But he doesn't play Jigglypuff, y'see.
I'm not saying it's a nice community. I'm saying it's a community where when I catch an insult it's not because I'm a black dude.
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Hungrybox and the Toxic Super Smash Brothers Melee Community
- Thread starter Deleted member 9145
- Start date
In the tournament levels of the FGC you get insulted for being bad at the game, not for being a certain color. There's a level of difference there.
I love seeing people on sites like this that have never even come close to actually interacting with any of the communities they criticize over the internet, use second hand information to generalize large groups of people and hyperbolize events from their dark and dingy basements.
But I guess everyone needs a hobby.
But I guess everyone needs a hobby.
I'm highlighting the way the scene often embraces (and seemingly rewards) identity-based insults. I'm glad if your race hasn't played into that, but I've seen competitors walk away with furious tears in their eyes because they dared be East Indian, or a woman, or queer and try to compete without that being the focus of personal insults.
I can't speak for anyone else and I'm not about to say it hasn't happened to anyone who say it has to them. Nor did I.
And you can fuck right off with this disingenous shit because your post didn't actually say shit about people being attacked for their identity.
I personally do not like Hbox. He's always been overly dramatic and a bit pretentious. But outside of that, it's whatever.
His play style is also extremely boring to watch. That's where my problem with him is. Wish he'd quit Melee for that reason alone.
His play style is also extremely boring to watch. That's where my problem with him is. Wish he'd quit Melee for that reason alone.
Leffen was a really stupid kid but he did a lot of growing up in the past few years.
As for Hbox he blew me off when I tried to say hi at my first major a few years back and that seems to be the story everyone tells lol. A buddy of mine who went to school with him said he was always kind of rude so eh. Not saying he deserves to catch shit for checking his watch but it's also not just because he plays Puff
I've not been insulted for being asian or gay at FGC events nor anyone I know. I'm not saying it doesn't happen but I'm not going to pretend your specific story is evidence of some great string of racist insults meant to tilt people as you seem to be saying.
I've always thought that Hbox gets more shit thrown at him than he deserved. I've never met the guy and I barely follow Melee as it is, but it seems that most of the shit he gets boils down to that he plays a "boring" and unpopular character. His rise to unpopularity basically started with Mango saying he disliked Hungrybox for that exact reason. Now I don't know, maybe he is an ass to people at conventions, and the number of top-level players who have it out for him may support that, but it seems like a lot of anecdotal evidence, and if I were being harassed for 8 years straight, I'd be pissed too.
Leffen however has always seemed like an ass. Aside from his Evo win, all I hear about is him targeting Hungrybox on Twitter constantly for any minor thing. Leffen is welcome to his opinion, but he has a vendetta against Hbox and seems to be doing all he can to purposefully send people after him. You're supposed to be a professional. If you have a problem with the man, confront him in person, don't wait until you go home and then start inciting people online to go after him.
Leffen however has always seemed like an ass. Aside from his Evo win, all I hear about is him targeting Hungrybox on Twitter constantly for any minor thing. Leffen is welcome to his opinion, but he has a vendetta against Hbox and seems to be doing all he can to purposefully send people after him. You're supposed to be a professional. If you have a problem with the man, confront him in person, don't wait until you go home and then start inciting people online to go after him.
If I quote in my own post where I though I got this across, will you apologize?
Hbox is a well known not nice guy IRL, why do you guys think he's the only one getting all the hate nowadays, the proofs are all around. He even dismisses people who try to say hi to him (several in fact). But that doesn't justify all the punishment he's facing.
He should be getting some, for being a puff player, and delaying every other game that after Melee on big tournaments.
No. Just because you 'thought' you got something across doesn't mean you did. That you are unable to articulate your point isn't justification for you to turn around and declare that I only care cause I'm not the target. Not that you couldn't actually articulate your point, since you seemed to have no problem saying what you meant in your follow up.
You don't get to insult someone and demand they apologize to you. I would think someone with your position in this discussion would understand that.
Hungrybox rolling with the punches in the way that he does is part of the problem. Instead of just owning what he does he acts like a victim.
