joi ♡ · @gamejoiadvance
1st Jul 2020 from TwitLonger
why i never felt comfortable w/ UNC esports and UNC smash
I want to bring to light some issues with UNC Esports including officers David Romero and Brian Batista, as well as former officer Shane McManus, most likely leaving for reasons unrelated to what follows. I came to UNC as a freshman in Fall 2019 and I was the photographer and social media manager for UNC Esports. This is difficult and very scary, and actually I had some people write this for me because I couldn’t stand thinking about these things long enough to do it myself. but it’s important that these people be held accountable, and that those who go to their events know what kind of person is running them.
By far the worst thing was the sexual harassment and abuse, perpetrated by Brian and Shane. While I was a victim, the first incident did not happen to me, but to a person who shall remain anonymous, with the end result being the victim transferring to another university entirely.
On the night of September 8th, 2019, an unofficial esports club “party” loosely meant for esports officers was hosted by Brian at his place. In attendance was me, Shane, the esports president at the time, and the victim, who was not an officer. Brian offered alcohol to everyone, and the victim, a freshman in a long-distance relationship, proceeded to get drunk along with a number of others at the party. The victim and Brian, 29 (eleven years older than her), started talking sexually, initially from the victim expressing frustration with their long distance relationship, followed up by Brian capitalizing on this and trying to get her to have sex with him. More accurately, he tried to get her to try to have sex with him, perhaps so it would be her idea, perhaps so he would feel better about drunkenly pressuring a young, taken girl, perhaps so that if anyone tried to hold him accountable he could claim she initiated it. Nothing ended up occurring between the two that night. The following afternoon, however, Brian invited the victim over to his place alone, where he proceeded to let her, a person who had just tried alcohol for the first time the night previously and had no experience with safe drinking practices, consume alcohol freely, while he stayed sober. The two then proceeded to have sex. When discussing it the victim did not initially admit to having consumed alcohol, likely to defend Brian, but instead was told that some people had smelled alcohol on her breath later that same day at the esports club’s annual general board meeting, at which point she admitted it. Naturally, after she sobered up, she was distraught. Worsening matters was the fact that the UNC esports club appeared to be the victim’s main source of friends, and was now an environment that reminded her constantly of what had happened. Losing what appeared to be her main source of support at a time during which she needed it the most was likely the final straw, and after venting and communicating the events to Ben Rowles, an officer who she was on good terms with having hung out a number of times previously, we never heard from her again. We saw on social media that she had transferred to a different university entirely. There’s too little information to safely say that this was the sole reason she transferred, but it’s VERY difficult to imagine it wasn’t a substantial part of it. A google doc containing screenshots supporting these claims can be found here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Y2PdhR5SBPbvVq0s45-E5Nu7-6JFaNduClRBh9cuex8/edit?usp=sharing
During the fall semester, I became romantically attracted to and subsequently began a sexual relationship with Shane. Both during and after this relationship, I would be constantly harassed and undermined anytime I spoke at a club event or in the Smash Ultimate discord server. He would describe me using slutshaming language and discuss my "body count" at unofficial club events in front of people who I barely knew and who barely knew me. This was how I was introduced to a significant portion of the UNC Ultimate community. Once our sexual relationship stopped, it got much worse. Shane created a running joke that I'm an "egirl,” meant in the most demeaning way possible, and created a bot without my consent in the Esports discord server that announced whenever I was streaming, and would come in the chat and make fun of what I was wearing, how well I was playing games, etc., to further attempt to establish me as an illegitimate member of the community. To him no matter what I did I was a fake gamer and not a real community member, despite male community members attending even fewer events not getting this kind of treatment. Because Shane would target me with this harassment in public settings, I felt uncomfortable going to Esports meetings. I would avoid them by finding ways to do my job as a photographer by going to events at the same time as meetings. I decided to vent to my friends in a private group chat about feeling uncomfortable at Esports meetings, at which point a now former member of the group, Ryan Kroll aka NC Sam, took it upon himself to share this information with Shane. His name is mentioned because through this behavior, as well as other conversations in the group chat, he cemented himself as a sexual harassment apologist, given he had been told everything that had happened, and this should be acknowledged too, although he is not officially associated with UNC Esports. He is/was modded in the UNC Ultimate discord by Shane, showing how Shane would give power to and surround himself with like-minded individuals that made it even harder for me to speak out or gain trust in the community. All while knowing I was really into him, knowing I really cared what he thought of me and said to me, and struggling to get over him.
To go more in-depth about how the sexual activity was wrong, Shane was struggling with a recent breakup. It was very obvious to everyone, including him from how I talked to him that I really really liked him. Knowing this, as a coping mechanism for his failed relationship, he would engage in sexual acts with me while repeatedly expressing a lack of interest in me to me and to others, yet using me just to get off. He would be uninterested during the act, not reciprocate many things, and even complain about his ex during active intercourse. He would also have the audacity to complain about the sex being low quality to his friends, although thankfully he didn’t have the guts to do so publicly; possibly because he realized on some level how wrong what he was doing was. The document can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B8NTx2pxUj9DJJfZfkNzaTB1o07byYAzvUikRx4Eg_o/edit?usp=sharing
Lastly, David Romero, now co-president of UNC Esports, has consistently made racist comments and used the n-word, hard r, despite not being black since coming to UNC. While he’s learned to be careful not to say it around people he doesn’t think he can get away with it around, there’s textual evidence of him doing so from the beginning of fall 2017 all the way to february 2019, a little over a year ago, from a group chat that David, Shane, and Ben were all in from living together in a suite freshman year. Someone like that being in charge of the organization is obviously concerning, especially given the organization’s recent public statements condemning racism and supporting BLM. There’s also screenshots of Shane using and condoning the word too, although none more recent than fall 2017. The screenshots can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YiT_HbRH7bTrolyhhURTHCtQAMtcuEaQIAgCSE6wLfc/edit?usp=sharing