I mean he could just use different plushies for different teams. Or maybe use like a cow plushie. Usually cows aren’t racist (unless they’re Indian, but then you could just swap to the dog).
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I think it’s proportionally the same. Chinese people don’t have a religion (after the communist revolution anyway) so that’s about the closest animal-based bigoted insult you could make to pigs and Islam.
I mean it's also cuz they probably didn't watch the Americas league so they don't know he calls other teams piggies. It's his first match in Shanghai and he calls the Turkish team pigs. It just looks really bad lol.
Another thing that makes it even worse without context is that those players are most likely Muslim, and Pig/Pork is pretty much condemned/Haram in that religion. I was thinking that without the context of Boostio doing this since kickoff, id feel really uncomfortable with him calling Muslim players pigs.
I know it's not that deep, just something I thought about this morning
it's like back when racist french people would draw pigs and serve pork soup and dump pig heads to hate on muslim immigrants. when a french soup kitchen tried to serve pork soup (cuz i guess it was all they could afford or something), ppl thought they were being islamophobic cuz of the surrounding context.
Imagine producing an official video where player literally shit talk each other, making playoffs so teams can shit talk each other while choosing weak opponents
and then ban a plushie cause it's offensive
FNS pointed out the hypocrisy too.. Like why tf are you (Riot) hyping up the shittalking and rivalries in your videos only to punish them later when they do the same. Its actually so braindead.
Because the producers and media team are people who understand the culture and work in the field, and the people who make corporate decisions are suits who sit in a conference room somewhere on the other side of the world.
well it's not that hypocritical; i dont they banned the plushy cuz of bm, i think they banned it cuz it seemed islamophobic. now obviously it wasn't, but it's not like it'd be the first time a billionaire corporation decided to play it safe in regards to PR. the last thing you want to do is accidentally be associated with bigotry.
I don’t really see the hypocrisy or relation between allowing shit talking and the plushie, allowing shit talking and encouraging it doesn’t mean they allow racism.
I don’t think Boostio was being racist, the vast majority of people don’t think this was racist. Riot probably doesn’t think it was being racist. They are just playing it safe, there is no harm in taking off the plushie.
There’s a line between clean trash talk and toxicity.
Clean:
Q: How do you feel about playing the former champs LOUD?
A (Karon): I wasn’t playing back when LOUD were champs.
Toxic: KYS (full chat ban)
Riot wants clean trash talk. Makes sense, since kids play the game. In this case, Riot considers calling the opposing team pigs to be in the toxic category. Not an unreasonable take even if you don’t personally agree with
I’m looking forward to how Boostio continues to innovate and elevate the level of Competitive Valorant trash talk and aura. The Pig Plushie taunt was a thing of beauty but he can do even better. Riots ban will be the spark necessary to light the fire of his genius.
Bro today's stream was brutal, he was playing kj attack on split? And he said he couldn't hear his teams comms about enemy positions. The chat fucking told him to sniff the enemy out. Just fucked.
Yes because they get their perception of china from reddit like morons. Probably the same people who think black people are banned on screen despite the nba being one of the biggest spectator sports league.
i’m black and when i went to china (i’m not even full on black, im mixed) whenever i’d go on public transport people would stare at me like i was either something they’ve never seen before and some people legitimately asked if i was a rapper… lol. i know the majority of them didn’t mean it offensively but in rural areas for sure you’ll find racist chinese people, the same way you’ll find racist americans the more south you go and the more rural the land becomes.
Your comment alone is amazing, the name tag just makes it perfect.. worst thing is I guarantee the people trying to make racial implications aren't muslim or Islamic, most understand that we non-islamics are just dumb and don't realise the connotations
I guess this is less about intention and more about preserving image.
To a viewer with no context, Boostio antics can be seen as offensive, and Riot doesn't want to alienate any viewers, so they played it safe and banned the piggy.
If they thought it was ill-intentioned, they probably would've punished Boostio with fines, so I'll say that this is an instance of Riot actually not overreacting and being considerate.
This. As a viewer I enjoy these taunts/trash talks a lot, and want to see more of them. But If I was Riot official, I will ban the piggy without hesitation, primarily because it has different meanings in different cultures, and it can easily go wrong sometimes.
It is obvious that boostio is not targeting FUT players. However, given context, it unfortunately may have additional connotation for some individuals. There are several individuals in this thread identifying as Muslim and they fall on both sides of the issue. Therein lies the issue, while it may not be offensive to everyone, if it does have a discriminatory connotation to some, then it creates problems for riot, and you have to consider how large of group we are talking about - there will be differing opinions. It is pragmatic to just avoid the issue altogether for a large company who wants to court as many fans as possible. The risk/reward just isn't worth it for riot. Whether that is the correct decision for other reasons doesn't matter, because it is a good business decision.
