Pride month has rolled around again and this means that many online games are shipping out pride cosmetics however, players that choose to use these cosmetics may be in for more than they bargained for.
Online lobbies are known for being incredibly toxic spaces especially toward female and queer gamers while this toxicity getting even worse in competitive spaces.
It is no surprise then that players have been reporting repeated harassment whenever they use one of these pride cosmetics.
The toxicity isn’t limited to in game either and can be found on any post online even related to pride events.
Announcement posts
On June 1, the official PlayOverwatch Instagram and Twitter/X accounts put out a post announcing the return of the pride event for a second year.
This year’s event includes all of last year’s content as well as cosmetics related to Overwatch’s newest hero, the non-binary archaeologist Venture.
The post was immediately flooded with toxic comments, which applies to almost every official Overwatch post to be fair, despite the fact that Overwatch is probably the gayest shooter on the market and has been since day one.
To this day, any post about Venture will have a comment section full of people purposely misgendering them and refusing to use the correct pronouns.
The game features six confirmed queer characters including the beloved poster-girl Tracer.
This sort of harassment happens on other social media platforms and too other games such as Call of Duty, Apex Legends and Helldivers 2.
In game harassment
Hate speech, homophobia and transphobia are very much commonplace in online lobbies and have been since the dawn of Xbox Live.
However, targeted and unprovoked harassment on this scale is deeply disturbing.
Many players, myself included, have reported repeated harassment the second they load into lobbies with any pride cosmetics equipped.
Homophobia and biphobia are very prominent, but transphobia is by far the most vicious and disturbing.
While most developers (Blizzard included) censor profanity in text chat and ban outright hate speech, the system is very easy for bigots to get around by simply replacing a letter or two with a number or symbol and adding in some spaces.
If players are playing on the same platform as they will also be able to use direct messages to further harass their victims.
Last June, around half of all matches I played involved some manner of hate speech being used.
One interesting thing to observe was that hate speech was a lot more common to come from enemy players than allies so it appears that the desire to win may be more powerful than some peoples bigotry.
Art imitates life
This trend of increased harassment is not something exclusive to the world of video games.
Instead, it reflects a real-world spike in threats against the LGBTQ+ community and pride events worldwide.
In 2023 and 2024, members of the queer community have reported increaced threats of violence against themselves and pride event organisers have seen a massive spike in threats to their events.
The threats have gotten so numerous and extreme that the United States Department of Homeland Defence and Federal Bureau of Investigation felt the need to issue a joint public service announcement about the potential threat at pride events.
The announcement claims that the threat comes from ISIS and their sympathisers however many queer people believe that domestic far right extremists are just as much if not more of a threat.
Corporations also seem to be feeling the heat of this anti LGBTQ+ pressure with some companies such as Target feeling the need to pull their pride collection from shelves in certain areas out of fears for worker safety.
This massive spike in vitriol is not all too surprising given the increasingly polarized state of western politics and the numerous elections taking place in 2024.
Is this game over?
This constant spew of hatred and relentless torrent of threats may make many queer gamers want to hide away, avoid pride events and unequip any pride cosmetics in games to protect themselves.
But that is the one thing we must never do!
If you hide yourself away or climb back into the closet, then you would give the bigots exactly what they want.
Of course, you need to protect yourself in the real world, but don’t you dare let bigots and assholes push you around in your favourite games.
So, stand tall, stand with pride, and don’t let these digital bullies push you around because that is all they are, pathetic little bullies.
Equip your flag, fly it high and maybe kick a few homophobes’ digital asses while you’re at it, yeah?
Be better than them, be better than their hateful words and try to remember that while these bigots may be very vocal, they are still the minority.
Featured image credit: Activision/Blizzard
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