G2 Esports CEO and cofounder, Carlos ‘ocelote’ Rodriguez was caught out having a night out with famous internet misogynist and all-around hitman, Andrew Tate. The news sparked a huge negative reaction via social networks, so naturally this previous League of Legends pro decided to tweet about the incident.
“Nobody will ever be able to police my friendships,” he wrote. “I party with whoever the fuck I want.” Within 24 hours after, Rodriguez announced he’s going for two months of unpaid leave.
What exactly transpired was that Rodriguez was drinking champagne with Tate as part of an ongoing probe by Romanian authorities regarding human trafficking, and was recently removed by Facebook, TikTok, Twitch and YouTube for promoting hate speech?
It’s because Rodriguez uploaded an image of himself as well as a plethora of other people such as Tate as well as his brother, Tristan Tate, passing around sparkling wine and champagne after G2’s second-place finish at the summer European League of Legends championship.
Instead of resigning and resigning, the CEO addressed the issue later in the day with an email that suggested the CEO and Andrew Tate were friends.
The next day, he retracted the line and apologized for his apologies to G2 Esports’ fans and supporters for “failing to understand the room.”
G2 Esports released its own statement informing its board of directors and Rodriguez had reached an agreement with that the CEO would take an unpaid time off. “Last night, we let you down,” the organization wrote in its statement, saying that Rodriguez’s actions are quite different from the work that it’s put into making the esports industry a safe and welcoming place.
It is interesting that neither Rodriguez or G2 have criticized Tate even though the team has just made public their first female-only League of Legends team. It is the ” King of Toxic Masculinity,” Tate has often gush over his abuse of women and treating women as the property of his male fans to follow suit.
Esports has been plagued for a long time with sexism, racism, and all kinds of offensive behavior and attitudes, and this is perhaps the most well-known instance in recent times of the reason why this space remains a hostile place for numerous.
Despite taking out G2 Esports’ name from his twitter bio, replacing his username with an “relieved” emoji, as well as making his avatar look like a baby phoenix as he goes through the process of being born, Rodriguez still doesn’t seem to be averse to all of it.
Perhaps he’s afraid of looking like he’s completely surrendering to the G2 fans who aren’t averse to gender-based discrimination. I’m wondering whether League of Legends new president, Lil Nas X believes.
