Gamers have a long, proud history of resisting woke culture while simultaneously being one of the most targeted spaces by the radical left and social justice advocates.
This time, the incident began with the attack by Antifa and LGBT activists on Armenian-American parents in Glendale, California, protesting the forcing of LGBT lessons on their children by the school itself. Several leaked emails even showed that administrators were instructing teachers to teach the kids that they were naturally “queer” and “socialist.”
When the parents came to protest, activist groups physically attacked the parents resulting in police intervention and arrests.
It’s unclear who threw the first punch but the spin was that the parents (usually the peaceful group) attacked the pro-LGBT group (which consisted of the usually violent Antifa). This prompted Nick Mercs, one of the most popular names in game streaming to speak up and say something that would set the internet on fire, but probably shouldn’t have given the common sense behind it.
“They should leave little children alone. That’s the real issue,” said Mercs.
What followed split the gaming community with most of it heavily siding with Mercs. However, one company that didn’t side with him was Activision, the makers of the Call of Duty franchise, the largest first-person shooter title in the world.
Mercs is one of the most prominent figures in Call of Duty streaming. In fact, he’s such a huge name that the developers effectively added him to the game as a character you can download, complete with his own unique equipment.
However, upon Mercs declaring that the LGBT activists should leave children alone, Call of Duty stripped these skins from its flagship game Call of Duty: Warzone, declaring that they “are focused on celebrating PRIDE with our employees and our community.”
The backlash was immediate with gamers everywhere swearing off the game and simultaneously causing Mercs’ follower count to skyrocket on Twitch. Mercs later explained that he has his own child now and he wouldn’t want the school speaking to his kid about these subjects but would rather have those conversations with his child instead.
*language warning*
But it didn’t stop there. Two more notable events happened as a result of Activision’s decision to punish Mercs for what is a very normal thing to say.
Streaming legend Dr. Disrespect sided with Mercs, publicly uninstalling Call of Duty: Warzone on his stream and saying that he wouldn’t return unless they apologized to Mercs for punishing him as they did.
The hits kept on coming for Call of Duty as streamer TimtheTatman, also an equally popular streamer that received his own bundle within Warzone, told developers to remove his bundle from the game as well, and declared that he was siding with Mercs in protest.
Call of Duty announced that they did as asked, and the TimtheTatman bundle has been removed.
Now, Call of Duty seems to be facing its own Bud Light moment. Led by Jeremy Griggs of the website “Geeks + Gamers,” people have begun responding to every tweet made by Call of Duty and Activision with “leave the children alone.”
The backlash will likely result in the Call of Duty player base taking a hit, though it should be noted that Warzone has had a major decline in its player base for some time now.
This is yet another major rebuke against the LGBT activist community from the gaming community. The last time something like this happened was just in February when gamers worldwide told the LGBT activist community that it would not be bullied or intimidated into not playing Hogwarts Legacy, a game connected to Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, whom the transgender activist community considers their literal devil.
Despite various attempts to go after streamers and label gamers who openly showed enthusiasm for playing it, the game broke sales records and immediately put a sequel in the works as well as rumors that it pushed HBO to greenlight a Harry Potter episodic remake for MAX with Rowling directly involved.
(READ: A Letter to Everyone, Left and Right, Over the Recent Events Surrounding ‘Hogwarts Legacy’)
Once again, the gaming community proves to be one of the most outspoken and unmoving when it comes to resistance to radical activism from social justice groups. While it’s one of the most diverse communities in the world, the majority of it seems to agree that there are lines you just don’t cross and even its biggest names aren’t afraid of speaking out against that radicalism when it rears its head.
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