FaZe Ewok Joins as the Orgs First Female Content Creator
Societal cynicism has reared its ugly head again after esports team FaZe Clan announced the newest member of its content creation team, FaZe Ewok.
Soleil “Ewok” Wheeler, a 13-year old deaf girl participating at the Fortnite World Cup, was revealed as FaZes newest team member this weekend.
Community Response to FaZe Ewok
While the community response was mostly positive following the news, a small but vocal group seemed set on taking their spite out on her.
The announcement and subsequent Twitter posts about her are littered with hateful comments ranging from, “To bad FaZe is now a joke of a clan,” to, “Think my phones broke can’t hear her.”
While many of these vitriol-filled comments mocked both her and her disability, others took to attacking FaZe for what many saw as just a PR move.
They cite how FaZe waited until the World Cup to announce her addition to the roster, coincidentally coming at the same time her popularity is skyrocketing.
Being a young girl and having a disability, they argue, only strengthens their case, and many have expressed concern that the org is taking advantage of her.
Cynicism
The reaction by these vocal few shows the growing cynicism towards large, established brands online.
Rapidly growing numbers of people have taken to calling into question every action companies make, with many seeing any positive action taken by these entities as never being anything more than a PR move to improve their image.
In the case of FaZe, many cite the orgs recent struggles regarding Tfue and other signed players for the team and the need to improve their public image following a month of backlash as a reason for signing FaZe Ewok to the team.
Others see it as an attempt by FaZe to ride the rising tide of women in gaming and cash in on some easy internet points.
Either way, the move is definitely the start of a big step for female gamers, and whether FaZe signed her with good intentions or not, her signing could be the opening of the floodgates for women becoming more involved in esports.
We’ll be keeping an eye on her in the weeks and months ahead to see how her career evolves, but for now, from all of us at EsportsTalk, congratulations Ewok!
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