On July 6th, I posted an article entitled 'Warhammer is for everyone, or; Stating the bleeding obvious' in which I gave my support to the 'Warhammer is for everyone' statement from Games Workshop, and recounted why it mattered to me after a particularly nasty case of racism that I encountered as a third party.
It's been positively received in the most, with several other hobbyists reaching out through social media to show their support.
Until this morning when, this lovely little message popped into my email, as a comment on that post, awaiting moderation.
Now, it's not signed, the person who left the message has decided that they don't have the courage of their convictions to actually put their name to it, so I don't know who left it. I can assume that, given my outspoken views on a certain YouTube 'personality' that they follow him, given that their modus operandi is to lash out anonymously.
The little riposte went as follows:
'you won't be missed either when you will succeed with that suicide attempt. how's that depression of your's going ? ...'
I've never been ashamed to point out that I have problems with mental health, and that I've had periods of depression. What that has to do with the subject at hand is beyond me however. But this is classic bullying technique - try to pick a weak spot and exploit it.
But they didn't pick a weak spot. They picked my super power.
I refer to it as such as, if I can survive crippling depression and suicidal thoughts throughout my life, and still be here, a well rounded, successful man in my 40's with a loving wife, good job, a great home and amazing friends, I can survive anything this world decides to throw at me, and I continue to do that. No number of nasty little comments by nasty little people looking for a dopamine hit to fill the void that is their empty soul will change that.
It's why I'm vocal against the hatred that Arch[redacted] espouses on a daily basis, why no matter how many of his followers come at me, I won't stop exposing his dogwhistles, his bigotry and his pathetic attempts to bully and exclude.
I've been in this hobby since the early 1980's - and, along with my sense of what is right and wrong, who is welcome and who is not, I'm going nowhere.
And if you don't like that?
The part that I don't understand is this:
ReplyDeleteIf you chase away all the people who think differently, then the game loses hundreds of thousands of people. Having lost all those participants, you lose anyone else they might have brought into the hobby. Their family, their friends. I'm an accidental gamer. A friend left a white dwarf mag lying around and I was hooked. I've since gotten an old friend reinvolved with the hobby, he got his son started, I got my own son started... That's 4 less people playing, just because one person gets chased away. No new blood or ideas in the hobby and it does.
It's depressing that the they'd rather the hobby stagnate and die, than have people with different ideas. Though I think it says it all about the state of the planet right now. However that's a different, but closely related story. :/
GTH