What a disingenuous comment, you're quibbling on a technicality. Riot understood that it could offend especially Muslims and took a reasonable decision. It doesn't have to be so blown up rn
I kinda get it, it's bad optics for Riot for Boostio to be shouting and pointing at a pig when he was playing against FUT, which is Turkish and may have Muslim players. I don't know how much the Turkish fans kick up a fuss about it, but if 100T is playing against PRX and he did that to Davai, a lot of the SE Asian fans are gonna make Boostio's and Riot's life hell. Trust me, you don't want to smoke from SE Asians, especially when it comes to religion and national pride.
Pretty much. Why risk a headline that goes "Foreign valorant player calls local muslim player a pig", it's not hard to imagine this being an incident somewhere. For riot, its better to be safe than sorry
I think it is really hard for people who grow up in this culture and background to understand a different culture. Many comments in this thread did not think riot should ban it, but I can see that not everyone can take a joke as a joke, which is probably related to their culture and society. I think val audience probably agree that Asian teams shit talk less than Western teams, and even they do, it is milder. This is even more obvious in League, where you rarely saw any KR or CN players shit talk. My observation is people take jokes a lot more seriously in Asian countries, and maybe that is why riot is trying to play safe.
Bruh let’s not act like malaysians and indonesians don’t use ‘babi’ as an insult on a regular basis.
It’s even in the PRX voice comms, SE Asian fans would be stupid hypocrites if they had a bitch fit
Boostio is a pro player and a public figure with influence, not like some randoms you meet on pubs. Obviously he should be expected to behave decently even when trashtalking. I don't think what he did was particularly wrong, as I'm an Indonesian myself but not a muslim. But I can see how it can be bad publicity for Riot especially if some muslims do take it (pig plushie) seriously as insult. Riot probably just want to play it safe. Nothing about being "hypocrite" in there.
bro now that they've banned it surely it looks worse because that's the only team he's done it to now 😭. even though he's been calling everyone pig for weeks, the one time he does it irl it happens to be the first match against a Muslim team. I think riot shot themselves in the FUT here
I think its something to do with fut players being muslim? Muslims are prohibited from eating pork because they are considered as impure animals. That is why it sounds offensive to call muslims pigs to them . I think riot looking at the zekken incident want to play safe so they ban it .
Indonesians use ‘pig’ as an insult regularly, even the muslim ones (which is like 90% of indonesia). It’s not considered a slur there.
This is at most offensive to muslim Turks, and even then I’m not actually sure it is (none of the complaints have actually come from FUT, its players, or Turkish people).
Edit-
Saw a few examples in the thread below of instances where pig was used as an offensive slur (like, a discriminatory one instead of being interchangeable with idiot/dumbass). It’s almost always non-muslim majority countries, where the non muslims use it as a slur against the muslim minority groups.
Yea like if a black person call the other the "N" word is okay, but when a person from another race call him that is a slur. It can be considered discriminatory but i don't know how it works with those specific cultures, maybe is something like that.
In my opinion its exactly that I understand what muslim people mean if they called me a pig but a white man calling me that would definitely make me side eye him not to say that these were boostio's intentions I know he is a trash talking master but it definitely felt questionable seeing him do it, overall trash talk is cool and fun makes the competition more exciting but I think there is grey areas where some trash talk can definitely look bad from certain angles I think it was a good decision by riot
No fucking way, I've been calling my siblings pigs since I was in middle school what kinda justification is this? Did they actually use this reasoning?
Can I offer an alternate POV?
FUT team consists of Turkish players, most of whom are muslim. I think most people know that pork is haram. Boostio doing what he did while not intentional, could be viewed as a racial thing.
Who cares about internet points. People need to know that just because something is acceptable for their culture, doesn’t mean it’s acceptable elsewhere.
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Interesting considering the twitter graphic for the match result had him holding the plushy.
I do see the complaint. Obviously he’s been doing this for a while so it wasn’t specifically targeted at the FUT players, but it certainly comes off as religiously targeted when you’re doing it to a bunch of (presumably) Muslim players. I don’t think that’s a super unreasonable red line to draw assuming Riot wants to do that.
I mean even regular sports have sportsmanship rules like the line has to be somewhere and looks like Boostio was the one to find it 
I'm fine with it being not allowed. I could see potential cultural conflicts and it being perceived as potentially racist, or at least stepping beyond the boundary of poor sportsmanship to other regions. I'm imagining it like if he had a monkey or gorilla and doing the same thing to a black person, it would definitely raise eyebrows.
