Two weeks ago, the Overwatch Contenders team Second Wind announced the acquisition of Ellie, a relatively unknown DPS player, for the upcoming season of Overwatch Contenders. Ellie would have been the first woman to play for a North American Overwatch Contenders team, following in the footsteps of Geguri in Overwatch League, but yesterday she stepped down from Second Wind after receiving harassment and threats of doxxing from people in the competitive Overwatch community.
Overwatch Contenders is essentially the minor league for Overwatch esports. Second Wind found Ellie thanks to an impressive performance on the NA Overwatch ladder, but with a feminine-sounding name and little online presence—Ellie rarely streamed and had a new Twitter account—some commenters on the Competitive Overwatch subreddit immediately questioned her skill.
"Don't know who tf this person is, must be a friend of someone on the team," read one comment.
"Is this a girl or another Korean guy with a girl name?" read another.
The whole situation is an unfortunate reminder of how unwelcome the esports world can be to women. Even now, following her decision to step down, many comments in the Competitive Overwatch subreddit still perpetuate the conspiracy theory.
The common refrain says that esports is a meritocracy, and women will succeed if they're good enough. In this case, Ellie clearly had the skill needed to play in Overwatch Contenders—the toxicity of the esports community prevented that from happening.
