@Gaff said:
And before people bring up Kayo Police or Ricky Ortiz: having one transgendered or openly gay individual among the ranks does not mean that the community is suddenly "the pinnacle of tolerance and acceptance".
And before people bring up Aris and SuperYan: Having one sexist member among our ranks does not suddenly mean that we are "the pinnacle of sexism and intolerance.
You ignore my fact that I stated that there is no UNITED FGC. Unlike SC2, there is no major league, there is no cohesive circuit that leads to the World Championship of SC2. There are a ridiculous amount of circuits that have nothing to do with EVO. We have no united community. We have a shit ton of facets; Eventhubs, SRK, Iplaywinner, r/sf4, and many more. We are in no way united, but we all get together at EVO. Before you attempt to formulate an articulate opinion, why don't you attempt to understand the entire community?
I am writing this essay in between SF4 rounds, smoking cigarettes, drinking beers, so excuse my lack cohesion.
My intro: I am a member of the FGC. I play SSF4ae daily, check eventhubs, SRK, Iplaywinner and R/Sf4 with great fervor. I currently have 3100pp on PSN using Hakan, and 3400pp on XBL using Hakan. I have been playing fighting games since about 2007-8~. I started playing as Zappa in GGx2. I dedicated an enormous amount of time to understanding the game, and when I hit a brickwall, I found myself delving into dustloop.com in an attempt to get a grasp on how the combo system worked. I found enormous amounts of help within the small communities of Weeaboos that inhabit that forum. I also found a bastion within SRK. And I am eternally grateful for how they treated me, as this was absolutely paramount to my interest in FGs.
A short year later, SF4 was starting to come out and many people got excited and got caught up in the "release fever." I was one of the many that got caught up. So I bought it on its release day. I popped it in my Xbox360 and have been completely enveloped by the game since. EventHubs sprang up and I immediately was a follower, I spent just as much time in the game as I did researching the game. Weeks after the release of SF4, SRKs forums were littered with helpful advice and encouraging words for me to continue my support. I explored and delved headfirst into the genre. Completely engrossed by this one game, I spent all my online time dedicated to beating people, and learning from my mistakes when I lost. I was an online warrior. Hovering a little over 1000pp I was proud of my accomplishment, willing to brag it to any of my friends. This continued and continued to grow for several years.
Fastfoward to around the year of my graduation from High School; I felt confident in my abilities in SSF4. And I started attending local tourneys and get togethers. The first time I met the self-proclaimed SF4 champ of KC, Axiom, .... I whooped his ass with my Deejay. Then I beat him with Seth, my secondary at the time. I felt great. It was awesome to play him in a noncompetitive environment and show him what I was made of. Then the community died, we lost our local spot to play FGs. We would have weekly roundtables, but they were at various people's houses and I was never able to attend. For months this continued, as I lamented in my inability to play with my new found friends. Then, finally, a tournament happened at a local Magic card shop. I returned my full glory..... I was knocked into the losers bracket in the first round by Axiom, who proceeded to yell at me from across the room how I was "fucking free", I left, embarrassed, and have yet to return. That was around one year ago.
As you can tell from my origins, I do not understand nor condone shittalking within the FG community. I have yet to work up the courage to show my face back, shit talking is completely toxic to the community. I have continued to follow the FGC closely since my exile. I am planning on attending EVO this year as well.
Anyways, that's who I am. I am a member of the FGC.
How I see this controversy:
First---- Let us respond to how people think that the FGC is giving Patrick the cold shoulder—-
From the select links that I checked, Patrick has asked via Twitter for a direct response from Team Sp00ky, LordOfUltima, and various faces that form the FG community. The problem is that none of the aforementioned names represent any large part of the FGC. They are not spokesmen, they are members. Their opinion is moot. Their opinion is just that; THEIR opinion. NOT the opinion of the FGC.
Team Sp00ky mostly represents the East Side mentality of FGC. Which entails mostly shit talking, calling each other faggots/niggas/dicks, saying politically incorrect shit and laughing it off. Also they end most of their sentences with “Godlike” or “Swag.” Team Spooky has no PR person, and they have no idea how to respond directly with the press. It probably is for the best. , as the east side represents the most archaic ideology out of any subFGC. Jeff explained this antiquated ideology the best in the latest podcast.
Asking LordofUltima for a response is absolutely ridiculous. The only thing LordofUltima has done is help the rise of a new character. All he’s done is work on a video guide for Evil Ryu’s combos, and this was within the first month of his release. That’s it. He hasn’t done anything else. Expecting a response from a combo maker is absurd. He’s only a member of the community.
Patrick has also sought responses from various other sources, such as Skisonic or NYCFurby (Aurturo). These people would be too busy to involve themselves with another scandal. As both, Skisonic and Aurturo are themselves in the midst of a scandal already. Mike Ross and Jago are suspected of throwing their matches to build hype and make money off of advertising and streams. That’s a real controversy, instead of that this one.
If you want to get the gut reaction of the community, check the SRK comments on articles pertaining to this topic. That’s how we feel about it.
Secondly, Let’s discuss how Aris got onto CrossAssault and how the community is expected to answer for his words.
-As Justin Wong is to Street Fighter, Aris is to Tekken. He is a man who has spent an enormous amount of time dedicated to bettering the US Tekken scene. He is a proficient player; he has a personality that puts him beyond the identity of just “that guy that’s good at Tekken.” He became a mascot after he proposed marriage to the transgender Japanese girl Kayo Police. It was not at the whim of the FGC to put Aris in front of a Capcom sponsored stream, it was Capcom’s decision. If Capcom followed the Tekken scene with a slight bit of interest, they would understand that giving Aris a live microphone was like giving a child a handgun. People would get hurt. He is a person who represents a very archaic idea of how FGs work.-- You talk shit, you have fun, you leave – This was how old FGCs worked. In my opinion, Aris was just tongue tied with a microphone in his face and misspoke. He was defending the archaic ideology of shittalking, and it got mistaken as sexism. But I cannot speak for certain on what Aris meant, the only one that can speak for certain what Aris meant is Aris himself. Capcom can give an official explanation but that only goes so far. It is solely Aris is responsible for his words.
- The idea of Phoenix being a bitch is completely accurate, and it was a bad analogy by the questioner. Phoenix was a character in MVC3 that, after out playing her for 90 seconds, could destroy you in less than five seconds without an ounce of skill. She was a bitch. If Phoenix was a male character, she would be a bitch. There is no way around it. If you played Vanilla MVC3, you would understand how that this character could completely undermine your skill with pure luck.
Third- What has the FGC done in response?
Well SRK has posted two articles in response, and has given a both the Goodcop and Badcop touch on the issue. The first was more of a “c’mon everybody” motif. The second was more of a “put your foot down” motif.
Eventhubs has posted the apology from Aris, and the outlook on the situation from Mike Ross, Gooteks, and ReNic.
All of the comments have been in spite of Aris and supporting openness within the community. If you are expecting to change 20 year old ideologies within a week, you are sadly mistaken. We are working the best we can.
In Closing.
We are working as hard as we can to fix this problem. But before then please attempt to meet the FGC halfway, and we ask for a bit of understanding. We are a 20 year old community and attempting to understand us within a week is a fool’s errand. We cannot fix this problem while people are relentlessly attacking us for not fixing this problem fast enough. The only thing you are encouraging is further reclusion by the FGC. Even people that disagreed with Aris’ words will only find allies within the FGC. Resulting in an even further locked down FGC.
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