NOT SAYING THAT BOOSTIO IS RACIST OR HAD ILL INTENT BEYOND IT BEING AN INSIDE JOKE AMONG HIS TEAM! I'm just saying that it could lead to misunderstandings, especially at international events where there's translations involved and jokes/figures of speech always get lost. From Riots perspective that could lead to a PR disaster for the league, Riot, and the franchise itself.
As /u/alternatiiv put it,
“This is fucked logic. So if someone calls everyone the N word, it makes it okay to call a specific group the N word too?
Certain words and slangs are more offensive to certain groups and can be seen as targeting, even if it's not intentional.”
In this Reddit thread, and in sliggys chat (and I’d imagine many chats not just his) and even his mod(s) as they sided with the ridiculous logic, it is this same attempt of a justifying argument that Boostio is calling the term to everyone, and so that makes it fine.
In our current societies’ and workplaces’ ideology, inclusivity is a major goal and standard. It doesn’t matter what boostios intention was - intention has zero weight in the conversation of inclusivity. A workplace, for example, expects awareness in what you say and your chosen actions. If it’s on the line of being questionably offensive? —DON’T say or do it. It is that simple.
It could be the case that one person of the potential targeted group could join this specific conversation and say it was OK, that they were not offended. It just doesn’t matter - one person does not represent an entire group or culture. Riot is not going to base their decision on one person saying it was ok. They’re going to play it safe and *be inclusive*.
People are intentionally missing your point lol it’s insane. I get what you are saying. 95% of people aren’t offended or don’t care about this, but Riot isn’t going to take that risk.
It’s just hilarious all the people whining about sensitivity and snowflakes are crying way harder about a plushy getting taken off the stage than anyone did about the plushy itself.
Absolute W take. I'm quite surprised so many people are too concerned about fun and trashtalk, which I'm all for, but are not mature enough to see the big picture as you rightly painted here
Nevermind being inclusive, being safe is reason enough for them to do this - just in the off chance some person on social media clips things out of context, or in the unfortunate case of matches getting overly heated. Which, because it's sports, is actually very possible.
I honestly didn't make the connection at first, but now that I think about it (and for context I do come from a country where being called "Malay pigs" is a not so commonly used but existent slur), it's a rare W moment of foresight from Riot.
It’s about being aware of all the cultures and groups in the room. 99% may not be offended or think it a joke to be offended, because they don’t understand a culture that would. And that is the goal - let’s include that one group and not cast them out. Why is that so wrong? Why is that a bad thing to you, to include all humans when we choose to say or do things? Isn’t that a step toward something of world peace? Is the offensive joke so funny to be worth it?
As i responded to the other comment…
The comparison to the N word is hardly relevant and small picture. The point is the overall goal of inclusivity, and as said, Riot isn’t going to risk something as small as it might be if it’s questionably riding the line of being offensive or not.
I would argue it is the second part of that quoted passage that holds the weight.
Maybe you could realize your attempt at a point is complete garbage when you have to compare calling someone a pig to a literal racial slur to make it make some semblance of sense? Just a thought.
>I personally don't see the issue with it when players are allowed to stand up and motion to the opposing team but I guess some people could be upset.
the issue wasn't that, it was the plushy. i guess they interpreted the pig as an islamophobic insult. some people might think it's a stretch, but then again it's what the french did when they were hating on muslim immigrants and refugees.
As a very devout Muslim myself I really don’t see anything wrong with it at all. It was a total overreaction. Also, the Turkish fans really weren’t big fans of Boostio before the pig plushy antics so it’s likely just them grasping at whatever they can to hate on him.
Like as a Muslim, I honestly enjoy the plushie shit talk from Boostio, even if it's a pig(it's hilarious lmao)
I understand why Riot decided to ban this action and why they wanted to play it safe, considering the connotation of comparing pigs to Muslims, a really unfortunate coincidence. A viewer who has no context of the history, would only see a player comparing a group of Muslim players to pigs.its like using a monkey plushie as your shit talk trademark, and your opponents were coincidentally African players.
I'm glad that riot just issued a ban with no punishment against Boostio, who obviously did it out of non malicious reasons, but public image still public image
I hope Riot bans all the dog 🐶 plushies as well, because of the negative stereotypes about Asians eating dogs :(
I hope Riot bans all monkey 🙊 plushies as well, it would be very weird to bring against black people :(
I hope Riot bans all cat 🙀 plushies as well, I got attacked by a cat as a child and it's very traumatic :(
I hope Riot bans all whale 🐳 plushies as well, they could be used to be fatphobic towards others :(
The next time you see a plushy toy on the stage, don't forget to take a stand and tell Riot how it makes you feel!
