Leaving The Casting Team; going back to New Jersey

A lot of times, I'm not seen as Brandon. Or even dmbrandon. To people with a bone to pick, it's always phrased as "A HIREZ EMPLOYEE SAID..." It's the same way the media spins stories for dramatic effect. "A black woman-" or "A male attacker-" tell a much more biased tale of a story than "An individual-" would.



A flair for the extreme, I've been known for. And these are my opinions, and mine alone. It is not fair for a company I work for to be held accountable for the opinions I have on my free time. That is not how it seems to work. People who feel scorned because of a chat ban or twitter block, or even people with no experiences with me and my community and just like being in an argument will belittle what I said down to "As a hirez employee, you can't say that."



It's gotten to be pretty bad, honestly. Someone linked me a reddit thread of a panda rolling around on a ball... But the title was cut off and the tweet said "You should probably see this." For 10 minutes, I had a panic attack, sweating, under the assumption that yet another reddit thread had been made to attack me. After clicking it, later on, I realized that I stressed over nothing. But knowing I could be inadvertently impacting colleagues is something I can't deal with.



But that's the way it is. Someone yesterday made 5 separate comments about how I should kill myself. I messaged him telling him that what he said about part of the incident made me see something a bit differently. He responded with "Well, I didn't mean what I said." That's how easy it is for someone to mean something else. 5 separate comments, and at the end "well..."



Every word I speak is criticized to the point that it can be taken badly. And while I accept that and the hate it comes with, Hirez shouldn't have to deal with it.



At the beginning of this season, as Bart was leaving, I intended to leave as well. TBH, casting Smite has lost a lot of its luster for me, and I wanted to focus full time on streaming and charity work. A lot of you will remember me saying that 2016 was going to be dedicated to charity work. I decided this after deciding I would go back to New Jersey. I knew I couldn't handle all of it. Casting, analyzing, running Juice, doing events, streaming and now adding the charity weight on top of it. In my mind, it wasn't possible, and I was enjoying casting less. That and I don't really like Georgia. I know I make jokes about it a lot, but I'm very, very unhappy here.



To me, casting is amazing and will be something I always love. But charity work is important, and for a person in my position, I need to be doing more to ensure a healthy lifestyle. I'm blessed with a lot of things, and I feel the need to give back.



As for yesterday: I couldn't believe what I said. Because I didn't mean it and I certainly did not mean for it to come out as it did. I couldn't understand how I fucked that up so badly. The stress levels of trying to juggle this lifestyle while keeping up appearances at events, and everything on top got to the point where I was actually fucking up what I meant to say. But please don't point your hate at others for my mistake.



With that, I'm leaving the casting team. When I first got here, I cried a little. I hate being away from my friends and family. Kelly even made fun of me a bit, saying I'd get used to it. I haven't. I've been beating myself up for 19 months, away from my friends and family. My wife is unhappy here, away from her friends and family... I was on the fence about coming to GA to begin with, and it's time I head back home.



A lot of the things I've seen at hirez have been great. I've worked tirelessly (quite literally) to ensure my worth within the circle. Grinding the stream to keep Smite up in twitch viewers, helping teams find good representation in sponsors, working with the casters for the best content possible. It's hard to live up to a company who has made such an amazing game, who does such great big things... I worked myself stupid to attempt to earn a spot on the team that people like Stew Chisam, Scott Zier and Mic Larkins helped create.



But I'm not suited for it.



Last night, people were playing devil's advocate for suicide. People were honestly attacking me for saying that Suicide is not the answer. People were getting massively upvoted, saying things like "Suicide should be a person's choice." I can't battle things like this, honestly. I don't know how people's hate for me in a video game got so great that they'd take the side of suicide just to continue arguing. And that shouldn't be placed on anyone but me.



I'm going to focus on streaming and charity work for the rest of the year. In 2017, who knows? For now, I wanted to say thanks to those who support me, and for everyone who understands why I have to do this. No one should be burdened by what I say except for me. I'll be going back to Jersey soon.



There is no way I've said everything I want to say, but the idea is there.

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