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So I’ve been thinking for a couple days about the nazis in warhammer thing, and I’m gonna chime in with a story. My first exposure to warhammer was at a flgs I started playing magic at when I was about 13. I was always blown away by how cool the game looked, and there were (1/13)
Always people playing. The shop had maybe 2 dozen regulars who would play in a week, and most of them were just normal people. Dads and nerds, who were all friendly and happy to talk about how much they loved the hobby. But there were also these two douchebags.
At the time, I just thought they were assholes. They were 4chan edgelords, always happy to throw around genuine insults and derision, talking shit on other people models, other games, interests and really personal insults to other people in the store.
They sucked, and nobody liked them, but they never did anything bad enough to get kicked out while inside the store. They’d throw slurs around online, and “ironically” post memes about minorities, women, and just be general chuds whenever they could get away with it.
Over the course of the past decade they continued to escalate, becoming CLEAR alt right online fascist fans. They became OPENLY hostile to the women, people of color, and trans customers of the shop until they were eventually banned for harassment.
I didn’t get into this hobby for a fucking DECADE because these were the face of the game to me. I met Hams in college and assumed they were also pieces of shit, because at this point I’d almost come to blows with the “biggest” warhammer fans I knew for being scumbags.
And those people I met in college ACTIVELY worked to change my opinion, trying to prove that those dicks were outliers and most people in the hobby were fun, inclusive, and genuinely kind people who share a love of a hobby. It took me a DECADE to finally warm up enough to bite.
And the FIRST podcast I looked up to try and learn about the lore of the game was hosted by some tools laughing as they threw around homophobic and transphobic slurs like it didn’t fucking matter. I just about gave it up and walked away, but I looked up another podcast.
It was the Badcast, and hearing them emphatically argue for inclusion, and voice their hate for the dickheads and chuds that make up the vocal minority of the game that convinced me to stick around. Any podcast, Twitter account, or YouTube Chanel I find about warhammer I have to
Check first to see if there’s any signs of being fucking bigots, or if they’re actually welcoming, positive voices for the community before I even get to start looking at their content. That’s what this fucking hobby is, and to pretend it’s not is a fucking joke.
There ARE nazis in this community. And you can either acknowledge that and work to make this a better space WITHOUT them, or you can decide yourself into thinking there’s no problem and give them the deniability they love to fucking hide behind. Those are the only choices.
To be told that your hobby has assholes in it ISNT an attack on your character, it’s an opportunity to show what you’re fucking made of. And if your response is to ridicule the voices for change, or deny that other people have suffered is to show how fucking childish you are.
I love this hobby. I love the creative outlet it gives me, I love the mental challenge the game provides, and I love the experience of meeting new people through it. But there ARE people at shops spouting bigoted bullshit. And I’m gonna ask them to step outside every fucking time