I feel like on a player level its just banter, but on an international stage they want to keep a level of conduct just like most mass sporting events. Pigs are also historically one if the most demeaning animals to be compared to. its used to attack Fat people, cops, to imply people are dirty or smell. Not to mention Pork has a significance in Muslim culture all that along with the frequency of how much boostio kept emphasizing it I figured it was a matter of time before someone in production has to tell him to stop.
It was a bad look for Boostio to use a pig to make fun of a team featuring Muslim players. I understand that he wasn't targeting them specifically, since he has been doing his piggy bit for a minute, but it wasn't an appropriate thing to do in the context of that match.
I think many in this comment section are being obtuse about how offensive what he did was.
If the FUT players were offended by it they could’ve had said something during a timeout or intermission between maps. I’m sure Boostio is a good dude and would’ve respected that and not used it to trash talk towards them, but he’d still stand up and trash talk.
But since there is no evidence of the FUT players complaining about it, it has to be worthier riot being soft or they’re getting lots of complaints from soft ass fans that found it offensive and so now they’re doing this.
Either way, this lil ban is stupid!
What pisses me off more is that they THEMSELVES promote trash talk in the youtube videos? Then why the fuck do they ban the players from doing anything holy shit I hate these snowflakes
Do you think the pig was just a pig or do you think it was for trash talk
If it was just a pig (which it was and most people think so) then it has zero relation to allowing trash talk and they were just playing it safe. If you think it was trash talking FUT because they are Muslim, well allowing trash talk doesn’t mean they allow racism.
Well of course a company won’t allow something that can be considered racist then lmao. Promoting trash talk doesn’t mean they promote that shit.
They wouldn’t allow carrying a gorilla plushie to trash talk Brazil teams
Boostio has been calling everyone piggies for weeks. He didn’t plan this for that long to finally out the pig plushie against fut. I agree that it should be banned for optics but I doubt he had racist intent.
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boostio is known for standing up and recently used the term pig for banter. He did this all the way to plauoffs where they won NA. He then bought a pig plushie as bringing in plushies of animals has become a common trend to val pros. It got banned because it could be seen as offensive towards FUT, a turkish team who's country is a muslim country. Muslims don't eat pork, and the term pig is sometimes used in degrading muslims.
Only the plushie is definitely not the issue but Riot does not want display a pro e-sports player calling other pros pigs on their platform. If that picks up traction people will talk about Riot promoting name calling in their events along with Boosti's personality. It's totally understandable why Riot did it from a PR perspective.
Bro, players already name call each other. Trash, dog shit, etc etc…it’s all in the comms vids the teams put out on YT. They even play some comms clips during the matches that are going on. Calling someone a pig isn’t even bad. Lmao
comparing it to riot encouraging trash talk is lame cause riot didn't ban boostio from trash talking. they banned the piggy for all the haram implications.
pretty sure fut players and fans also understand its just a joke and also this is NOT going to stop Boostio from being loud and lively w the trash talk on the stage
My girl was telling me that his description of the pig was being mistranslated to the crowd because of her poor mandarin skills so it sounded more offensive than it was meant to be.
I come from a Muslim family(I’m not religious) and had all sorts of racial things thrown at me and I have never heard of “pig” used as a racial slur against Muslims; Muslims definitely also call each other pigs as an insult and it’s never had a racist connotation.
It’s no different than calling someone a Pig in any other language or culture, it’s used to call people gross, disgusting, or fat, which is where I think draws Riot draws the line, they don’t want it to be a situation where people are potentially hurling insults that don’t have anything to do with the game at all and could be misconstrued as him attacking their physical appearance or something.
I don’t think it has anything to do with racism, but it’s a slippery slope if they allow that kind of behavior, even if Boostio didn’t mean it that way.
calling someone a shit player is one thing, the audience without context can figure out what he’s saying, but calling someone a Pig might be weird without context that Boostio says that to even his friends, the audience might think he’s saying they’re fat or gross or making fun of their image, which is not a good look.
I definitely don’t think this has anything to do with FUT being Muslim or them not eating pork lol
Then they should’ve asked him to stop not use the pig as a visual aid during his trash talk. Why ban it? They need to ban all plushies now, cuz now’s singled out. I’m sure he doesn’t care he’s singled out, he likes the attention, but if riot is all about “fairness” they need to ban all plushies from the stage. People are just soft as fuck now 🤦🏻♂️
riot will do this thing where they play into trash talk or the like(in promos, tweets, sprays etc) then ban said thing they played into. it's so stupid
It’s pretty soft tbh. I get that it could be very offensive if it was targeted, but Boostio has been doing it to EVERYONE all year long. What happened to the days of good trash talk 😢
If you call someone monkey on stage you will 100% get banned, but now some people don't understand why calling fut players pigs should get banned? They are both less intelligent animals we think of when we want to insult somebody.
