The world of esports is in a frenzy after it was revealed over the weekend that a rising star who would have been the first woman to play on a Contenders North America roster was actually not a woman at all.
The third woman, another OW player, says Punisher asked her to talk for him while he was playing. She said he would count down 3-2-1 as the cue. It’s believed Punisher has many women to talk for him and possibly someone close to help, but the online presence of ‘Ellie’ is fake.
— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) January 6, 2019
The player in question, ‘Ellie’, was signed to the Overwatch Contenders team Second Wind last month, and following the signing, shared screenshots online of abuse she had received. Less than two weeks later, Second Wind announced that she had left the team “due to some unforeseen reactions”.
Soon after, it was revealed that ‘Ellie’ didn’t actually exist, and was really a man, who plays under the name ‘Punisher’, and who was apparently “conducting a social experiment”. He would enlist female friends to talk for him during games.
An Overwatch League spokesperson told The Washington Post:
“We found that ‘Ellie’ was a fabricated identity … created by a veteran player to obfuscate their identity.”
While some esports personalities, like Rod Breslau, were quick to dismiss the saga as trolling, others pointed out that it was a lot more thought-out than simple run-of-the-mill trolling for laughs.
Let's not trivialize what happened as "kids trolling". This was a conscious and extensively thought out manipulation of how gender and sexism are discussed and viewed in esports. It wasn't a one-off prank done on Twitch. It's caused potentially irreparable harm to female players.
— Talia?️? Commissions OPEN | Pride Chibis ?️? (@TaliaMirai) January 6, 2019
It’s unclear what this ‘experiment’ was hoping to prove. We already know that women are taken less seriously when it comes to gaming and esports; now, if anything, it’s going to be harder for women to be taken seriously, because women in esports will immediately invoke memories of this bizarre experiment.
And we already know that women involved in gaming face more scrutiny and are more likely to receive harassment online. So what was Punisher trying to prove? That sexism still exists? Any woman could’ve told you that.