I'll try anyway. When I said "Even just considering how commonly the view that "head-games are a valid strategy" (re: deeply personal jabs/insults) should raise some serious red flags," that's exactly what I meant. And that was when you replied about it being not nice, but that at least it wasn't about your race. That was when I went even further about what I had seen.
You edited this post. Originally your first example was the
Line from your second post. Used as an example of where you were being clear in your first post to justify your insulting me.EDIT: In fact, you didn't use the head games line at all in the original version of this post-hoc justification.
That's how I know you're being disingenuous. You ain't slick.
I made a mistake when I put it together, and immediately edited it because it was wrong. I'm not trying to be slick. If you edit something right after posting, it doesn't show the edit comment at the bottom.
More than anything else, that's a sad indictment of how poor the conditions are in the gaming world on a basic level if a community as toxic, personally vindictive and uncaring as the FGC is the best case scenario for minority gamers.
That's irrelevant to the fact that the line you thought made it so clear what you meant wasn't actually in that original post. And, instead of going 'oh, I thought I'd included this' you doubled down and made the exact same point despite your evidence changing.
I agree. But you didn't say gaming was a mistake. You said competitive gaming specifically. Given that that the FGC has been, in my experience, the safest place in the industry, I disagreed with that.
That was a terrible post, and a shitty thing to say to a fellow member.
This is where I am right now; I'm having a really hard time figuring out exactly why this guy is so hated and what he's done. He definitely does seem grating, but not much more so than many of the other extremely prominent figures in the competitive gaming scene right now. Seems to me like an annoying person who's made dumb mistakes, who's also super good at Smash, has amassed a huge and toxic following. Frustrating all around.
Honestly, it comes with the territory. I think it's on him to own up to his position, what little notoriety he has, and deal with the haters. If you want to excel and be a competitor and enjoy the limelight that comes with it, your actions and words on and off the stage are going to be scrutinized. You just have to be better, and you have to show some grit in the face of baseless hate. Purge your timeline and move on.
Then again, I'm a scrub with a name no one recognizes, so I don't truly understand what it's like to have a notifications section constantly filled with toxicity on Twitter.
As a minority gamer I see more insults and venom playing a few hours of competitive League of Legends than I have going to FGC events and tourneys for years and years. It's okay to admit that you might be wrong or at the very least are overstating the problem.
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No, you quoted a line from the second post and a line from the first post, edited out the line from the second post, expanded on the line from the first post, and didn't change the rest of your conclusion that that was sufficient to get your point across, despite clearly feeling the need to include the other line originally.
The evidence you used to prove the point that you had been sufficiently clear changed, and yet you still asserted the exact same point.
When you have people in the scene who get worked into the competitive zeitgeist as heels, I think things can get nasty the times that person isn't trying to play a heel. Some people really do love playing a character, and those bigger-than-life personalities are a big draw, but once the weight of that gets pushed on the person beneath it all (for things like checking your watch), that quickly sours the environment people want to compete in.
Oh, League is even worse, to be sure. You won't hear any argument from me there. But competitive gaming on a general level seems to attract this kind of shitposter-in-person mentality where it's okay to insult and shit all over everyone else. Fighting games are just as victim to this kind of behavior as MOBAs.
FGC is less bad than those scenes simply due to being more diverse on its own (twitch chat not included).
I wish the fgc twitch channels enforced the same respect we have in locals and events.
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I think there's a level of difference between shitposting-in-person and FGC trash talk/banter but maybe you don't see it that way. The former is outright harmful to communities while the latter is assumes that both people can handle it and that it's ultimately just about the game.
I think a lot of this comes from the legacy years where that spiteful, hateful, racial environment was even more prevalent. You have whole communities built up fearing/expecting that sort of behavior, which (rightfully) puts everyone on edge. It's why people are just a little more volatile, and a little more reactive, and that's an environment those personal insults get a lot of response in for the jerks deliberately using them. It's like a cultivated garden of hate/hostility. Though by the same token, I think enough people familiar with the scenes see through it too, and can be really supporting to people on the receiving end of it. Making new connections at tournaments often plays out exactly that way.
He plays Jigglypuff while not simultaneously being utterly inscrutable. That's it. He's no worse on average than a lot of the egos playing (which isn't GOOD, mind. But not bad relative to his contemporaries). He just happens to also play a character people don't like. Just look at the way people in this topic criticize him. It's always 'I've heard things and he plays Jigglypuff'.
