The number of sexual accusations in the esports industry has only grown in the past week. Yesterday it expanded to the FGC as Puppeh shared his story involving Cinnamon "Cinnpie".
The #metoo movement has seen a rapid spike in esports in the past weeks as more and more people came out with their stories. It started in CS:GO with Henry “HenryG” Greer who was accused of sexual misconduct but at the end of the day was proven to be falsely accused. That’s the sad thing about it, while a lot of the people sharing their stories are doing so after years of fear and staying silent, some choose to drag the spotlight onto themselves by making false accusations. This in turn makes a lot of people skeptical about the whole thing.
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The wave of allegations continued into Dota 2 where we saw two of the most famous casters go down. First, it was Paul “Redeye” Chaloner, who recently even published a book labeled “This is esports (and how to spell it)”. The next to go down was Toby “TobiWan” Dawson who’s easily the most famous caster in Valve’s game. Both of them decided to step down and walk away from esports forever.
Harassment in the FGC: 14 year old Puppeh and 24 year old Cinnpie?
It was only a matter of time before the movement got to the Fighting Game Community. So what happened there?
The first story came from Smash player Puppeh on Twitter who shared his experience with FGC commentator Cinnpie.
My experience with CinnpieRead: https://t.co/fUXxYXshhc
— Puppeh (@PuppehSSB) July 1, 2020
According to the post, Puppeh was drawn into a sexual relationship by Cinnpie, which triggered a severe depression years later. At the time it all happened, he was 14, while she was 24. It’s one of the first cases where the victim is a man and the roles are reversed. Reactions on Twitter are varied but most of the people were in support of Puppeh.
She would consistently gaslight me and make me question myself all the time while I was only 14 and still trying to find myself as a person. Not being able to tell anyone about my experiences ate away at me constantly. Having to see her after this period hurt me a lot and would consistently distract me at tournaments.
I'm 22 in this picture btw. I'm younger than Cinnpie in this picture. https://t.co/mRCwkQQEyV
— AFL-famous Reslived (@reslived) July 1, 2020
At the end of his post, Puppeh makes it clear that he’s not looking for revenge or anything and only wants to find peace with himself after all these years of keeping silent.
I am writing this in hopes to simply just be at peace with myself and move on from this period of my life. I have been depressed for so long in major part due to that summer. I’m tired of hurting over this and being afraid to speak out. I’ve lost many hours of sleep over this situation, writing this, and the thought of releasing this.
So far Cinnpie hasn’t made an official statement on the matter.
Evo organizer involved in controversy
The next story in the FGC comes from the competitor Mikey who also shared his story on Twitter. In it, Mikey recalls a time back in the 90s which involves an incident with the EVO organizer Joey “Mr. Wizard” Cuellar.
My own story in the FGCRead: https://t.co/DJbPt0GrQZ
— Mikey~ CrackPr0n (@PyronIkari) July 2, 2020
It wasn't hazing, but a lot of the old boys club would often have us do stupid sh*t just for a laugh, and they'd give us tokens or buy food for us if we'd be willing to do whatever stupid thing it was. Most of it was genuinely harmless. Scream something dumb really loud, shit along those lines.
TL;DR Mikey accepted a bet to measure his pride and got $20 for it. Nothing else happened beyond that, but later he found out that Cuellar is gay. Mikey ended his story in a similar way to Puppeh.
I'm not looking for anything on my end. I just really want to state that, similar is happening right now to both men and women. Many of them are sharing their stories and I hope you take the time to read them, even if some of them get really difficult to read. Recognize these people and their pain and understand this is happening in our community.
Members from the community came out to support Mikey and shared that they also heard some conspicuous rumors regarding Joey Cuellar. In the meantime, EVO decided to put "Mr.Wizard" on administrative leave and do an internal investigation on the whole case. How will the story develop further? We’ll keep you updated.
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