Veteran esports journalist Richard Lewis has been defending himself from trolls again on social media – but this time, it’s other journalists with an agenda.
It’s Esports Awards season again, so naturally, some games journalists have reared up and are currently in their annual attempt to get me driven out of an industry I’ve worked in for over 15 years.
The attempts this time have involved journalists labeling me sexist, implying I’m a sexual predator and trans fetishist, blackmailer and have publicly condemned me for using the block function on Twitter… That last one is strange given their well-documented use of block bots but, as you’ll see, hypocrisy is pretty much par for the course in their world.
When I won journalist of the year at the Esports Awards in 2016, other games journalists tried to discredit my work. It was mostly mild grumbling on Twitter. Then they stepped up their attempts in 2017. A crowd-sourced hit piece where some journalists got together to research all my supposed sins was published on PCGamesN, with the cynical hiring of a freelancer to put their name to it.
The article claimed that “esports are being represented by people whose histories include racist, misogynist, homophobic, and/or transphobic views, as well as those with violent or deceptive pasts.” As I do not fall into any of those categories (the “crimes” the author managed to put my name to were being banned from a subreddit, acting in self-defense when someone tried to attack me and making a joke about how I grew up poor when accepting an award) I was able to pursue legal remedies. Needless to say, because these allegations were unequivocally false, they issued an apology.
I’d like to say that that’s the end of it but no. I’ve been nominated for Esports Journalist Of The Year again this year, and the latest attempts to discredit me have raised the stakes somewhat. Alongside the usual disgruntlement, a plan was hatched in August to run another hit piece and has involved public threats of blackmail. Let me tell you why.