I find the border between trash talk and abuse is often very, very hazy, and all it takes is one rough round for someone to jump completely over the line and explode. Not to mention, the more comfortable you become with just openly insulting people to their faces, the less issue you eventually find with the more extreme edges of the vernacular.
Personally, I'd rather not engage in that kind of behavior at all, but I'm not the guardian of the FGC so I know I can't expect the same mentality out of everyone else.
This I can agree with. Every time I look at twitch chat during a tournament I end up wondering why I fucking bothered. Den of fucking gremlins
The one time I showed up for a smash tourney, after spending some time training, was interesting to say the least. The people I met there were nice until MVD walked in. Smash 4 had been out some months now and I remember MVD being in top 8's during this time. I remember being in awe and disappointed because everybody knew who was going to win this small local tournament. I went back to talking to the same people as before and we started talking about pro players. I found out some stuff about MVD's job and how he had a pretty cool gig going on.
My demeanor of him changed right before the start of the tournament. The TO was calling for people to stop playing so that he could officially explain the rules and other things. Well everyone got off except for two people, and if I had to guess they probably didn't hear the TO. The TO kept repeating himself, in that people had to stop playing but these two people were so into their own game that they weren't listening. Finally, MVD walked up to them and screamed at them "STOP PLAYING!!! STOP PLAYING!!! STOP PLAYING!!!". They were shook. They were so into their own little world that they obviously didn't realize what was going on. I was surprised with the way that he treated them. Did they deserve it? Probably. Was there a better way of handling this situation? Absolutely.
After 2 hours I was eliminated from the tournament (I went 0-2) and I wanted to see where MVD lied in the bracket (really I just wanted to see if he 2-0'd his first opponent). I searched for his name on Challonge but I couldn't find it. I searched and searched and I didn't see it anywhere on the first column where all the starting players are. I then started thinking that maybe he just showed up to show support to the community or maybe he was just volunteering (lol I was wrong). Just as I was about to give up, I found his name but it wasn't in the first column. It was in the second column. and I dont remember if i learned the term before or after, but he was floated. He didn't have to play the first game like everyone else he was moved up on the bracket. I didn't even bother to ask, this was clearly top player entitlement and I hated it. Sure it was a small local tournament but he should have been on the same equal footing like the rest of us. After I saw that, I went home and didn't even bother to see the rest of the tournament on twitch.
This wasn't my first FGC outing, I had gone to a couple of SFIV stuff and I enjoyed my time there. There were good people who were trying to keep the community alive. Not to mention people who also were actually trying to help people in SFIV and teaching them stuff and trying to feel inclusive. I felt the SF community was smaller but more family like. Our smash community is large and friendly. However, MVD's actions alone kept me away from the smash community.
I grew up with the idea that you should treat people they way you would like to have been treated. MVD didn't need to act like that and I'm really disappointed in him and after hearing stuff about hungrybox and other top players entitlements I'm kind of glad I stayed away from the smash community.
*I also have a small story on flash metroid getting mad with someone in street fighter and it felt dumb as fuck. He also thought he was superior to us and seemed humble at first but acted like an asshole later.
My demeanor of him changed right before the start of the tournament. The TO was calling for people to stop playing so that he could officially explain the rules and other things. Well everyone got off except for two people, and if I had to guess they probably didn't hear the TO. The TO kept repeating himself, in that people had to stop playing but these two people were so into their own game that they weren't listening. Finally, MVD walked up to them and screamed at them "STOP PLAYING!!! STOP PLAYING!!! STOP PLAYING!!!". They were shook. They were so into their own little world that they obviously didn't realize what was going on. I was surprised with the way that he treated them. Did they deserve it? Probably. Was there a better way of handling this situation? Absolutely.