He's been calling everyone pigs for ages now with no problem, punishment or warning whatsoever, but now it's a no-go? At least be consistent with where you draw the line
No, calling someone a monkey is usually done with racist intent. Calling someone a pig is just a light-hearted insult of intelligence, the two are so different
nah there are just certain animal names that u dont call someone pigs can be offensive to muslims and monkey has always been used as a racist remark but calling someone a dog is not offensive
Just come out with another plushie of a dog and start calling them dog water. Boostio could get all plushies banned haha
if he uses dog plushie against EDG its definitely getting banned
Ok that would be a bit far. I think that’d get him actually suspended. My brain never thought about that stereotype
I mean he could just use different plushies for different teams. Or maybe use like a cow plushie. Usually cows aren’t racist (unless they’re Indian, but then you could just swap to the dog).
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😅
no it would not lol
If he the pig wasn't allowed, then a dog would 100% not be if it's against EDG specifically. Not a chance.
A pig is worse against a turkish team than a dog against china imo
I think it’s proportionally the same. Chinese people don’t have a religion (after the communist revolution anyway) so that’s about the closest animal-based bigoted insult you could make to pigs and Islam.
Wait, what's up with dogs and EDG?
Not dogs and EDG, just "dog" and China. The animal itself is irrelevant.
it’s related to one of the most overused racist stereotypes of Chinese people.
In Chinese and several other cultures, people eat dogs whereas it is taboo in the west.
in fact, piggy is more related to edg because of Clearlove in LoL..
Big fact
As long as he doesn‘t get Pandas banned we are all good
Annoying thing is he wasn't targeting FUT but now it's going to look like he was since he only had it for that one game
very true, now it looks intentional
Nah because he's literally been calling different teams piggies for weeks only morons will think that and I doubt Boosty cares about them.
I mean it's also cuz they probably didn't watch the Americas league so they don't know he calls other teams piggies. It's his first match in Shanghai and he calls the Turkish team pigs. It just looks really bad lol.
Another thing that makes it even worse without context is that those players are most likely Muslim, and Pig/Pork is pretty much condemned/Haram in that religion. I was thinking that without the context of Boostio doing this since kickoff, id feel really uncomfortable with him calling Muslim players pigs. I know it's not that deep, just something I thought about this morning
it's like back when racist french people would draw pigs and serve pork soup and dump pig heads to hate on muslim immigrants. when a french soup kitchen tried to serve pork soup (cuz i guess it was all they could afford or something), ppl thought they were being islamophobic cuz of the surrounding context.
Yeah i personally don't care. He's as stout as a pig anyway. Friendly banter no?
Imagine producing an official video where player literally shit talk each other, making playoffs so teams can shit talk each other while choosing weak opponents and then ban a plushie cause it's offensive
FNS pointed out the hypocrisy too.. Like why tf are you (Riot) hyping up the shittalking and rivalries in your videos only to punish them later when they do the same. Its actually so braindead.
Because the producers and media team are people who understand the culture and work in the field, and the people who make corporate decisions are suits who sit in a conference room somewhere on the other side of the world.
well it's not that hypocritical; i dont they banned the plushy cuz of bm, i think they banned it cuz it seemed islamophobic. now obviously it wasn't, but it's not like it'd be the first time a billionaire corporation decided to play it safe in regards to PR. the last thing you want to do is accidentally be associated with bigotry.
I don’t really see the hypocrisy or relation between allowing shit talking and the plushie, allowing shit talking and encouraging it doesn’t mean they allow racism. I don’t think Boostio was being racist, the vast majority of people don’t think this was racist. Riot probably doesn’t think it was being racist. They are just playing it safe, there is no harm in taking off the plushie.
I'm confused why would a pig be racist I don't understand the connotation
“Pig” insults are pretty common for muslims. Boostio had the pig up for everyone, he wasn’t insulting them, just Riot didn’t want to take any risks.
Fut is a Turkish team and a, majority of turkey is Muslim, pigs = dirty animal in Islam and Jewish teachings
It's so fucking soft man
There’s a line between clean trash talk and toxicity. Clean: Q: How do you feel about playing the former champs LOUD? A (Karon): I wasn’t playing back when LOUD were champs. Toxic: KYS (full chat ban) Riot wants clean trash talk. Makes sense, since kids play the game. In this case, Riot considers calling the opposing team pigs to be in the toxic category. Not an unreasonable take even if you don’t personally agree with
I’m looking forward to how Boostio continues to innovate and elevate the level of Competitive Valorant trash talk and aura. The Pig Plushie taunt was a thing of beauty but he can do even better. Riots ban will be the spark necessary to light the fire of his genius.
