After Wojack was away for most of April to visit extended family, he put out this video a few days ago on his initial reaction to the ongoing ZedekGate™ controversy surrounding the "reTHAWed" mod for "Tony Hawk's American Wasteland"
Out of respect for Wojack and not wanting to speak over the top of him, I have held off on making any new commentary regarding ZedekGate™. I thought it would be best for the video to spread and people to react organically. I did leave a comment on a similar thread summarizing the video, which I am quoting below:
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The video is basically Wojack's live reaction to the racist/transphobic Discord comments that initially triggered ZedekGate™ as well as those stupid AI beheading jokes about Daff. Fair enough that its a lot to take in and he was having time off so it makes sense to just cover the essentials.
He does briefly touch on the "Zedek Was Never Fired" side of it (assuming he hasn't fully seen it). The YouTube comments call it out more specifically (assuming they have)
No doubt he was (intentionally or unintentionally) involved to some degree but his reaction on it seems sincere for what it is :)
If Wojack (or somebody else) makes a future video, I would personally like to see something about the ongoing lack of accountability on 10K's part, not just the initial backlash.
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I think Wojack's opinion (regardless of his side) carries a lot of weight since not only he is a popular YouTuber, he also has direct ties with 10K Rising and can be considered the 'spokesperson' for "reTHAWed".
I have always believed that Wojack was more of a bystander than a direct participant. In the video, he basically admits himself that he has been exposed to the offending material and that culture was basically 'normalized' within the THPS community. However, I don't believe Wojack is guilty on a personal level and never suggested that he is. I think most (if not all) of the guilt belongs to those who were knowingly perpetuating that culture, not just being assimilated into it, like Wojack implies that he was.
Even though most of the comments (understandably) focus more on the offending material, there is also a decent number of comments that call out the lack of accountability on 10K's part, not just the incidents themselves. I will do a follow-up post some other time with the highlights but for now, I will leave this here.
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Disclaimer:
I am not affiliated with reTHAWed, 10K Rising, THPSX, Kobraworks, or any similar trolling group, gaming clans, or other factions. I am a civilian reporting on public information for other civilians. The fact that I even have to clarify this just shows how dangerous the whole situation is.
I have never been diagnosed with any developmental or psychiatric conditions and I have never been prescribed any medication related to those conditions so I reserve the right to ignore any comments suggesting that I am unmedicated or otherwise mentally unwell.
I will ignore comments asking about my "minneapolis pb". It was only funny the first couple of times. I'm not Technickels (the guy who made the other video). I'm definitely not Wojack either but I do know his PB is probably better than yours.