Mediaboss Marketing

Former Overwatch pro Silkthread recently recounted how he was fined $1000 dollars by Blizzard for a tweet concerning Pepe the Frog.

On a July 23rd Twitch stream, Silkthread, whose name is Ted Wang, shared the original email he received when the incident took place in 2018.

The email details that during season one of the league, Silkthread tweeted, Does anyone else love Pepe the frog?

Related: Overwatch League Analyst MonteCristo Insinuates Riot Games New Fist Bump Logo is Sexist

It provoked a response shortly after. The social media manager for the Los Angeles Valiant, Wangs Overwatch team, demanded he delete the tweet immediately.

Wang did delete the tweet, but not before the eyes of the Overwatch League caught it. He was fined $1,000 dollars for the post.

The email he received from the Overwatch League began, This behavior is unacceptable. Your comments violate the spirit of diversity and inclusiveness that makes Overwatch great.

It continued, Comments like yours will not be tolerated by anyone associated with the Overwatch League. Your conduct also violates the letter and spirit of the Overwatch Leagues Official Rules and your Overwatch League Player Professional Services Agreement.

The email then informed him he was being fined $1000, Accordingly, the League Office has determined to impose a $1,000 fine for posting support for a racist meme.

Related: Overwatch League Players Fined $1000 Each for Inappropriate Chat During a League Match

Your Team will be directed to withhold the amount of your fine from your salary until fully paid. This discipline is without prejudice to any other discipline or remedies that the Team may have as your employer, the email stated.

He was able to appeal the fine, citing that he was unaware of the cartoon frog being interpreted as a hate symbol.

According to Wang, he even paid a $60 Uber to go to Burbank just to dispute the fine.

He explained, If you guys want to know what happened, I ended up paying like a $60 Uber to get to Burbank and I disputed the fine. And the dispute worked and I didnt get fined. And thats the story guys.

After telling viewers the interesting anecdote, Silkthread would have a moment of hindsight.

Related: Blizzard Removes McCrees Noose Spray in Latest Overwatch Update

Thinking back, it probably would have been smarter to take the fine, he said. It would be pretty f***ing cool to be legacized as the person that got fined for tweeting about Pepe the Frog. That would be pretty epic.

Its unclear if this rule is still in effect. Back in March 2018, an Overwatch League spokesperson told Dot Esports, The Overwatch League discourages the use of symbols and imagery which are associated with or used by hate groups, including Pepe the Frog.

They added, At Blizzard Arena, its our policy that fans comply with this policy. We likewise ask the same of Overwatch League teams and players on their social-media accounts.

At the time a number of players deleted their Pepe the Frog memes that they had posted to Twitter.

Jay sinatraa Won indicated he deleted a Pepe the Frog birthday meme.

Esports reporter Rod Breslau reported New York Excelsior DPS Kim Pine Do-hyeon deleted a photo of his phone case that featured Pepe the Frog.

Related: Report: Blizzard Forbids Okay Symbol in Overwatch League Arena Claims Its a White Power Symbol

Its unclear if the Pepe the Frog ban is still in effect. Dallas Fuel player Dylan akm Bignet did post a Pepe the Frog birthday meme back in December.

Related: TheScore Esports Daniel Rosen Applauds Blizzards Reported Decision to Ban Okay Sign in Overwatch League Arena

While its unclear what Blizzard and the Overwatch Leagues current policy on Pepe the Frog is, they did begin enforcing a ban on using the okay symbol last year.

What do you make of the Overwatch League trying to fine Silkthread for a Pepe the Frog meme?

(Visited 740 times, 31 visits today)

Read more here:
Former Overwatch Pro Silkthread Reveals Blizzard Tried To Fine Him $1000 For Pepe The Frog Tweet - Bounding Into Comics

As the world was forced into lockdown at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Alex Lee Moyers documentary TFW No GF was released online. The film focuses on an internet subculture of predominately young, white men who already experienced much of life from the comfort of their own homes, pandemic notwithstanding.

Its title, a reference to the 4chan-originated phrase that feel when no girlfriend, reveals the essence of its subjects grievances described in the South by Southwest (SXSW) film festival program as first a lack of romantic companionship, then evolving to a greater state of existence defined by isolation, rejection and alienation. As one of the films subjects remarks early on: Everyone my age kinda just grows up on the internet 4chan was the only place that seemed real I realized there were other people going through the same shit.

READ MORE

What does this level of alienation tell us about society today? And how seriously should we take the content found on this online patchwork of messaging boards and forums, each with its own language and visual culture that may at first seem humorous or ironic, but often disguises misogyny, racism and violence? These are difficult and urgent questions, particularly given the emergent incel phenomenon incel being a portmanteau of involuntary celibate which appears to be gaining in strength online.

