Petty, Vindictive, and Utterly Disgusting

Day 4,683, 23:02 • Published in USA USA • by Derphoof

I’ve never been more upset at an internet game than I am today.

Never more upset at a community.

For those of you who don’t know, there has been a weird conflict brewing within the meta corners of the game. Personalities have conflicted, moderation has been taken, votes cast, lines drawn, and malice has been weaponized.

All because someone stepped up to defend their basic human dignity.


You see, the player formerly known as Aramec came out as a woman and renamed herself as Aeriadne. This wasn’t like BeachBunny who was badgered and revealed herself to be a man irl, but rather a player coming in and saying “I identify as a woman irl. I’m changing myself in-game, as a result.”

For a while, this didn’t matter.

People on the forum didn’t care.
People in-game didn’t care.
People on discord didn’t care.

That is until Groot kept willingly and maliciously misgendering and antagonizing Aeriadne over the issue on discord. This also happened on Telegram. Groot and his ilk felt like they had free reign, especially due to his damage in-game. They kept coming at her, for no reason. It was even suggested that Groot avoid pronouns altogether, to avoid the issue.

He refused. He called Aeri by the wrong pronouns on discord, and refused to use the correct pronouns or her changed name on the forums. Instead, he continued to use the name “Aramec” at every reference to her. He also mentioned that maybe he should call her “the thing.”

That’s why I used the word “malice.”

It’s not that they were even trolling, or having some sort of friendly back and forth. No. It was simply motivated by evil. A desire to do evil, antagonizing their target into a submission.

It is rather unprecedented for a prominent member of the community to attack the basic human dignity of another player in such a way. It is not only incredibly disruptive and divisive, it's absolutely disgusting.



This all came to a head on September 6th.

Dinnyin had vacated his position in the Congressional Budget Office. This triggered a process to replace him on the board of directors. For those unaware, the CBO holds and disburses the money, so the president doesn’t abuse his office. It is a very simple, apolitical, and low maintenance job. Aeriadne had proposed herself for consideration, and received almost no pushback. Some concern was raised with her prior activity in 2015, and the fact that she was often in and out in the past. A CBO Director needs to be available to transfer money, after all.

As personalities clashed in the days prior, it was assumed that Groot would probably vote against Aeriadne. However, a big move came at 7:36pm EST on September 6th.

Groot was kicked from the eUSA discord server for his rampant disrespect of fellow citizens. Shortly afterward, DMJ issued the following rules in the national Discord, to make things clear:

“1. Be respectful
2. No NSFW.
3. No homophobia, racism, or transphobia You may only receive one warning, but we reserve the right to distribute punishment with no warnings.”


One would assume that these rules should be unspoken. But, DMJ had to make it clear in writing. Groot would’ve obviously been in violation of the 1st and 3rd rules.



Almost two hours later, at 9:10pm EST, the vote started to add Aeriadne to the CBO.

It was then that Groot & Co., without disapproving publicly in Congress, began to try to deny Aeri a position as the CBO Director.

Then, to their surprise, the vote passed. It was an 18-17 vote in favor of approval.

OUTRAGE!
SCANDAL!
HORROR!

So came the crocodile tears of the radical opposition. “She only won because she voted for herself!!”

Yeah, what a shame. Terrible. I voted for myself to beat Bob Boudahili (by one vote) for a Speaker Run-off, then voted for myself to beat Oblige. Oh, and Oblige did the same thing in that race. You know who cared? Not a single person. Nobody at all.

These things have been going on for a long time. So, let’s not hide behind the facade of self-voting.

Just come out and say it. You don’t like Aeri.



All you wanted to do was extract vengeance for your justified kicking from the discord server. You wanted to keep belittling and disrespecting fellow citizens. You wanted to keep people from being active, involved, and welcome, for your own personal egos.

It’s honestly sickening.

I’ve had my disagreements with multiple people. Franklin Stone, Arrden, Wild Owl, Pfeiffer, Tyler, Dinnyin, Jimmy Cincinnati, and many more. Never once did I ever try to belittle them, disrespect them, or try to make this game an unwelcoming and bad experience.

I’ve grown up in a religious household, stayed religious, and do work for religious organizations. These religious organizations are not transgender-affirming either. However, the clergy has made one thing clear over, and over, and over again.

You cannot disrespect these people.

You cannot discriminate against them.

You cannot make life harder for them.

You have no right. Rather, you must be compassionate and loving, as you should be toward all peoples.

People are infused with a certain human dignity, which is to be respected and upheld. Nothing can take it away. Nothing can infringe upon it. It is this sense of human dignity that influenced the writers of our RL declaration of independence to state that, “all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness.”



Yet, Groot & Co. could not be bothered to show the least bit of compassion, empathy, kindness, or respect. At every turn, Groot met her with vitriol, bile, and hate.

Hate.

Out of that hate, Groot repeatedly threatened to let the rest of the US “make up for his damage” on the battlefield until she was removed. Groot was throwing his weight around to keep bullying Aeriadne into submission.

If not removed, well, we might start losing some battles. Space Force might produce less damage.

How would Congress respond?

We found out today.

Congress is spineless. Congress was unwilling to stand up for the human dignity of a player, if it meant they were removed from the teat of the tank.

Several hours in, they had voted 20-10 to reverse themselves and remove Aeriadne from the CBO. It was at that point that Aeri tendered her resignation from CBO and Press Briefings. If the community wouldn’t support and accept her, then she wasn’t welcome. She decided to leave.



Shame on you.

Of course, they’ll cry foul about procedure. Rules were changed and caps were set. However, they won’t cry over MR’s approval. Groot just stated he wanted votes on the other candidates. That was the real reason to remove Aeri! The process! MR, could stay of course, because he didn’t have a problem with her, despite being approved by the same process.

Even though Groot had logged in after Aeri resigned, he didn’t start a vote on zRTx (the next candidate) to replace Aeri. Instead, he congratulated Congress on the resignation and proceeded to check Congress for another couple hours without action. That’s what his active forum status indicated, as of writing.



Why are we so willing to push each other away?

When a game continually gets smaller, why do we want to make our community even smaller?

Is it worth it to stroke your ego and sense of superiority, at the expense of the community?

How many of us are left, and who will be here tomorrow?

Why can we not treat each other with basic respect and dignity?



One of us was murdered today.

A passionate soul, deprived of life. Deprived of happiness by the community, she left.

How desolate is this nation, once filled with people. Once thriving with personalities, we drive them away.

Shame on us.