Call of Duty removes the skin of a streamer after homophobic comments. And after the incident, Activision further went on to tweet “we are focused in celebrating PRIDE with our employees and our community.”
Call of Duty Streamer Homophobic Comments
The Nickmercs operator skin in question has now been removed from the Modern Warfare 2 and Call of Duty: Warzone shop due to Nickmercs making homophobic comments regarding it. Activision Blizzard however tweeted about the removal of the skin after a popular Call of Duty updates account remarked on it.
“It appears Activision has removed the Nickmercs bundle from the Warzone and MWII store this evening,” CharlieIntel tweeted. The official Call of Duty Twitter account however responded, “Due to recent events, we have removed the ‘Nickmercs Operator’ bundle from the Modern Warfare II and Warzone store. We are focused on celebrating PRIDE with our employees and our community.”
Fight Between LGBTQ+ Activists And Anti-LGBTQ+ Hate Groups
“Recent events” making references to an exchange the Faze Clan streamer had with esports commentator Chris Puckett, who was then remarking on a fight that broke out between LGBTQ+ activists and anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups at a school board meeting that took place in California.
“Americans are in a sad place right now,” Puckett reportedly tweeted. “Let people love who they love and live your own life.”
The school board meeting was reportedly taking place to allegedly vote on recognizing June as Pride Month.
Nickmercs then responded to the tweet of Puckett saying, “They should leave little children alone. That’s the real issue.”
What the Comments of Nickmercs Insinuate
Though the comments of Nickmercs might seem kind of innocuous, he is actually repeating a right-wing, homophobic talking point that erroneously and dangerously equates any kind of LGBTQ+ acceptance or even acknowledgment as an existential threat to kids. Homophobes, as a part of a reactionary backlash to the greater visibility of queer and trans people in question, are now returning to an age-old tactic by which they would try to reframe any kind of queer expression as “grooming” children — thus making them vulnerable to “conversion” or sexual assault.
The Role of Bigots in These Exchanges
Bigots are however then able to use children as a convenient and unassailable shield in their bids to demonize and legislatively restrict queer behavior. In the United States, this is characterized by the bans on drag performances, states attempting to restrict the access to gender-affirming care, as well as book bans that almost exclusively target books with LGBTQ+ subjects.
This very type of behavior in reality does very little to further the goal of protecting children as its perpetrators would reportedly have people believe. And according to The New England Journal of Medicine, the No. 1 killer of adolescents is guns. A sampling of the recent tweets of Nickmercs reveals that the only guns he talks about are the ones in Call of Duty.
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