The idea of virtual expressions of alienation and rage translating to actual violence remains a real and present danger, as we were reminded of this May when a teenager became the first Canadian to be charged with incel-inspired terrorism. The documentary, however, avoids confronting the violence that this subculture often glorifies, and the director has since stated that the film was never supposed to be about incels but that it had become impossible to discuss it without the term coming up.

As it turns out, the men we meet in TFW No GF appear to be largely harmless except perhaps to themselves and despite the documentarys lack of narrative voice, it takes a patently empathetic stance. Set against the backdrop of industrial landscapes and empty deserts, this is a United States in decline. Here, role models and opportunities lie thin on the ground, and the closest thing to community exists in virtual realms. Each self-described NEET slang for not in education, employment or training has his own tale of alienation: of alcoholic parents, dead friends or a disenfranchisement with the school system.

For those who study internet subcultures, the memes of Pepe the Frog and Wojak explored in the film will be familiar. Pepe is used as a reaction image, typically in the guises of feels good man, and smug/angry/sad Pepe and, although not created to have racist connotations, is frequently used in bigoted contexts by the alt-right. Wojak, AKA feels guy, is typically depicted as a bald man with a depressed expression.

One of the documentarys subjects, Kantbot, explains that you cant have one without the other thats the duality of man. For these men, Pepe represents the troll self, a public persona that embodies their smug and cocky traits. Wojak denotes a more private and vulnerable self, typified by inadequacy, unfulfillment and sadness. At its core, it is this dichotomy that the documentary seeks to explore, whilst at the same time demanding our sympathies.

On the surface, the men in TFW No GF are united by their failure in finding female partners, a theme which permeates the manosphere that includes Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW) and incels. This latter identity has garnered particular attention in recent years due to the spate of incel violence witnessed in North America, most infamously Eliot Rodgers Isla Vista attacks in California in 2014 that left six people dead. According to Moonshot CVE, incels believe that genetic factors influence their physical appearance and/or social abilities to the extent that they are unattractive to women, with some subscribing to the philosophy of the blackpill namely, that women are shallow and naturally select partners based upon looks, stifling the chances of unattractive men to find a partner and procreate.

Incels are a diverse and nebulous community, their worldview characterized by a virulent brand of nihilism seen through the prism of a three-tiered social hierarchy dictated by looks. Here, incels find themselves at the bottom of the pile, after normies, Chads and Stacys. Whilst instances of real-world violence perpetrated by incels remain in relatively low in numbers, its potential to mutate into an offline phenomenon is rightly a cause for concern, with Bruce Hoffman et al., making a convincing argument for increased law enforcement scrutiny, noting that the most violent manifestations of this ideology pose a new terrorism threat.

A counterterrorism approach alone, however, is unlikely to address the reasons why so many young men (and women: see femcels) are drawn to these virtual worlds. If self-reported narratives on forums such as Incels.net and Incels.co are anything to go by, low self-esteem, bullying and mental health issues are rife. An acknowledgment of the pain, rejection and illness that someone may be suffering from is surely required, however unpalatable that is when faced with the abhorrent imagery and rhetoric that may espouse. Underlying all of this is the need for response based in public health.

However, the documentarys empathic approach has been criticized, with The Guardian accusing it of misinformation, particularly in its portrayal of 4chan and the like as harmless, and Rolling Stone criticizing the films acceptance of events without challenging the communities support of violence, misogyny and racism. In this sense, the film is reminiscent of the 2016 documentary The Red Pill, which followed Cassie Jays journey into the world of mens rights activists, similarly focusing on one side of an ever-complicated debate. Thus, showing compassion should ultimately not be a way of avoiding the difficult conversations and, in the case of inceldom, a failure to do so could be seen as irresponsible.

As a researcher of internet subcultures, documentaries like TFW no GF are valuable in so much as we are granted a rare perspective of these men in their own words. Despite the films selectivity and subjectivity representing a small sample of the infinite experiences and beliefs held by those in this expansive community it provides us with a vignette of the online spaces that allow for certain hateful ideas to flourish and be sustained.

For some, the strange and often hostile world of online messaging boards provides a much-needed connection when other doors are closed. For others, they contribute to a more misogynistic, racist and at times violent way of perceiving the world. As COVID-19 continues to rage on, forcing more of us to shift our lives online, the ability to understand and combat deeply entrenched loneliness as well as its potential to intersect with extreme and even violent corners of the internet will be essential.

*[The Centre for Analysis of the Radical Rightis a partner institution ofFair Observer.]

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observers editorial policy.

Here is the original post:
Young Men, Alienation and Violence in the Digital Age - Fair Observer

The creator of Pepe the Frog the comic character that became an alt-right-troll meme attempts to reclaim his creation in the new trailer for Feels Good Man, a documentary about cartoonist Matt Furie and the unintentional evolution of his anthropomorphized amphibian.

