Pakozdi stated that in one-on-one conversations with Aris, he made it, "Pretty obvious that he doesn't give a shit." A number of fighting game fans naturally chipped in to let it be known how little of a shit they gave as well.
Fighting game community leader Mike Watson called Super Yan out, stating to her, "The entire time you were giggling and enjoying the attention. Someone mentions harassment and not until then do you complain?"
Pakozdi explained that she was able to laugh off the sexual commentary by "idiots" watching the stream, but it was Aris who crossed a line with her, stating that "the things he said/did were not funny at all."
Some online community members, such as those found at Shoryoken, have firmly sided against Pakozdi, claiming that Aris was just joking so she should not have felt uncomfortable. According to one user, the fighting game community is where men are allowed to be themselves, which means they can make "mildly lecherous" comments to women regardless of whether they're happy about it or not.
Meanwhile, other members of the community (especially at NeoGAF) have criticized Aris' behavior, and it's heartening to see that Super Yan received a fair bit of support from the fighting game community. While some members of the FGC believe that their hobby is about singling out women for abuse and making them feel uncomfortable, it would appear that an encouraging amount of them actually stand against that kind of shit. Hopefully it goes some way toward disproving the myth that the FGC is full of entitled manbabies ... a myth that folk like Aris and Watson have unfortunately propagated in several situations.
Seriously, kudos to what seems to be the majority of the fighting game community for actually being reasonable and cool. It's something that should be stressed, given how people like Aris clearly see the community as a place where they're allowed to be assholes, and it would appear that people like Aris are wrong about that.
Speaking of being wrong, it's rather concerning that, according to Yan, Capcom knew about Aris' behavior and didn't step up sooner. Watching the stream where this whole thing blew up, the whole affair looks like a disorganized public shit-show at best, and the fallout only serves to make it worse. What, exactly, was the company in charge of this show doing while crap got out of hand?
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I'm all for bawdy, tasteless humor, but not when someone in the room is unhappy about it. Humor isn't supposed to make people unhappy. I've made jokes or called people things without knowing how problematic and stupid they were, only to be told after the fact. When you're told, you reevaluate your jokes and recalibrate your word choices for the people around you. It's called being polite. I sexually harass Jonathan Holmes on a podcast every week, and the moment he stops finding it funny is the moment I'll stop doing it. Y'know, because it's basic etiquette to stop harassing a person when asked.
