About Zero

[Hippieslayer]

* You and your friends you're defending are being unironic pedophilia apologists and that is completely unacceptable, period. Disputing semantics over pedophilia vs. hebephilia is pedo apologia. Citing a pedo's past and feelings while anticipating people will rightly call you out because they have nothing to do with anything by disarming potential opponents and nebulously claiming it's still relevant is textbook emotional manipulation. Making others feel sorry for them, that is what pedo apologists do. It is intentional emotional manipulation to dull the anger response in others and thus lower the likelihood of anything being done to you for something you clearly know is wrong. That alone is problematic regardless of the subject matter, but for pedo apologia, it is especially heinous.

* You claiming they are choosing to move on, therefore the allegations are false is itself problematic. Appeals to pop culture ethics like moving on are what abusers and their apologists resort to when they have something to hide. Especially in a serious thread the mods themselves have refused to close or even police. If Zero truly was innocent, you wouldn't have to resort to such measures. But what little can we expect from pedo apologists?

* This isn't about Zero's case specifically, but other users' reaction to it and their defenses of his behavior, because it's obvious they think that kind of behavior is okay and acceptable and they're testing the waters to see how close they can come to directly saying so. Which should not be acceptable on this board or any other Smash board at all.

* None of your post addresses anything I have said and indeed you are treating this like a fight with tactics instead of what it actually is: me morally condemning you for supporting something you should not be supporting, and in typical fashion, you don't like it. And that's too bad. If you don't like being morally condemned, don't support things that get you condemned.

* If anything this shows us that the safety of the users and the integrity of the boards clearly are not high on anyone's priority list and that in and of itself is shameful.

Stop being super dramatic and stop assuming so much. Most of this is just in your head. You're not judge jury and executioner. Your opinions and interpretetations are not natural law. So don't act like they are.

Your way of acting makes any type of discussion about anything controversial impossible.

You assume the right to decide what terms mean and how they are applied, even when in direct opposition to a simple dictionary or Google search.

You assume the right to assume whatever you want about other other people and you stick to those assumptions even when said people have explicitly explained to you that your assumptions are completely wrong. If I were to list all the incorrect assumptions you've made about me that list would be pretty long.

You don't know me. Thankfully I'm not that fragile and can handle a random person on the internet calling me horrible things and being extremely disrespectful but you don't know that either. You assume. A lot.

 

[TCT~Phantom]

I do not care what anyone says, what ZeRo did is wrong. There is no dancing around what happened: ZeRo solicited illicit photos from an underage fan. No technicalities of the label changes that. The dude plain as day messed up. He messed up bad. He was in a position of power over his fan and took advantage of her. Even excluding the problematic age difference for a second (which you obviously should not), its still messed up. ZeRo was someone in a position of power. He was older, a pro player, an internet celebrity. Combine that with the fact the fan at the time was very much underage, and that means it does not matter if he has a sob story or not.

Smash has always been a community for all ages. Several top players right now even are minors. Smash tourneys should be as open and accessible as possible. They should be safe people of all ages. Letting minors have easy access to alcohol or be put in predatory situations is bad. This is not a cancel culture thing: it is a keeping children safe thing. Think if you were a parent or guardian. Would you feel comfortable letting your kid go to this kind of event if you saw dudes with open containers of alcohol ten feet away? Would you be willing to let them play friendlies with someone who you could reasonably say is a sex offender? I hope the answer to those questions is no.

The punishment at the end of the day fits the crime. ZeRo, even just once, showed that he could be a danger to minors. Why should he get a pass to get to still go to events with minors? It does not matter if he was just 19. The fact of the matter is he still did it. He should not be allowed at Smash events period, which is a pretty milquetoast punishment. Even if they hypothetically "learned their lesson", what sort of image does that promote? You get a blank pass on sexual misconduct just because you made a hype top 8? The issues that came to light in 2020 were systemic, both in Melee and Ultimate. You need actions to have consequences. Some situations only warranted temporary bans, but others like ZeRo are more serious. ZeRo is a big figure in the community. His win streak in Smash 4 was something that made waves in the eSports scene. He was at both the Smash 4 and Ultimate pre releases at E3. The accusations of what he had done are serious too. You can't dance around what he did: ZeRo solicited nudes from an underage fan. You can't let something like that slide just because ZeRo has had a rough life story or because ZeRo had some amazing games in Grand Finals. Actions as serious as what he did must have consequences.

ZeRo will survive. He can make his Youtube videos, but he should stay away from the smash community. He deserves the ability to repair his life and move on. That does not mean the Smash community should ever welcome him back. Life is rough, everyone has a sob story deep down. Does that mean you should have empathy towards your fellow man? Sure, but that is not indefinite. You need to show some desire to be better, some remorse. You can't just do bad things and feel sorry for yourself, you have to do better. ZeRo got the help he needed to not be suicidal. That does not give him a blank check for his actions in the past, present, or future. You can personally forgive him for his actions, but that does not mean the Smash Community at large has to. If he wanted to stay involved in a scene that, as I will stress, has a large pool of minors in it, he should not have solicited nudes from a minor.

ZeRo's return post case lately has honestly been pretty maligned. He sicked his fans on Onin and caused them to leave twitter. You can claim he couldn't have known how his fans would respond, but your words have weight to them. When Onin reasonably asked him not to highlight his tournament run, ZeRo refused and picked a fight with him about it. ZeRo has thousands of twitter followers and at his peak had tens of thousands of YouTube subscribers. He should have known that his fanbase might attack the Steve player when anti-Steve fervor was at a high point. Onin is 16; well within his return he had a direct role in pushing Onin off of twitter. His tweet about starting a "banned series" to me shows how little he has learned from his whole experience. People, including ZeRo himself, were banned for a reason. Does that really bode any confidence that ZeRo learned anything from his ban? The best case scenario is it is a terrible joke, but even then ZeRo is one of the last people who should say that. It more so reads to me as someone still bitter that he managed to sabotage his own lifestyle and career while avoiding taking responsibility for his actions.

If you personally want to forgive ZeRo, I can't stop you. But that does not mean he should ever be allowed at events again or that the community broadly should welcome him back with open arms.