After 2 hours I was eliminated from the tournament (I went 0-2) and I wanted to see where MVD lied in the bracket (really I just wanted to see if he 2-0'd his first opponent). I searched for his name on Challonge but I couldn't find it. I searched and searched and I didn't see it anywhere on the first column where all the starting players are. I then started thinking that maybe he just showed up to show support to the community or maybe he was just volunteering (lol I was wrong). Just as I was about to give up, I found his name but it wasn't in the first column. It was in the second column. and I dont remember if i learned the term before or after, but he was floated. He didn't have to play the first game like everyone else he was moved up on the bracket. I didn't even bother to ask, this was clearly top player entitlement and I hated it. Sure it was a small local tournament but he should have been on the same equal footing like the rest of us. After I saw that, I went home and didn't even bother to see the rest of the tournament on twitch.
This wasn't my first FGC outing, I had gone to a couple of SFIV stuff and I enjoyed my time there. There were good people who were trying to keep the community alive. Not to mention people who also were actually trying to help people in SFIV and teaching them stuff and trying to feel inclusive. I felt the SF community was smaller but more family like. Our smash community is large and friendly. However, MVD's actions alone kept me away from the smash community.
I grew up with the idea that you should treat people they way you would like to have been treated. MVD didn't need to act like that and I'm really disappointed in him and after hearing stuff about hungrybox and other top players entitlements I'm kind of glad I stayed away from the smash community.
*I also have a small story on flash metroid getting mad with someone in street fighter and it felt dumb as fuck. He also thought he was superior to us and seemed humble at first but acted like an asshole later.
Anecdotal but I brought friends to my local and a Wii that runs Melee since they play. In SFV, the dude my friend was playing hard a different attitude than when they started when he told him he was new and wanted to learn.
In Melee, the regulars were talking junk about Melee but were playing really hard at the end of the day.
It's a lot like streetball in that sense when everyone initially thinks you're ready to ball so they'll treat you that way. Speak up, say you're new.
In general, I think moderation (and just the general accessibility of reporting tools) needs to be cranked up in the digital presence around all of these scenes. There's this misguided sense that this stuff somehow isn't "public" in the same way the real-world is widely understood to be.
Twitch in general seems almost impossible to moderate effectively. Every time I watch a stream with even a tiny amount of viewership, the chat window is just a tsunami of shit. Doesn't even need to be for competitive games. Could be a gacha streamer live-streaming his pulls or a player working on a single-player game, it's all the same shit, and it moves so fast you'd need a dozen mods just to keep up with it all.
This reads like a copypasta.
You do know byes are a thing in any bracket right
Yeah, those smaller streams seem to be almost the worst, because there's not even the pretense that someone could be managing everything. I know the language changes and there's always some way to work around it, but I'm at a point where I wish channels allowed for something like, a certain number of "strikes" for using certain keywords, accounts just get ghost-muted from chat.
...
Alright. Let me explain basic tourney seeding to you.
When your brackets are uneven, someone will receive a by at some point in the tourney.
Generally you want any by to come as early as possible.
When choosing who to give a by to, if there are no top seeds present, it's generally done at random.
If there is a single top seed present, you are generally going to give the by to them. That way weaker players all have an even shot, instead of a weaker player being guaranteed to continue while another weaker player is put into a situation wherein they are almost guaranteed to lose.
Gestault
So, not gonna follow your own standards and apologize for throwing out accusations when you clearly weren't as forthcoming with your point as you thought you were?
Not gonna address the comment of the dude whose identity you were throwing up counter-point to my own post?
Just gonna impugn someone's inegrity then drop the conversation and keep it pushing like nothing happened?
Alright then. Good to know for future reference.
So, not gonna follow your own standards and apologize for throwing out accusations when you clearly weren't as forthcoming with your point as you thought you were?
Not gonna address the comment of the dude whose identity you were throwing up counter-point to my own post?
Just gonna impugn someone's inegrity then drop the conversation and keep it pushing like nothing happened?
Alright then. Good to know for future reference.
The way the community has always treated HBox is downright embarrassing and vile, it still blows my mind. There's legit unpleasant top players out there and this guy gets the shaft for the most banal shit, including his character choice. It's definitely a "bitch eating crackers" situation lol.
I'm genuinely impressed that he's managed to put up with it for so long, but I'm always cheering for him, he's always a highlight in tournaments.
I'm genuinely impressed that he's managed to put up with it for so long, but I'm always cheering for him, he's always a highlight in tournaments.