The Ellie 'Overwatch' Scandal Should Remind Us To Be Excellent To Each Other

Credit: Blizzard

What can one say about the recent Ellie Overwatch controversy?

It's a mess.

Nobody involved comes out looking good---not the players, like Punisher, who devised this "social experiment"; not the gamers who suggested doxxing the at-the-time potentially real/potentially fictional Ellie or those who sent threats; not the game journalists who published articles without doing due diligence to verify that Ellie was even real; and certainly not Second Wind, in a hurry to sign a female pro, who went ahead and did so without proper vetting.

Everyone is pointing fingers now. The blame game is afoot.

Long story short:

  • A male Overwatch player pretended to be a female, was recruited by a pro-team excited to have a female pro on-board, wouldn't reveal any personal information leading to the community becoming skeptical of "her" true identity which led to cyber-sleuthing and, from some bad apples, threats and harassment.
  • A bunch of video game sites took Ellie's story at face value and condemned gamers for a witch-hunt without learning the full truth of the matter. Then it turned out that Ellie was actually a male gamer to begin with.
  • The fallout has seen some gaming sites double down, claiming that none of this would have happened if Ellie hadn't been female, somehow missing the point that the entire crux of the issue was that Ellie wasn't actually female.
  • Many gamers understandably see this as yet another failure of the gaming press, but gloss over the worst behavior in the community since their skepticism was proven to be justified.

The problem, as is so often the case, seems to be that people think their cause is so just that they can act however they please, say whatever they want to whomever they wish, publish whatever story pushes the proper agenda no matter the facts.

I hate to break it to you, but this isn't how it works. Being right---or thinking you're right---doesn't give you a blank check to treat people poorly or print falsehoods.

I'll let John Cleese explain that to you in more detail:

Ultimately this whole mess just makes the video game community worse off. It sows further division between gamers and game journalists. It makes the gaming space less hospitable for female gamers. It makes everyone mistrust everyone else.

I would love to see some kind of rapprochement between all parties, some white flags raised, some olive branches extended, however unlikely that scenario may be. We don't have to constantly cast wide, blanket judgments against the "other." Not all gamers are sexist basement-dwellers. Not all game journalists are judgy activist types. Plenty of female gamers are hardcore, high-skilled players and plenty of male gamers are glad to have women in gaming, now more than ever before. There are still many more male than female gamers in the "hardcore" scene, but everyone will benefit if gaming becomes more widespread and universal. The more the merrier.

There are bad apples in every orchard. Why we choose to give them so much attention is beyond me.

Perhaps we should remove the plank from our own eye before working so hard to remove the speck from our brother's eye.

Maybe, just maybe, we should make like Bill and Ted and be excellent to each other.

Credit: Orion

I know, that's a crazy concept. And it's a hard one to put into practice. But I really do believe that a better world exists and that it's built on exactly that foundation. Not just "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" but "be excellent to each other."

We're all fighting our internal battles. Everyone---even that anonymous jerk on Twitter you just encountered---is struggling with something. Some heartache. Some loss.

We all suffer. We all want to be forgiven.

As Father John Misty writes, at the end of his excellent song Pure Comedy, "I hate to say it, but each other's all we got."

In the age of social media and 24/7 news and absurd divisions built on heaps and heaps of lies told by those greedy for power and influence and personal gain, we've forgotten that about ourselves. We're all in this together. We don't need to fight these wars.

Happy 2019, young padawans. May the force of others be with you.

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I write about video games, TV and movies.