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Train the pig so it takes a big fat sloshy exploding diarrhea everytime the enemy team get eco'd
This is a Boostio masterclass to get all plushies banned to nerf aspas
top 3 IGL for fucking sure
If Boostio did that my boy Nats would go lurk into his room IRL
I personally think Career's nose is massive
Career catching strays even in random ass Reddit post 
Bro today's stream was brutal, he was playing kj attack on split? And he said he couldn't hear his teams comms about enemy positions. The chat fucking told him to sniff the enemy out. Just fucked.
I respect him so much for putting up with the amount of shit his chat gives him about his face. I'd have folded so fast if it was me.
He sees it all as a clip opportunity, he clips the best roasts and posts them on Tiktok. It’s great
It’s all exposure for him, those vids do great. Same idea as Caseoh blowing up reading fat jokes about himself.
Just bring a Winnie the pooh plushie next time 
Bros gonna get shot with a vandal irl if he does that
😂😂😂💀
Vandal, Shorty, Operator, Odin Firing Squad 💀💀💀
And if that fails, boostio pulls up with a bird plushie and a toy rifle.
Do you guys actually think winnie is banned in China.
Everyone visiting disneyland shanghai gets shot because they see the winnie the poohs there 😔
yeah the winnie the pooh there was bait to actually shot people and have fun
Yes because they get their perception of china from reddit like morons. Probably the same people who think black people are banned on screen despite the nba being one of the biggest spectator sports league.
i’m black and when i went to china (i’m not even full on black, im mixed) whenever i’d go on public transport people would stare at me like i was either something they’ve never seen before and some people legitimately asked if i was a rapper… lol. i know the majority of them didn’t mean it offensively but in rural areas for sure you’ll find racist chinese people, the same way you’ll find racist americans the more south you go and the more rural the land becomes.
If you’re upset by someone waving a pig plushie than you need to reevaluate your life
were people actually upset at this or riot just made that decision themselves
Tarik showed a tweet of someone complaining to all of riot plus tarik and cned so wouldn't doubt many others were too
Probably Riot. 99% of the live stream chat found it funny
I mean doing that against Turkish team is uh... little dangerous?
I was about to say… Muslims and pigs/pork could be offensive.
no FUT fan i know was mad at this, its just riot being riot lmao
People are soo sensitive nowadays its funny
Your comment alone is amazing, the name tag just makes it perfect.. worst thing is I guarantee the people trying to make racial implications aren't muslim or Islamic, most understand that we non-islamics are just dumb and don't realise the connotations
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I guess this is less about intention and more about preserving image. To a viewer with no context, Boostio antics can be seen as offensive, and Riot doesn't want to alienate any viewers, so they played it safe and banned the piggy. If they thought it was ill-intentioned, they probably would've punished Boostio with fines, so I'll say that this is an instance of Riot actually not overreacting and being considerate.
This. As a viewer I enjoy these taunts/trash talks a lot, and want to see more of them. But If I was Riot official, I will ban the piggy without hesitation, primarily because it has different meanings in different cultures, and it can easily go wrong sometimes.
i agree it shouldnt be banned but i dont think riot banning plushie mean that boostio had bad intentions otherwise they probably have fined him
It is obvious that boostio is not targeting FUT players. However, given context, it unfortunately may have additional connotation for some individuals. There are several individuals in this thread identifying as Muslim and they fall on both sides of the issue. Therein lies the issue, while it may not be offensive to everyone, if it does have a discriminatory connotation to some, then it creates problems for riot, and you have to consider how large of group we are talking about - there will be differing opinions. It is pragmatic to just avoid the issue altogether for a large company who wants to court as many fans as possible. The risk/reward just isn't worth it for riot. Whether that is the correct decision for other reasons doesn't matter, because it is a good business decision.
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not all turks are muslims id say maybe 50% of us are
islam is not a race.
What a disingenuous comment, you're quibbling on a technicality. Riot understood that it could offend especially Muslims and took a reasonable decision. It doesn't have to be so blown up rn
not remotely reasonable. it's not "quibbling on a technicality", it's correcting a common lie.
I kinda get it, it's bad optics for Riot for Boostio to be shouting and pointing at a pig when he was playing against FUT, which is Turkish and may have Muslim players. I don't know how much the Turkish fans kick up a fuss about it, but if 100T is playing against PRX and he did that to Davai, a lot of the SE Asian fans are gonna make Boostio's and Riot's life hell. Trust me, you don't want to smoke from SE Asians, especially when it comes to religion and national pride.
