The following is V1lat's rather long Telegram post from three days ago (notably, before TobiWan got accused) on the topic of recent sexual assault allegations against multiple English-speaking talents, translated into English by me. Disclaimer: sexual assault isn't nearly as much of a sensitive issue in CIS countries as it is in the West, so this might've contributed to his tone and attitide. If you disagree, I just ask you to remain polite and not to shoot the messenger.
Over the weekend there's been a multitude of Twitter posts related to sexual assault in the Dota community at various events. It's great that this topic is being brought up - I understand how hard it is to go public with issues like this - but what's not so great is the sheer amount of these. It's awful that so many women were assaulted, but it's also awful that many of these posts were, frankly, exaggerated.
Sexual assault and sexism in general certainly exist in esports, and we should strive to fix that. But we should also carefully read into these stories and separate actual assault victims from blatant attention-seekers.
I've worked in esports for quite a while and I've been at a lot of afterparties around the world. I've seen a lot. I've seen girls aggressively flirt with players, stalk them in the hotel lobby, beg them for an afterparty invite, a VIP pass or sneak them into the players-only zone. This happened to both players and talents, and it happened constantly, from the very first tournaments I've worked on.
Esports has many genuinely professional and cool female talents. Some of them work behind the camera, while some are on-screen. But everything they do to rid this intrustry of sexism goes out the window when you go to any afterparty and see how the so-called "community members", "cosplayers" and "bloggers" behave there. It's not exactly a secret that Arteezy, Miracle, Ramzes, Abed, Capitalist and Toby are very desirable members of the community, and there's a lot of girls who are willing to do a lot to get into their "circle". For some, these people are genuine role models that they would gladly have a beer with, but mostly they treat it as an opportunity to ascend above ordinary fans, to attend tournaments and have access to places mere mortals can't. And if you're a streamer, then it's an opportunity to promote your channel via a big-name player or talent.
Believe me, there's a crapton of these sort of girls at esports events. And most importantly, normal women despise these "groupies" as well, because they don't contribute anything to the afterparty atmosphere. You can't relax and have a light-hearted chat with colleagues when there's a mob of Instagrammers bragging about how they got into this "exclusive party". It's maddening, and I've been fighting against inviting these so-called "fangirls" for a long time.
When I was working at Starladder, I remember a girl that stood outside the back entrance into the Cyber Arena with a knife and threatened to cut her veins if we didn't escort her to her favorite player. It was actually pretty scary.
At some tournaments the organizers tried to lock down the afterparties, making them invite-only and checking everyone against a list, but nevertheless these girls (the kind that hang out in a CM cosplay by the day, with Secret players by the night, with Na'Vi players the next tournament and English casters the one after that) managed to sneak in.
My point is that the term "groupies" has existed for a while, and there's nothing bad, shameful or sexist about pointing that out. We have to differentiate between men and women who were actual assault victims and the typical "groupies", who maybe were expecting something and didn't get it.
So, to women: if you had situations in esports or your life in general that you were afraid to mention (because you didn't want to ruin your career or something), don't be afraid to speak out. And please, I beg you - stop supporting the girls who are only there for the attention and try to collect some cheap hype at someone else's expense.
P.S. One thing I know for sure: from this point onwards, team managers wouldn't allow cosplayers and other guests anywhere near their players at afterparties. And that's great! I've been trying to achieve that for 10 years! Maybe because of this, afterparties will finally become a chill place for players to unwind after the tournament.
(added 2 hours later)
There's one thing in particular that I would like to mention, though.
Every time there's a game casted by Mila, SKsun4ik, Autodestruction, Eiritel (prominent CIS female casters) or a tournament hosted by Marple, Twitch chat becomes pure hell. It's not just sexism, it's utter bullshit.
I have no idea who brought up these people and how, whether they say the same things to their mothers and sisters or only on Twitch, protected by anonymity.
Your degenerate jokes on Twitch is also harassment, except even worse because it's collective.
This saddens me a lot. I understand why our community is so toxic and I even understand that I'm partially responsible for it, but I still don't get why this community is so backwards specifically regarding women.
