After reaching Challenger in solo queue, popular streamer Tyler1 has been the centerpiece of many discussions in the League of Legends community. Another popular League streamer, Voyboy, praised Tyler1 for his success after complaining about toxicity in the solo queue a couple of weeks ago.
Doublelift chimed into the discussion with his opinion on how Voyboy’s praise contradicts the solo queue woes Voyboy expressed in previous weeks.
“I think it was pretty funny that VoyBoy retweeted [Tyler1],” Doublelift said. “Cause Voy’s the one who was like ‘Yeah, League solo queue, people leave, they troll, they’re really toxic, it’s the worst it’s ever been’…why are you praising the guy that is extremely toxic and embodies what you hate in solo queue?”
Tyler1 was banned indefinitely in 2016 for the very thing that sparked his fame and grew his fanbase—his unyielding toxicity. Since then, after allegedly seeing the error of his ways, he’s been trying to change the public’s perception of him from the “most toxic player NA” to the “most reformed player NA.” In 2018 Riot Games revised their decision and unbanned him during their evaluation.
Even though he has been back in the scene for over two years, he still occasionally returns to his old ways, sometimes trolling or throwing the game away intentionally.
This attitude is far too familiar to anyone who has been playing League of Legends‘s solo queue, which is infamous for having a poor punishment system for people who break the rules. There’s dozens of cases where people troll games by dying constantly or going AFK around the map to bypass the detection system. While Riot has been vocal about this issue and says it is trying to fix it, the faces of League have a huge part in it as well.
If goods deeds and attitude are promoted, then the follower base will most likely follow and try to reach the same fame by following the standards. When the standards are mixed and you have both positive and negative types of attitudes, the fan bases will be mixed as well.
CLG’s founder, HotShotGG joined the discussion about toxicity and how Riot has been hesitant to listen to his feedback which has been given over the years to fix the solo queue problems and make the environment more enjoyable for everyone.
Going forward, Riot should take a close look at what its partners are promoting, especially during live streams to ensure that they are obeying the rules and promoting good behavior. If the most-watched streamers go unpunished for a certain type of behavior, why wouldn’t his viewers do the same?
We are human after all; “Monkey see, monkey do.’”
