Apex Legends player, Dilly, has been disqualified from a recent tournament and banned from all future competitions hosted by Fate Legion for teabagging the body of one of his teammates.
The tournament took place yesterday, July 16. In a match between Dilly, his team, and their opponents, Dilly ended up as the last man standing — defeating both the enemy team losing a teammate, daftwalrus55, in the process. In response, Dilly teabagged the loot box daftwalrus55 left behind upon death, which immediately caught the attention of organizers.
Both Dilly and his team were immediately disqualified and banned.
This has become a hot-button issue in the gaming sphere, with several larger streamers reminesncing about how they commonly experienced verbal abuse after dying in matches. Replies seemed equally shocked by the ban, expressing that “gamers have gone soft.”
We got disqualified from all @FateLegion1 tournaments because I tbagged my TEAMMATES box?! PEOPLE IN ALGS WERE TBAGGING EACH OTHER pic.twitter.com/V4j2e0anhR
— Dilly (@dillykami) July 16, 2022
Teabagging is a form of taunting that has existed in the competitive digital space for time immemorial. It’s extremely likely that every user has or will have experienced it at some point in their online career.
Typically, it involves the repeated crouching over the corpse of another player until they respawn. Its namesake comes from that action which supposedly mimics dunking teabags into a drink — or, at least, that’s the safe-for-work definition.
Some players are calling this an overreaction on the part of the organizer — including Dilly, himself. In a short Twitter thread, Dilly called his sudden permanent ban “unprofessional” and “very dumb.” He called out Fate Legion for “making up a rule” on the spot where one regarding toxicity didn’t exist.
“Disqualifying a whole team permanently from all future tournaments for a made up rule is a complete joke,” he wrote, “tbagging my own teammate is not toxic in any way and i’m not accepting that rule.”
It’s worth noting that Fate Legion does have a Sportsmanship clause in their upcoming tournament descriptions that does not appear in previous listings.
“Players will conduct themselves in a friendly manner and keep all forms of toxic play out of the chats and matches.” It states, going on to explain that punishment is up to admin discretion and listing t-bagging, explicitly.
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but teabagging in video games is not sexual assault pic.twitter.com/smqBzi9iR7
— Jake Lucky (@JakeSucky) June 27, 2022
There has been a recent outcry against teabagging in an effort to make gaming a welcoming space for all. Some have gone as far as to liken it to sexual assault/harassment following horrific incidents on other platforms. Others have responded that the comparison is an insult to survivors.
It’s unclear if Fate Legion’s actions were a reaction to this controversy. Other developers have come out, more or less, against the act, replacing it with emotes or making it impossible to perform.
Fate Legion has yet to comment about publicly about the situation.
