After decrying the harassment of other streamers for playing Hogwarts Legacy, Twitch streamer and YouTuber Asmongold has found himself being attacked by Twitter activists.
Hogwarts Legacy has been subject to a failed boycott, with pro-transgender activists demanding no one play the game as it supports J. K. Rowling.
The author’s comments in 2020 were taken as anti-transgender — attempting to explain avoiding offense to transgender people ended up being more offensive to women — despite insisting she meant no offence to others by them.
Thanks to the game’s special editions allowing fans to play early, the game has broken records on Twitch, having achieved a new record for the most live viewers for a single player game. Over 1.2 million viewers have now seen the game ahead of launch.
However, some have been harassed for streaming the game, presumably by those self-same activists. Some have been driven to tears, while others hastily cancelled plans to stream the game after suspected harassment.
Among those denouncing the boycott was streamer and YouTuber Zachariah Hoyt — widely known as Asmongold. In late January, the streamer discussed the boycott, bouncing off critique of RobinGaming’s video on the subject.
While admitting he was initially unsure about the reasoning behind it, he explained he was able to divorce the creator from their work. “I’m still gonna listen to Kanye West!” Asmongold explained, referencing West’s infamous appearance and comments on InfoWars. “If the game’s fun, I’ll play it!”
Asmongold agreed with RobinGaming’s assertion that most gaming controversies “don’t exist” once ignored, or outright manufactured when smaller voices are elevated by social media, and inaccurate reporting (even when mocking said voices).
He also found boycotting Hogwarts Legacy odd, when other companies had done far worse, giving child labor for shoe companies as an example. “How are you boycotting Harry Potter, but you’re not boycotting Apple? It just seems like a very distorted worldview,” Asmongold retorted.
Asmongold wasn’t against those who didn’t want to play the game however. “If people don’t want to buy it because they don’t agree with she [Rowling] said, I think that’s totally their right to do it. That’s totally fine, I think every single person has to draw their own line in the sand.”
“I think where the problem comes in is whenever they try to guilt-trip and shame other people for enjoying something,” the streamer noted. “Any time that you try to force people that don’t really care about your issue to care about your issue and agree with you, you usually get them to care about your issue and disagree with you. It’s a very counter-productive goal.”
“The problem is whenever these people are so f—king self-righteous and sanctimonious, that they think that they have the f—king moral authority to sit around and tell everybody else what they have to do to! And then they try to shame people for enjoying something.” Asmongold claimed he’d never seen such action not backfiring, and agreed with a chat member that such people were “losers.”
He also theorized that the activists hadn’t realized their opinion didn’t matter. “Your approval of someone else playing a video game — there’s no currency value of this! Nobody cares about your approval, because you’re a loser! And that’s it.”
“If more of these people realize this, they would probably stop doing this,” Asmongold hoped, adding they had no sense of perspective and “main character syndrome” — namely extremely self-centered, needing to be the focus of every situation in a positive light, and delusion their life is better, or destined to become better, than it is.
RELATED: ‘Hogwarts Legacy’ Reveals Transgender Character, Activists Still Not Happy
Asmongold also felt attempts by Warner Bros. to address the controversy only gave activists “more ammunition,” and even those boycotting would play Hogwarts Legacy several weeks after launch. While championing the concept of consumers voting with their wallets, he believed that as long as a game is fun, no issue will dissuade people from playing it.
Likewise, he disagreed with RobinGaming’s claim that “everyone” is expected to “fall in line” with “the same one-sided political narrative”— or rather that such a directive was indicative of everyone’s desires. Asmongold proposed it was merely “1% to 2%” of people that were “so politically extreme and mentally f—king psychotic, that they think the world revolves around them.”
This was in part thanks to people giving in to them, to not deal with their “psychotic outbursts.”
Instead, Asmongold felt the true majority category at 95% was “don’t f—king tell me what to do, you stupid loser on Twitter.” He also claimed those against “woke agendas” in media were also a minority, as people would only care when any pandering in any capacity negatively affected the quality of a game — though not denying discussion of elements people felt was “kinda weird.”
“Whether it’s the complainers about the gay quests in [World of Warcraft: Dragonflight], or the complainers about J.K. Rowling being transphobic — nobody wants to be told what they can or can’t do, and what they can or can’t enjoy, and then being insulted when they don’t go along with it,” Asmongold summarized.
He also stated activist’s opinions can only exist without scrutiny in an “echo chamber,” where any dissent is “shut down.”
Earlier in the video, the streamer mocked the notion of the activists’ harassment. “There’s nothing that these people are really going to do. What are they gonna do, tweet at you? Just block them. Another one tweets at you — block them. After probably ten people that you block, you’re never gonna see it again.”
Nonetheless, Asmongold would condemn the harassment streamers had received in February. “Shocking to me that people think the way to protest Hogwarts Legacy is to bully and harass those who are playing/streaming it. No one likes this. You’re not helping anyone, you’re just being a piece of sh—t.”
While the vast majority of replies were supportive of Asmongold’s tweet, he almost proved himself right by not ignoring the problem, as he did receive some harassing comments, along with half a dozen posting alleged spoilers about Hogwarts Legacy‘s ending, and major events (which we won’t be linking to).
Though some were polite, differing opinions based on reasoning, most showed little regard for Asmongold’s claims.
There were differing opinions, most stated politely and based on reasoning, and others stating the harassment hadn’t been that bad. Then there were users such as @Itmechr3, who wrote, “Suck my d—k and choke on it you tiny b—h. Moreover, ICE must be destroyed”
“Suck my d—k and balls,” @kaiboyart fumed, later adding, “If you buy this game, pirate this game, or play this game in any capacity, get out of my sight.” This would suggest @kaiboyart’s concerns were beyond fiscal support for Rowling.
Twitter user @wspittman told Asmongold to “Eat a bag of d—ks you piece of sh—t,” an insult the user had frequently used against others.
“Big baby I’m a big baby waaah. big baby need binky,”@magickfart mocked. They then surprisingly stated “You could just play the game. no one would know if you just played the game.”
“But that’s not enough. you need to announce it, make a point about how playing the game is good and morally correct so you don’t feel bad about it. you need to convince everyone you’re a smol bean.” At this time of writing, Asmongold has not streamed Hogwarts Legacy, nor announced plans to stream it.
“Damn, I’d love for people to care this much about the growing loss of trans rights across the western world,” @lustycomic_ opined.
“I mean, ‘politely asking you not to support the woman using this money to literally attempt to exterminate us’ sure didn’t work so” @ginandjuniper justified.
“Uh oh cis people getting held accountable is ‘bullying’ and ‘harassment,'” @ovaettrart teased. “Now congratulations yall the cis folks are actually who is truly oppressed here. think about their poor feelings. gee us mean trans people really did it this time. i hope youll recover (jk go to hell).”
“If you’re a streamer and you get harassed for playing the dumb transphobe game, i want you to know, that you deserve it,” @kelfisto derided. “‘Let people enjoy and play the game!’ no i want you to watch a loved one die within the next year. i don’t care who. but you have to love them. and you have to watch them die.”
