My experience with the OPL

Before this begins, I want to say a few things... I’ve sat on this post for months - this is something I’ve thought through a lot and have made many many edits to. I’ve been too afraid to post it, but I figure that it’s important to get this out there while there are conversations currently happening about Riot OCE and their decisions and treatment of people. I hope this doesn’t take away from any of the exciting announcements of our scene and the people going overseas, I am very happy for you all :)



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So as most of you know I was fired from my social media position at Riot earlier this year. Their reasoning was that they wanted to go in a “different direction,” if you want to believe that. Apparently I was a little too controversial for them, which is... whatever. I don’t mind that. The host can yell “MY PENIS!” at one of the casters on the live pg OPL stream and it’s fine, but me being “outspoken” on my personal channels apparently gives the brand a bad name.



What actually gives the brand a bad name is the disgusting people that work for the company who sexually harass the young women who work for them, and work to undermine them when those young women won’t have sex them. I'm sorry to tell you but this isn't just a problem in the US offices.



I do not believe I was purely fired for the reasons Riot claimed. I believe that one person in particular lead a quiet and gradual smear campaign to get me fired because I wasn’t interested in him sexually. Seeds were strategically planted over the entirety of split 1 this year; I was turned into a scapegoat - someone to blame for a myriad of issues happening in the office, I had people that I trusted turned against me and unwilling to listen when I tried to speak up, and was subsequently fired due to this campaign.



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I always got along with Riot Benji, and even defended him to other people at many times. We had a lot in common; we like similar music, we’re passionate about the League... we had a lot to talk about.



So one night at GGEZ before League of Origin we did spend a lot of time talking amongst a small group. We spoke about how we both want to get into content creation, I told him about my idea for an OPL History Lessons video series I wanted to do, and offered him to join me on it. We spitballed ideas back and forth. At one point while in the women’s bathroom with a close friend, we discussed how Benji was coming across as flirty and a bit too interested. I brushed this off though as I was enjoying my night and didn’t think a coworker of mine would cross any lines with me. Eventually, in a very drunken state, we all left and made our way home.



Benji witnessed me go home with someone. His face when he realised was something I’ll never forget.



From that point on Benji went completely 180 on me. He started nitpicking on things at work that he hadn’t before then. He was cold to me. He cancelled a meeting I had organised with the producer about having troubles at work and feeling undermined two hours before it was scheduled, and put himself there instead to lecture me about being active in Twitch chat. The meeting I had requested wasn’t even about anything to do with that!



I was always very active in Twitch chat, because to me that personal connection between the fans and the show is what keeps people around and makes them fans. This had never been an issue before until the meeting he took over, which came the week after Benji decided to discipline me in Twitch chat one day. One of my superiors at Riot, where I was only a contractor, disciplined me publicly in front of thousands of people.

https://i.imgur.com/KTe6NTI.png Of course I pushed back on this and it was apparently passed through to HR, though I didn’t hear anything more about it.



From the beginning of working there I would always be running around the studio during the show; in our spectator room, down to the studio, all around the building to keep the cohesive flow of our broadcast days over all of our socials. This was never an issue either, in fact I was apprehensive about entering the rooms while the games were on as I didn’t want to disrupt the players, but I was reassured many times that they wanted me to do that and capture everything I could. One day the host asked on broadcast if somebody could bring down something for one of the casters. It was in the room I was in and I was about to make my rounds anyway, so I took it down, only to be messaged and baselesly disciplined by Benji 3 minutes later. https://i.imgur.com/ixKcb75.png Just a reminder, this had never been an issue before now. An entire year of doing this and suddenly it was an issue? That final line of “does that make sense?” is practically dripping with disrespect.



I constantly felt like I was on the back foot with Riot for the entirety of split 1 of this year, which was entirely different from the vibe I had all through 2018. I felt unwelcome in the office and none of my ideas were being received. I felt like I was putting in a lot of effort and had no support from any of them. Everything I did was being turned into something it wasn’t and I didn’t understand why. I got told off for posting this on my own feed: https://twitter.com/lozunnie/status/1109347913770000387 . I could feel the office turning on me. I spoke to Richard our onsite show producer (who was always incredibly supportive with everything, but ultimately wasn’t a Rioter and had no sway) about all of this and it was passed on again, yet nothing was done. Meetings were cancelled or overtaken by Benji. I was leaving work miserable.



After those messages from Benji and this constant bullying by him I ended up bursting into tears at work in front of Nich, and again spoke to Richard about it.



That Tuesday I received an email asking me to come in for a meeting. I thought that somehow what Benji was doing finally mattered to Riot and that it’d be a meeting with HR, so I prepared those screenshots and 3 entire pages of notes and was ready to speak to them about it. Nope - to my total surprise I got fired. A day before gauntlet.



When I announced that I was no longer working on the OPL I received an influx of messages from people - fans, friends, and ex-Rioters alike. And you know what? A few of them really stuck out to me.



This message was completely unprompted, yet somehow hit the nail entirely on the head: https://i.imgur.com/HaB2YkF.png. (Scary, right?) An ex-Rioter also told me they were “not surprised” when I mentioned in confidence what Benji was doing, and another friend said “Benji gets crushes on every hot woman, he’s a creep.”



The fact that I received these kind of messages from people in the scene means that Benji doing this is a known behaviour and has happened to other women previously. I just hope they didn’t get fired from it like I did lol.



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I stand by the fact that I did awesome work for the OPL and its community. If they think I’m a little too controversial for them then that’s fine, I’m working with exactly the right sort of people for me now. Let’s pretend for a second though that the reason they gave for my firing was 100% true and had nothing to do with this. Benji’s behaviour was and is still an issue, and it shouldn’t have been ignored when I tried to speak out about it. I have every right to not feel sexually harassed or bullied when I’m in my place of work, and every right to be heard when I try to speak up.



I loved working there and even after all of this I’m still making content entirely on my own because I love the League and our region. Even now that I hear there’s a bad image of me at the Riot office and even the people I worked with on broadcast speak negatively about me I’m still putting my time and effort into them. It hurts that Benji’s sexual harassment is a KNOWN ISSUE and people like him are allowed to stick around as the office size dwindles, and scapegoat me to be the bad guy.



I guess blessings come in disguise. If this didn’t happen I wouldn’t be where I am now working with people who value me as a human being and aren’t telling me I’m “scopecreeping” for trying to grind and work my way up in this industry that I love.



I didn’t speak about this for so long because ultimately my esports dream has always been and still is to work with Riot Games and League of Legends in the capacity of on-screen/stage talent. And also because speaking up about this stuff is terrifying... I am scared that this man's behaviour will impact me and my career negatively more than it already has, but I am not okay with being silent anymore. If this means I’ll never achieve that dream then so be it.



I am terribly hurt by all of this still - I am hurt that no one in the office backed me up, and I am hurt that some people in that office have a negative opinion of me now. But I will not stand for this. I have experienced sexual harassment and men making me uncomfortable at every single job in games I’ve had until my current position. People like Benji should not be allowed to have such a position of power and hurt my livelihood because he didn’t get to stick his dick in me.



And now you all know. Do with this what you will. I just hope men like this will leave our scene - whether by force or not - and let women exist in this space as more than a sexual object.



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