The Overwatch League is known for taking swift action on controversial situations in the past, and now esports industry figure Rod Breslau has reported that San Fransisco Shock was contacted by the League to get their player Jay 'sinatraa' Won to remove a tweet as it contained Pepe the Frog.
"From what I understand, Blizzard reached out to SF Shock management to ask that sinatra take down his birthday tweet because it had a pepe in it, which Blizzard is trying to crackdown on in regards to being potentially offensive," Breslau writes.
For those who don't know, Pepe the Frog is an internet meme that started life as a light-hearted joke, but then became referred to as a hate symbol due to its adoption by the alt-right and its continued use in more offensive terms. "Blizzard has recently removed pepe signs in the OWL crowd and has requested other OWL players to remove pepe-related memes and images from their social media accounts," Breslau added.
It's worth adding that this isn't the first time that symbols and memes have been the source of some controversy for the league, as there has been a furore around the use of the TriHard emote on Twitch and its racially insensitive connotations, so it's unsurprising that the use of Pepe may have prompted the League to act again.
Do you think the League was right to act the way it did?