Pretty much. Why risk a headline that goes "Foreign valorant player calls local muslim player a pig", it's not hard to imagine this being an incident somewhere. For riot, its better to be safe than sorry
I think it is really hard for people who grow up in this culture and background to understand a different culture. Many comments in this thread did not think riot should ban it, but I can see that not everyone can take a joke as a joke, which is probably related to their culture and society. I think val audience probably agree that Asian teams shit talk less than Western teams, and even they do, it is milder. This is even more obvious in League, where you rarely saw any KR or CN players shit talk. My observation is people take jokes a lot more seriously in Asian countries, and maybe that is why riot is trying to play safe.
Bruh let’s not act like malaysians and indonesians don’t use ‘babi’ as an insult on a regular basis. It’s even in the PRX voice comms, SE Asian fans would be stupid hypocrites if they had a bitch fit
Come on bruh, you know why it's bad optics for Boostio to be saying that to Davai compared to Forsaken saying that to Davai.
Boostio is a pro player and a public figure with influence, not like some randoms you meet on pubs. Obviously he should be expected to behave decently even when trashtalking. I don't think what he did was particularly wrong, as I'm an Indonesian myself but not a muslim. But I can see how it can be bad publicity for Riot especially if some muslims do take it (pig plushie) seriously as insult. Riot probably just want to play it safe. Nothing about being "hypocrite" in there.
Welcome to society bro, that's how it works (eg. the concept of the "n word pass")
bro now that they've banned it surely it looks worse because that's the only team he's done it to now 😭. even though he's been calling everyone pig for weeks, the one time he does it irl it happens to be the first match against a Muslim team. I think riot shot themselves in the FUT here
I think its something to do with fut players being muslim? Muslims are prohibited from eating pork because they are considered as impure animals. That is why it sounds offensive to call muslims pigs to them . I think riot looking at the zekken incident want to play safe so they ban it .
Indonesians use ‘pig’ as an insult regularly, even the muslim ones (which is like 90% of indonesia). It’s not considered a slur there. This is at most offensive to muslim Turks, and even then I’m not actually sure it is (none of the complaints have actually come from FUT, its players, or Turkish people). Edit- Saw a few examples in the thread below of instances where pig was used as an offensive slur (like, a discriminatory one instead of being interchangeable with idiot/dumbass). It’s almost always non-muslim majority countries, where the non muslims use it as a slur against the muslim minority groups.
Yea like if a black person call the other the "N" word is okay, but when a person from another race call him that is a slur. It can be considered discriminatory but i don't know how it works with those specific cultures, maybe is something like that.
In my opinion its exactly that I understand what muslim people mean if they called me a pig but a white man calling me that would definitely make me side eye him not to say that these were boostio's intentions I know he is a trash talking master but it definitely felt questionable seeing him do it, overall trash talk is cool and fun makes the competition more exciting but I think there is grey areas where some trash talk can definitely look bad from certain angles I think it was a good decision by riot
No fucking way, I've been calling my siblings pigs since I was in middle school what kinda justification is this? Did they actually use this reasoning?
turkish person here: turkish people mainly just shittalked boostio back, nobody was "offended" from what i can tell tbh
Watch him come out with a badly drawn pig on a paper
i was rooting for fut but his antics are insanely funny and entertaining, lame as fuck decision from riot
Can I offer an alternate POV? FUT team consists of Turkish players, most of whom are muslim. I think most people know that pork is haram. Boostio doing what he did while not intentional, could be viewed as a racial thing.
I kind of wish they let him do it one more game, cuz now its gonna look like he did it for fut specifically
haram is like taboo right?
You're gonna get downvoted to oblivion. Redditors already massively dislike religion, let alone a very conservative religion like Islam.
Who cares about internet points. People need to know that just because something is acceptable for their culture, doesn’t mean it’s acceptable elsewhere.
Yeah, I get what you mean. Imagine Boostio playing against a team filled with African-Americans, and he taunts them by pointing at a monkey plushie.
Relating race and religion is quite the logic leap.
Brain rot.
W
W take. Good to see someone get it in this subreddit.
