Two days ago, Riot Games suspended two competitors Valorant players after a public disagreement over teabagging. Dawn “Dawn” Park and Vivian “Risorah” Dela Cruz are now banned from official Riot competitions for three months and nine months respectively.
According to Riot, Park made a “vulgar and targeted comment towards another player”, while Dela Cruz “systematically targeted and isolated another player”. Riot clarified that players are being punished for actions against another member of Gallanta community for women and non-binary Valorant players. Park and Dela Cruz were embroiled in a teabagging controversy that originated within the Galorants Discord server.
tea bag is a popular in-game action in competitive shooting games. This refers to quickly crouching and uncrouching over enemy corpses before they disappear, similar to a sex act where a person would put their testicles in someone’s face. He is considered a victory dance and a gesture of team cohesion. There has been some controversy over whether this is considered bad sportsmanship or just one of those things you have to deal with when playing games like Infinite Halo.
On June 24, a member named Ripley Lawless said in the Galorants waiter: “[In games], people think it’s okay to t-bag and it’s funny when in reality it’s sexual assault. The statement was widely mocked on social media, with even big streamers like Charlie “Cr1TiKaL” White weighing in on the subject. To park mocked the connection in it tweet to Lawless and alone Accountwhile Dela Cruz threatens at tea bag Lawless in the Galorants server. Dela Cruz was banned from Galorants server June 28. Lawless has deleted his Twitter account. Kotaku has reached out to Galorants for comment but has not received a response as of press time.
In a Twitlonger PublishDela Cruz said she would ‘take responsibility’ for her actions, even if she wouldn’t take it back videos who were critical of the Galorants. of the park Publish was more critical of Riot’s decision. She said she had friends who had been sexually assaulted and “it’s not something you can compare to squatting in a video game.” park says Kotaku that she and Dela Cruz were probably punished for being part of the Galorants community. “I don’t see how that’s relevant to the decision because Galorants has no rule, or say, about what we’re allowed to post on our personal social media,” Park said.
Although the main incidents took place a month ago, Riot conducted its own investigation, which included interviews with Park and Dela Cruz. park says Kotaku that Riot emailed her a list of accusations and that she was able to prove that she had not harassed Lawless during her meeting with the company. “It wasn’t considered harassment according to Riot because I didn’t go out and specifically target a person. I was just laughing at the idea, not the person. Dela Cruz said confirmed on Twitter DM that his ban was tangentially related to her critical video about the teabag controversy, but she was mostly suspended for her threats to Lawless. Riot Games did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication.
Since Riot didn’t publicly ban Lawless for his comments, various survivors of sexual assault Twitter were upset that the company seemed to take its side. Some quote retweets on the banning post pointed out that Jay “Sinatraa” Won was banned for a shorter period than Dela Cruz despite is under investigation for sexually assaulting his girlfriend. Others felt that the company, which is in the midst of settle $100 million sex discrimination lawsuitdid not take this action with the best interests of women at heart.