In the trailer for the Sundance award-winning film, Furies beloved happy little frog is co-opted by white-supremacy groups, which the cartoonist helplessly witnesses. Im just a spectator to how things evolved on the internet, Furie says in the preview.

In November 2016, a nasty election cycle had exposed a seismic cultural rift, and the country suddenly felt like a much different place. For underground cartoonist Matt Furie, that sensation was even more surreal. Furies comic creation Pepe the Frog, conceived more than a decade earlier as a laid-back humanoid amphibian, had unwittingly become a grotesque political pawn, the documentarys synopsis states. Feels Good Man is a Frankenstein-meets-Alice in Wonderland journey of an artist battling to regain control of his creation while confronting a disturbing cast of characters who have their own peculiar attachments to Pepe.

The Arthur Jones-directed doc arrives on September 4th.

See original here:
Pepe the Frog Creator Tries to Reclaim Meme in Feels Good Man Doc Trailer - Rolling Stone

Pepe the Frog celebrated his fifteenth birthday this year, but chances are you first stumbled upon him during the 2016 US election in the pungent depths of a racist Twitter thread. That was the year when Matt Furies cartoon went from being a happy little frog to becoming the unexpected mascot of the alt-right movement.

The history behind Pepe is complicated bordering on indecipherable, much like anything that grew to prominence on 4chan, the controversial anonymous message board that has long harboured racists, sexists and political extremists. The cartoon first appeared as a meme on the forum in 2008 after being lifted from Furies 'Boys Club #1' comic strip, and it gained such popularity that even Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj shared Pepe images on social media. Eight years later it was official recognised as a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League. So what changed?

Feels Good Man, the Sundance award-winning documentary from Arthur Jones, follows Furie around as he attempts to repair his infamous cartoons reputation. But can Pepe be redeemed, or is he better left to fester with the white supremacists of the world? The fact that he has recently been co-opted by Hong Kong protestors would suggest that Furis frog still wields some power; that his prominent place in politics is, bafflingly, far from over.

Describing the film, director Jones says: The movie is really about him negotiating that uncomfortable reality for himself, [...] Matts personal journey really makes the movie really unique that I hope a lot of people find satisfying for a lot of reasons.

First and foremost, its a story about how powerless we become after we put something into the world. As Furie says: Im just a spectator to how things evolved on the internet.

Feels Good Man will be available streaming and on demand in the US on 4 September. A UK date is yet to be announced.

Like this article? Sign up to our newsletter to get more articles like this delivered straight to your inbox

SIGN UP

Need some positivity right now? Subscribe to Esquire now for a hit of style, fitness, culture and advice from the experts

SUBSCRIBE

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io

This commenting section is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page. You may be able to find more information on their web site.

Read more here:
'Feels Good Man' Will Try To Save Pepe The Frog, The Innocent Cartoon That Became A Hate Symbol - esquire.com

In preparation for the world premiere of the Muppets first-ever streaming show, Muppets Now, Kermit the Frog will conduct a video chat to break the news that Disney+ has ordered six half-hour muppisodes premiering July 31. With a full roster of rotating guest stars, world-class production facilities, and pure unscripted mayhem, Muppets Now breaks new ground for the gang in their Disney+ debut.

The Muppets are thrilled to be doing our first-ever unscripted show! Its going to be extremely spontaneous and very surprising; almost as surprising as the fact that weeveractually used a script in the past.

This is moi unfiltered, unexpurgated, and more unbelievably fabulous than ever. If you watch only one show on Disney+ ,you really should tune in more often. But whenever you watch, make it moi onMuppets Now.

For the first time ever, Im working without a joke book, folks. Its a new kind of totally improvised comedy I call bare bear! See what I did there? Ahh! Wocka! Wocka!

I knewMuppets Nowwas coming to Disney+ but I did NOT know they wantedMuppets Now NOW, as in right away, as in doesnt anybody give a warning around here!? Gotta go upload those episodes pronto! Wish me luck; Ill need it.

This seasons celebrity guests include entertainers, comedians, chefs, and more. Fans wont want to miss all-new improvised comedy segments from their favorite Muppets including Miss Piggy, Beaker, Camilla, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo the Great, Kermit the Frog, Pepe the King Prawn, The Swedish Chef, Scooter, Uncle Deadly, among others.

Disney+ is the streaming home for the Muppets collection where Muppets Now will join an assortment of fan-favorite Muppet movies, series, and shorts.

Produced by The Muppets Studio and Soapbox Films, Muppets Now premieres Friday, July 31, streaming only on Disney+. New episodes will be released every Friday.

Go here to read the rest:
Disney Plus "Muppets Now" Zoom Video Call With Kermit the Frog And Friends - We Are Movie Geeks