#the one with easyrod was fascinating

[the-final-sif]

So for those unaware, dasnerth is apparently banned from Karl & MrBeast challenge, accord to the discord message he showed today (1/29/2024), (which notably is from 8/30/2023)

basically, as it stands, almost all the "content" you provide by being in a video almost always gets cut out because you're generally pretty toxic, you take the gameplay extremely seriously which makes your time on-screen inherently destructive / toxic. If you are genuinely super interested in not being blacklisted, if you could just refrain from being toxic we can lift the blacklist. It would also mean reporting any exploits instead of abusing them.

A message he published himself, claiming he was only being competitive.

I've seen in response, certain people claiming that this is unfair, that he needs to be defended, or that this will inevitably lead towards toxicity towards people like Sapnap/Punz/Hannah.

This is not true, and I think people need to understand that there is a line between being competitive and being toxic to be around and effectively unwatchable and making others uncomfortable.

First, take note for a moment that Dasnerth has been banned for well over 5 months, and despite being very clearly and flatly told he's unwelcome, he's not only still stalking the discord to try to join stuff, but also then turned to twitter to kick up a fuss about the ban still being enforced.

This is pretty telling of him as a person. He's clearly been told that he's blacklisted and unwelcome, and five months later he's still trying to sneak in. That is a very clear indication of failing to respect boundaries, feeling entitled to participate in contests, and being unable to take no for an answer.

Putting that aside though, you can still clearly draw lines between taking competition seriously and being a toxic asshole in a game. I think a really good example of this is actually, weirdly enough, 5up's lobbies.

If you don't know 5up, he's a guy who plays among us. When he was starting out, he often played with what were called "sweat lobbies". These lobbies often devolved into yelling, shouting, insults, etc. 5up was noteworthy for generally not falling to that level. You can watch how awful of a viewing experience this is here. These lobbies are very competitive, and also suck so bad 5up left despite generally being willing to tolerate a lot of bullshit.

Contrast this to his later lobby that he built with Hafu, a very experienced streamer with a much calmer vibe. The morning lobbies that they built are known for being relatively serious and competitive, but not being toxic messes. Here's a good example, In this game 5up played an amazing crewmate much like the XQC, and caught Steve and Tina (Tinakitten) as imposters. Tina's distressed but not angry or being mean, and Steve compliments him on figuring out! It's a complete flip of the above. People sometimes yell and get excited, throw a bit, or get a bit salty, but it's nothing like what you see above with the constant screaming and insults. People from other lobbies that are more chaotic come in and are generally surprised by how seriously they take stuff.

To go even further, 5up also plays in the stell lobbies, which are very competitive and take the game very seriously. Listen to a meeting in the stell lobbies. Nobody is yelling, even when directly accused. They all remain calm and polite. They're still playing the game very seriously, they're playing to win, but nobody's being toxic or mean.

There's a difference between being competitive in a fun way, where you take a game seriously and try to win, and just being an asshole and disregarding good sportsmanship. It's perfectly valid for contests to ban players for violating good sportsmanship and abusing exploits. Technoblade was a very competitive person, but even when he's being teasingly toxic to squidkid for example, it's clearly in good fun. The two of them became friends. There's a fundamental level of respect there, and nobody is going over the top.

So yeah, while we don't have the specific behavior cited, it's perfectly valid for an event to ban someone for being toxic, and no, banning someone for being toxic isn't bait or eliminating competitiveness. It's just showing an asshole the door.