(cw: description of molestation and sexual assault)
“VikkiKitty,” a Super Smash Bros. pro player, has accused Cristian Medina, aka “Hyuga,” of sexual harassment, alleging that he molested her in her hotel room. As she wrote in her TwitLonger post, Medina had been drinking and VikkiKitty “did not want him wandering around Las Vegas drunk and alone.” She then “woke up to Cristian in between my boyfriend and I, rubbing against me and sliding his hands up my shirt and another down my pants.”
After yelling at Medina to get off of her, another friend in the room, Nick Riddle, said VikkiKitty should move over to his bed to get away from him. She did, but even despite moving, Medina switched beds as well to follow VikkiKitty, sliding “between the person [VikkiKitty] was on the bed with and tries to do it once again.” Ultimately, Riddle kicks Medina out of the room, and VikiKitty filed a police report.
Riddle posted a screenshot of some messages he received from Medina that imply he’s aware of what he’s done, and is asking for silence on Riddle’s part.
— NickRiddle (@VS_NickRiddle) July 17, 2016
Following these events, Medina was dismissed from his newly-joined pro Smash team, VGBootCamp. Their statement said, in part:
This afternoon we heard accusations that our player, “Hyuga”, groped a woman of the smash community sometime early this morning as she tried to sleep. After talking to all parties and witnesses involved we believe that these accusations are true. Although he was heavily intoxicated during the incident there is absolutely no excuse for his actions. Starting immediately, Hyuga will no longer be a representative of the VGBC pro team. We want to set a precedent for all teams and sponsored players in the smash community to say that these actions will not be glossed over and ignored. To be absolutely clear, as of right now, we have dropped Hyuga from our team completely.
Additionally, Medina has been banned from official Smash competitions by various community leaders for at least a year. Medina’s online presence has all but evaporated, as his Twitter and Facebook accounts seem to have been deleted.
Sexual assault, harassment, and sexism in general within the fighting game community isn’t exactly a brand new thing, so to speak. Back in 2012, Miranda “Super_Yan” Pakozdi had to deal with incredibly lewd sexual comments from her coach, Aris Bakhtanians. They were both on a fighting game-based reality show called Cross Assault, with Bakhtanians serving as coach to contestant Pakozdi. You can read the story in full over here, but Bakhtanians was accused of verbally harassing and even smelling Pakozdi.
In a statement sent to Giant Bomb following the release of that story, Bakhtanians said, “I sincerely apologize if I have offended anyone.”
The saddest part about that story is that Bakhtanians apparently remains a part of the fighting game community, so much so that he was invited to commentate for the EVO 2016 Mortal Kombat X competition on Twitch.
Sexism, harassment, and assault still run rampant throughout the gaming community. This we already knew. But in the case of VikkiKitty, it’s somewhat reassuring to see that both the community and the team responsible for bringing Medina over are rallying behind her in support.
(via Polygon)
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