Discover Top Posts Tagged with #csprankle

Tweets of support for @cspranklerun from some of the biggest names in MtG

#mtg #mtg community #csprankle #twitpic #online harassment

Declaration: I stand against harassment

Good morning. Today’s post is not going to be an analysis of gameplay from content creators, recap of my own games or even very humorous. This is mainly since I am not in a humorous mood. And honestly, I do not think you should be, either. I would like to explain why and my thoughts on the situation. Yesterday (Black Friday, 24 November 2017) Christine Sprankle, who is a very talented cosplayer in the Magic: the Gathering community, announced she would be leaving our community due to harassment that has been going on for over a year, mostly by the hands of one scumbag, who will remain nameless due to the fact that they are simply not worth being named in the first place.

This announcement has sent a flurry of outrage throughout the community, from people who love Christine and her work to other content creators who have also been victims of this harassment. Being relatively new to the online MtG community, I only know bits and pieces of what has been going on, but from what I have gathered, here is thoughts from me.

I got into this game when I was around eight years old. My sister learned how to play, got some cards and taught me how to play. I loved the monsters and spells and everything about it because I have always been a fantasy nerd. From there, I got my own cards, learned more about the game and the rules of the game and generally got “better” at playing. I say “better” because as a pre-teen and teenager, I still was not very good in the large scheme of things. I never went to events and never competed in tournaments. But I loved the game. I loved getting new cards and I loved teaching my friends how to play so we could have fun pretending to be wizards and conjuring beasts and monsters to kill each other.

Over time, the hobby got popular in my high school and many of the people who learned to play learned from me. I taught other kids to play, even when they were not necessarily nice to me. I am sure some of it was a hope that teaching them to play would make me one of the “cool kids” for once, but at the end of the day, I also just enjoyed having more people to play with and talk about my favorite game with. But then things started getting uncomfortable when people started bullying me, even while playing the thing I taught them how to play. These days, I understand that these people were just lashing out due to something in their own life, but at that time, it really hurt. I shared something I loved with these people and they used it to stick knives in my back. It went on for an entire school year and it ended when I quit.

I quit playing Magic because someone went into my backpack and stole an entire deck while I was playing a game with someone else who was “in” on the theft. I had no idea because I thought the person I was playing was my friend. Apparently, they had decided it was better to be friends with my bullies and join in on picking on me. I reported the theft to my teachers and even tried to follow it up with my principal. In the end, I felt like the outcome was that the school did not care because it was just some dumb card game. Even my parents did not seem very interested in the fact that someone had stolen something I loved from me. I felt alone.

One of the reasons I am so upset by what is happening with Christine and probably many others across the MtG community is that I love this community. I want to be a part of it in as big a way as I can manage. This community has become a major part of my life. I make the Praetor Magic videos with my wife and friends because I love this community. I write for EDHREC because of this community. The only reason I even got big into using Twitter is because I love this community. I mean, these posts and this entire Tumblr are because I want to constantly churn out content for this community. If even one person likes a video, talks to me on Twitter, comments on my articles or follows this Tumblr, I feel amazing for the entire day. Let me say it one more time; I love this community.

But we have a problem. We have a problem with enabling people to harass and bully others. I am not delusional enough to think we will all always agree on everything, but we should always treat one another with respect. We have a problem with looking the other way or ignoring the problem in hopes that it will go away if it does not get our attention. The sad reality is that there are people in our community giving those people attention. They want those dark thoughts, those cruel things and everything else to be said and done. We have a problem. And I, for once, am sick of it.

My name is Seth Cross. I write for EDHREC, make videos for Praetor Magic, you can talk to me about Magic on Twitter and I stream 3DH with friends every week. I stand with Christine Sprankle and anyone else who gets targeted for harassment for stupid reasons like “they are a woman in a “man’s” hobby” or “they are gay/trans/etc.” or other stupid reasons like this. I stand against the people willing to use those reasons to keep being cruel, evil human beings. If someone acts like a jerk in front of me, I am going to call you out. If we are at an event or an LGS, I am going to report you and I will follow-up to see if a) you have stopped acting like a jerk or b) you have been removed from the event/location.

It is time for this community to change. We need to change.

The time to change is now.