004: The Rivalry Cooldown: Power Dynamics ft. Richard Lewis, Nahaz, Sajedene, and Slasher

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Take a Breather, Recharge, and join us on The Rivalry Cooldown, where we give you an unfiltered view on the current topics in esports from the experts. For this episode we have esports journalists Richard Lewis and Slasher, economist and Dota 2 analyst Nahaz, and event organizer/player and talent manager/streamer Sajedene to discuss power dynamics in esports, lack of incentives for speaking up, and the destructive nature of social media. Discussion spurred by the recent arrest of Elvine, a Hi-Rez community manager, allegations against a popular cosplay photographer, and the ever present harassment reports coming out about Riot.

Timestamps:

• 1:30 - Slasher on the Elvine story
• 5:30 - Reinessa's experiences with Elvine
• 9:00 - Open secrets in the scene
• 12:00 - Sajedene on the impossibility to speak up and be believed
• 16:30 - Issues with new entrants and their susceptibility to harassment / manipulation
• 18:00 - Richard Lewis shares an unpublished story about a pro
• 22:00 - Common reactions to speaking up
• 23:40 - Nahaz "Predators will find a way to hide in the grass"
• 27:00 - Being an edgelord to entertain - where do you draw the line?
• 35:00 - Being harassed for fighting harassment
• 36:40 Richard "We aren't evolved enough for social media"
• 40:15 - Saj, if you were to call out everyone who harassed you, what would people say?
• 50:00 - Richard can do whatever he wants on social media, but not everyone can do what he does
• 54:00 - No solution is perfect, but doing nothing results in nothing. Nahaz "Things are moving in the right direction"
• 56:15 - Richard "Online discourse makes people defensive"
• 1:00:05 - How do we decide who to believe?

Follow our Guests on Twitter:

👉 Richard Lewis - https://twitter.com/RLewisReports

👉 Nahaz - https://twitter.com/NahazDota

👉 Sajedene - https://twitter.com/Sajedene

👉 Slasher - https://twitter.com/Slasher

Follow our host on Twitter:

👉Reinessa - https://twitter.com/ReinessaGaming