Change the LUL emote to not be a transphobic, sexist gamer
The LUL emote is currently a picture of TotalBiscuit, who rose to fame as part of the harassment campaign against both cis and trans women known as GamerGate. TB has, among other things, told a trans woman to go die of cancer. While reality has a nice sense of irony and TB himself died of cancer back in 2018, his sexist legacy lives on in the form of Twitch putting him on the front page of the emotes list for everyone to see, including people like myself who have been on the receiving end of his cult following who literally worked with open Nazis and TERFs to harass me off various social media platforms.
There's no reason to subject trans people to such an iconic sexist transphobe on a regular basis. Twitch changed the pogchamp emoji after finding out the guy was a fascist, so why can't they do the same for LUL? Why do women across the platform have to put up with this?
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FaeAlicia commented
Oh, please. No one's wondering why Twitch hasn't removed the emote yet. We all saw the Twitch leak that showed the top 100 streamers only having one woman in it. Twitch heavily prefers cishet white patriarchy and only removed pogchamp because the guy was blatantly racist at a time when racist people were actually facing even the smallest of consequences.
The smear campaign is all these dudebros coming in here and defending the guy who became famous for telling women to go die of cancer - all in a desperate attempt to avoid having women on the platform.
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jebus3211 commented
For everyone wondering why this hasn't been removed. it's because this is yet another attempt at slandering a dead man who cannot defend himself.
This emote should without a doubt stay, to remind everyone of what a kind loving and gentle man John was. his legacy remains strong to this day despite the hit pieces and slander
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sqidaedir commented
I see a lot of comments rushing to defend not just TotalBiscuit, but even his support for Gamer Gate. Which was/is an on going harassment campaign from which sexism and bigotry is normalized and celebrated that he participated in.
I find it ironic how even todays "Noah Time" he directly references the unbelievable ignorance and a lot of "gamer gaters" try to twist it into some kind of gaming ethics and journalism when it has been so much more.... (for reference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbD-sS83Yi0&t=198s)
Demanding facts of a well known issue, and an open supporter means that you would rather defend horrible actions over premise than listen to victims.
The worst part is how people will hide behind cancer as a means to further excuse any of the claims.
Twitch should let the emote die out, and not prop up anyone, let alone gamer gate supporters like Total Biscuit.
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parker021597 commented
The comments by OP here really make me doubt the validity of their claims, tbh. It reads like the guy (who has been dead for years due to cancer, mind you) said something to them on Twitter one time and they have held a major grudge since. Seeing as there's zero context given or proof shown of the harassment alleged, I'm inclined to believe there's more to this story than the OP would like to have us believe and have major trouble taking it seriously as a result. The simple fact they're taking a cheap victory lap over the "irony" of someone literally dying also just comes across as incredibly mean-spirited and harms their standing as someone with good intentions.
There's also a certain irony in how many replies here had no idea who was even in the emote until this was posted. The OP is legitimately triggering more anxieties than any amount of LUL spam could ever accomplish, and upsetting people over something that really isn't a reality at all.
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mondoth commented
It's crazy to see so many people in this comment section ready to just accept this fabricated slander by wingnuts.
No, TB was not sexist or transphobic.. these are just buzzword weaponized by a petty, vitriol and manipulative person.And Gamergate did not start as a harassment campaign, despite what left-wingnut propaganda wants people to believe.
Gamergate started as a stance against corruption in gaming journalism and competitions, and the resulting demand for disclosure and ethics reform. related to cases and accusations of corruption in those topics. And that's exactly the reason why Totalbiscuit was formerly behind the gamergate movement, it had nothing to do with being a "sexist" or "transphobe".
However some loud extremes turned Twitter into cesspool of insults and rage (like twitter always does).
Cerrain gaming journalists then slandered and generalized all people that used Gamergate as "misogynist white nerds", which only fueled the fire and some using the shield of "you are just a sexist, so you dont matter" as a deflection of the genuine critique of journalist ethics that gamergate originally stood for.Everything ofcourse just escalated with wingnuts from both the left and right jumping into the ring to see who screamed the loudest at each other. Turning the whole thing into a flame war of harassment and personal attacks from everyone. But that had nothing to do with Totalbiscuit or the original idea behind Gamergate. TB even goes into this in one of his videos (I don't recall of the top of my head), he never stood behind any of the doxxing or attacks
Also, TB did not "rise into fame" because of gamergate. he was already well known within the gaming community as he had worked with professional shoutcasting and Esports, and having even done gaming commentary on radio.
