British esports journalist Duncan ‘Thorin’ Shields went on a Twitter rant, reacting to the people who criticized him for not being supportive of ESL’s circuit for women as part of their GGFORALL initiative going into 2022.
It started with caster Auguste ‘Semmler’ Massonnat calling the circuit discriminatory towards MEN and asking when a tournament solely for men would be started in his tweet. He gave the reasoning for this tweet saying no one stopped women from competing in these tournaments and that creating one solely for women was discriminatory and toxic.
He was called out by women as well as men working in the industry and Thorin came in support of Semmler, saying his opinions shouldn’t be dismissed so soon as he has been a veteran of the industry having worked as a caster across multiple esports for many many years, the summary of the drama can be read here.
Since then Thorin has been on a blocking spree, blocking people who disagree with him after pointing out flaws in their criticism of him, and mocking them with the ‘#Fanlogic’ hashtag. He went as far as to saying ‘I AM ESPORTS’, a nod to his years as a journalist across different esports such as CSGO and League of Legends, earning a rapport for always being truthful and never being afraid of speaking his mind. He was also appreciated by journalist DeKay in his farewell post.
The community wasn’t too far behind in trolling him though and even edited the Wikipedia page of Esports so it included ‘also known as Thorin’.
Even pokimane didn’t shy away from taking digs at him with her tweet.
There has been a lot of criticism for Thorin and Semmler both, as the drama has taken a lot longer to quell than expected. But most of the esports community is supportive of the Circuit for women by ESL and the GGFORALL initiative as a whole. The circuit allows women to compete in CSGO with a more equal standing with men, and has been welcomed by the community and especially by the women in esports.