IShowSpeed, a YouTube streamer with 6.9million followers, has been permanently banned from every Riot Games title after footage of a misogynistic tirade was shared on social media.
The clip of IShowSpeed playing Valorant was shared by Jake Lucky, co-owner of gaming company Full Squad Gaming. In the video, IShowSpeed can be heard shouting “is a bitch talking to me? Is a female talking to me? Get off the fucking game and do your husbands dishes, bitch”.
I now understand why Valorant queues are so unbelievably toxic. You got one of the most popular streamers on YouTube IShowSpeed saying crap like this and getting nothing but praise and laughs. Crap is whack pic.twitter.com/grEghVotUF
— Jake Lucky (@JakeSucky) April 6, 2022
Other clips of him threatening rape and saying he “likes 15-year-old girls” have since been shared. He was banned from Twitch at the end of 2021 for “Sexual Coercion or Intimidation.” He’s also allegedly been banned from Fortnite and TikTok in recent weeks.
Responding to the initial clip, YouTube’s global head of gaming creators Lester Chen said he was “on it” (though IShowSpeed is still active on Youtube) while a Valorant game producer named Sara Dadafshar said she “went ahead and permabanned” IShowSpeed from Valorant and every other Riot game.
“This is a huge yikes and we do NOT want players like this in our community at all,” she continued.
i feel sad for people who do this sort of thing. you must have a lot of fucked up shit in your head/heart to treat others that way.
don’t let these kinda people get you down all my kings, queens & in betweens, it’s their own problem, keep pew pewing
https://t.co/lNmqxKEdoW
— Chrissy ON TOUR
(@ChrissyCostanza) April 6, 2022
Musician and streamer Chrissy Costanza from Against The Current added: “I feel sad for people who do this sort of thing. You must have a lot of fucked up shit in your head/heart to treat others that way.”
“Don’t let these kinda people get you down all my kings, queens & in betweens, it’s their own problem, keep pew pewing,” she said.
IShowSpeed has since shared a video apologising for the first clip, in which he claims he “wasn’t having a good day. But I don’t want to make that an excuse, I was wrong. I was completely wrong in that situation.”
He goes on to say that the clip was from months ago and he’s “changed” since then. “That’s not me no more”. He’s yet to respond to the other videos though.
Last year, a survey found that Valorant had the most toxic gaming community for the second year running.
In terms of demographics, the most common group of people harassed during online gaming was women – with 49 per cent of respondents reporting harassment while playing.
The second most harassed group was Black or African American gamers, with 42 per cent reporting some form of harassment. Asian Americans and LGBTQ+ were next in line at 38 per cent, Muslim gamers stood at 26 per cent, Latinx at 25 per cent, disabled gamers at 24 per cent, and Jewish gamers at 22 per cent.
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