul chip away every time I have to advertise this to have even the slightest bit of credibility but here it goes, I'm a gay man. And I advertise this because if I don't then there's a good chance I'm either homophobic for having views on hate speech that aren't PC or I'm just a straight white male that can't comment on the subject because they supposedly don't understand hate speech. And let me make this clear, I'm not a right-wing self-hating gay man who feels ashamed of their sexuality. I'm an atheist who doesn't have any religious baggage and I feel that it's inconsequential. Inconsequential which is to say, I actually don't like making disclaimers on my sexuality to have an opinion about something actually be respected or considered. Which is why I'm about to go on a spiel against hate speech policy because it kind of ties into this.

The first issue I have with hate speech (in the context of LoL) is that it's redundant. It shouldn't matter what someone is called, abusive behavior is still abusive behavior. That's why if the fourteen day ban was given regardless of the two F-bombs or me insulting them and calling them every other name in the book that I'm cool with it, because I was being abusive. I accept the consequences completely and I'm more at peace knowing that my punishment was well-reasoned. As for hate speech? Well, I mean, kind of doesn't make sense in context to what I said a paragraph ago, but even without that it still shouldn't change anything. If someone's straight and they throw around those words it's incredibly presumptuous to assume they're automatically racist or homophobic. So in this case not only is it redundant but it also relies too heavily on speculation. If they were looking to be abusive then that's all that needs to be done is to punish them for being abusive. But suppose the person is homophobic and they threw around those words. So maybe the hate speech label is actually correct in this case, but what has it actually achieved? At the end of the day they were being abusive, the fact that it's hate speech doesn't actually matter.

Finally, I guess I'll share why I throw F** around. Which again, I acknowledge that I deserve to be punished for using it in the context of being abusive, because I clearly was. The N-word has become the equivalent to Voldemort. He-who-must-not-be-named. We can talk about it, we can clearly reference it with the exact same context of saying it, but we can't actually say it. The word has too much power. Some places have opted to changing historical pieces of fiction that use the word and this legitimately frightens me, because one of the things that specifically makes the fiction valuable is that it was a look into another time. If we change the words to something less offensive then we lose sight of what that time actually was. We genuinely erase history. I throw around the F-bomb because it actually has no power over me and this is actually empowering. People can talk all they like about how X word has a dark history or how offensive it is but you know, it's specifically this sentiment that's giving the word so much power, and this is actually dis-empowering.

I was worried about even posting this, but I genuinely have been wondering if my abusive behavior alone brought the 14 day ban or if it was partially out of trendy sensibilities. I take great issue with hate speech having any precedent in my punishment, or for anyone else for that matter.