Gee, and almost as if it was timing (it wasn't!), a video game story to the same effect!!

I swear, stack of Bibles, I did not see this story from Kotaku before I made the Super Fraud of the Year post.

Because we now have an e-sports toxic masculinity (we think!) post here!

A new Overwatch pro at the official minor-league level has withdrawn from her team due to toxic masculinity and complaints.

There is more to this story, though, that should merit some degree of investigation of the team involved:  Second Wind.

A female player nicknamed "Ellie" was reported to have gotten on the team about two weeks ago.  Ever since, Ellie has been the subject of a mass harassment campaign which would be indicative of the incel masculine toxicity rampant in video games.

There is one thing which should be investigated:  No real-life name (unlike all other players in the Contenders series) was given for Ellie.  Given that Ellie was quite lowly-ranked for even a minor-league professional Overwatch player and had only very recently gotten onto the competitive ladder at all, there was, I believe, legitimate question to ask who this person was!

Between that and the toxic masculinity, Ellie quit the team yesterday.

However, I still have a number of theories which would actually state legitimate questions should be at least asked by Blizzard of Second Wind...

• Banned (male) player trying to use the guise of a female player to play the game at a professionial level.

Ironically, at least one actually banned male player WAS asking for doxxing of Ellie to get this all figured out.

• Publicity stunt by Second Wind, owing to the minute number of female top-flight e-sports players.
• Perhaps no player actually existed, for one reason or another...

Team owner Justin Hughes:  "Between needing a player to live up to huge expectations and having to question their own safety, it seems that the OW community isn’t ready to just view a player as just a player. We wanted a player, but it seemed like the public wanted something else.”

You're right.  Many people within the e-sports community (not just players, but fans, streamers, etc.) are little more than incel unemployable men who try to rewrite the concepts of "work", "job", and "athlete" for their liking.

I think I, over the course of watching various e-sports, have seen maybe one female of legitimate skill, etc. (a Street Fighter pro) to survive in this toxic masculinity of a "sport".  If men don't get a handle on themselves soon, one of the things I openly forecast in 2019 is a collapse in both e-sports and video-game streaming, as various governmental and other bodies will just finally have had enough of the incel unemployable gamer.