TB's highest all-time subscriber count was 2mill which he hit in 2015. His subscriber count was already at 1.5+ million subscribers before anything related with Gamergate went down. So that is just a flat out lie.Note also how the author writing this page, mentioned no actual substantial evidence to these claims, just deliberately misrepresenting the situation and making false conclusions.
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NYNightTrain commented
"That's a nice argument, Senator. Why don't you back it up with a source?"
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Thelewsa commented
(X) Doubt
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cara_cstpa commented
im questioning this now tho..
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cara_cstpa commented
i had no idea wtf
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skubaduck commented
change it. ditto. ad nauseum WHY IS IT STILL HERE?
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ZedXyr commented
I learned about this from multiple channels I mod for. I had no idea! The Emote is even banned in some streams.
After how public GamerGate was, I am astonished this is still promoted by Twitch (Which started as a Game Streaming Platform)!
I remember GamerGate and have several Trans friends. I completely stand behind @FaeAlicia and feel Twitch should not wait for some "vote threshold" and take down TotalBiscuit's Emote immediately!
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PoLLenCakes commented
I didn't know either. I def don't think anyone should have to face a norm that is so harmful. People deserve to feel safe in their communities, we cannot give people tools to harass us.
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skubaduck commented
bout time ya'll take this down. don't you think?
We are already IMMERSED in transphobia IRL.
Twitch should not be piling on IN ANY MANNER.
TYVM
that is all. -
FieryAshes commented
Some of us literally have LUL banned in our chats because we don't want to see him? but that also means that we can't see our friend's emotes that have "LUL" instead of "LOL" as a spelling. Why do we have to put up with LUL when you at least changed out PogChamp when you needed to??
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Ervo commented
Thanks for telling this, I have no idea that streamer was related with GamerGate
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BupForte commented
Wow. Had no idea about this but that's absolute garbage that emote has been around for so long. Do better Twitch.
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whois_ben commented
This is *********. I figured it was based on a real twitch personality, but I've never even heard of this person. They changed Pog but not this?????
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ImahSillyGirl commented
Wow, I'm only just finding out I have used, what I now know is TotLBiscuit as LUL, I'm grossed out, won't use again, and agree his likeness should be removed from the platform immediately.
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FaeAlicia commented
I will remind people that TB's rise to fame was via GamerGate, and specifically on the side *against* women speaking up about sexual harassment and whatnot within the gaming industry, with many comments towards both cis and trans women telling them they should go die, with several examples still floating about of him telling them to go die of cancer specifically. It's not defamation to point out easily-proven facts about a person's own actions. That's called accurate reporting.
On top of that, I still have my screenshots of the harassment campaign that was organized against me by TB's cult following back in 2018, near the end of his life, complete with the swastika profile pics and "gender critical" profile information. No one ever gets to get away with telling me that what I saw with my own eyes, what I experienced with my own life, was a lie. So if TB and his cult following truly had changed their ways after GamerGate, then they have elected to continue showing the same behaviors *from* GamerGate at least up through the end of his life.
The only "poor ethics" here is the people that continue to defend this neonazi cult by continuing to insist that telling women to go die of cancer is somehow "criticizing" them and not a blatant disregard for their life and well-being. I cannot and will not tolerate defenses of this inexcusable behavior, and nor should anyone that cares about women or any other marginalized group.
This man does not deserve any semblance of honor or fame. Being anti-hierarchy, I personally believe no one does, but that's another topic for another time. The point is, his presence on Twitch as the face of this emote only serves to remind women that Twitch is fine with harassment and assault of all women, so long as it's not costing Twitch money.
Edit: Just want to point out that this cry of "defamation" is how the harassment campaign against me in 2018 started, as well. Next will come more people claiming he was somehow a good person and pointing to small aspects of what I've said as a means to justify throwing out the entire thing, along with increasingly more blatant and frankly, unhinged attacks on my own character and existence. Alongside that, I know I can expect a lot of sockpuppet accounts mass reporting my posts and stuff to attempt to trigger the reporting algorithms into taking action without any justifiable cause to do so.
As I said, I've been through this before. If the neonazis -- both the white supremacist and "gender critical" types -- wish to repeat 2018, then I will defend myself just as I did back then. The Pink Triangle was a thing, and I will not willingly bow to anyone that is anti-LGBTQ+, whether Nazis or their more modern counterparts.
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PaleSalad commented
This is defamation against someone that died of cancer. TB was not transphobic, he even went so far as to remove a transphobic person from a convention he was attending. In regards to gamer gate, he was very clear that he was only interested in criticising games journalists and their poor ethics.
In regard to his followers "working with Nazis", this seems completely unsupported but even if it's true, TB has been dead for a long time and even when he was alive he can't control what other people do or who they're friends with.
TB raised money for numerous charities including a women's charity.