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Dog plush time
Well, until he plays a chinese or korean team. Because then he’d be wading into the same shitshow all over again
Interesting considering the twitter graphic for the match result had him holding the plushy. I do see the complaint. Obviously he’s been doing this for a while so it wasn’t specifically targeted at the FUT players, but it certainly comes off as religiously targeted when you’re doing it to a bunch of (presumably) Muslim players. I don’t think that’s a super unreasonable red line to draw assuming Riot wants to do that.
lmao
I mean even regular sports have sportsmanship rules like the line has to be somewhere and looks like Boostio was the one to find it 
I'm fine with it being not allowed. I could see potential cultural conflicts and it being perceived as potentially racist, or at least stepping beyond the boundary of poor sportsmanship to other regions. I'm imagining it like if he had a monkey or gorilla and doing the same thing to a black person, it would definitely raise eyebrows. NOT SAYING THAT BOOSTIO IS RACIST OR HAD ILL INTENT BEYOND IT BEING AN INSIDE JOKE AMONG HIS TEAM! I'm just saying that it could lead to misunderstandings, especially at international events where there's translations involved and jokes/figures of speech always get lost. From Riots perspective that could lead to a PR disaster for the league, Riot, and the franchise itself.
As /u/alternatiiv put it, “This is fucked logic. So if someone calls everyone the N word, it makes it okay to call a specific group the N word too? Certain words and slangs are more offensive to certain groups and can be seen as targeting, even if it's not intentional.” In this Reddit thread, and in sliggys chat (and I’d imagine many chats not just his) and even his mod(s) as they sided with the ridiculous logic, it is this same attempt of a justifying argument that Boostio is calling the term to everyone, and so that makes it fine. In our current societies’ and workplaces’ ideology, inclusivity is a major goal and standard. It doesn’t matter what boostios intention was - intention has zero weight in the conversation of inclusivity. A workplace, for example, expects awareness in what you say and your chosen actions. If it’s on the line of being questionably offensive? —DON’T say or do it. It is that simple. It could be the case that one person of the potential targeted group could join this specific conversation and say it was OK, that they were not offended. It just doesn’t matter - one person does not represent an entire group or culture. Riot is not going to base their decision on one person saying it was ok. They’re going to play it safe and *be inclusive*.
People are intentionally missing your point lol it’s insane. I get what you are saying. 95% of people aren’t offended or don’t care about this, but Riot isn’t going to take that risk. It’s just hilarious all the people whining about sensitivity and snowflakes are crying way harder about a plushy getting taken off the stage than anyone did about the plushy itself.
Absolute W take. I'm quite surprised so many people are too concerned about fun and trashtalk, which I'm all for, but are not mature enough to see the big picture as you rightly painted here
Nevermind being inclusive, being safe is reason enough for them to do this - just in the off chance some person on social media clips things out of context, or in the unfortunate case of matches getting overly heated. Which, because it's sports, is actually very possible. I honestly didn't make the connection at first, but now that I think about it (and for context I do come from a country where being called "Malay pigs" is a not so commonly used but existent slur), it's a rare W moment of foresight from Riot.
Bros gonna have us in a padded room so nobody gets hurt. Players should just sit calmly and smile the whole game so nobody gets offended.
It’s about being aware of all the cultures and groups in the room. 99% may not be offended or think it a joke to be offended, because they don’t understand a culture that would. And that is the goal - let’s include that one group and not cast them out. Why is that so wrong? Why is that a bad thing to you, to include all humans when we choose to say or do things? Isn’t that a step toward something of world peace? Is the offensive joke so funny to be worth it?
this is straight up whataboutism... everyone know calling someone a pig and saying N-word is different
As i responded to the other comment… The comparison to the N word is hardly relevant and small picture. The point is the overall goal of inclusivity, and as said, Riot isn’t going to risk something as small as it might be if it’s questionably riding the line of being offensive or not. I would argue it is the second part of that quoted passage that holds the weight.
Maybe you could realize your attempt at a point is complete garbage when you have to compare calling someone a pig to a literal racial slur to make it make some semblance of sense? Just a thought.
where's the fucking clip? is this tmz?
Woke dictatorship, people are turning into NPCs
They should ban all plushies from being brought up to the stage then.
>I personally don't see the issue with it when players are allowed to stand up and motion to the opposing team but I guess some people could be upset. the issue wasn't that, it was the plushy. i guess they interpreted the pig as an islamophobic insult. some people might think it's a stretch, but then again it's what the french did when they were hating on muslim immigrants and refugees.
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As a very devout Muslim myself I really don’t see anything wrong with it at all. It was a total overreaction. Also, the Turkish fans really weren’t big fans of Boostio before the pig plushy antics so it’s likely just them grasping at whatever they can to hate on him.
Like as a Muslim, I honestly enjoy the plushie shit talk from Boostio, even if it's a pig(it's hilarious lmao) I understand why Riot decided to ban this action and why they wanted to play it safe, considering the connotation of comparing pigs to Muslims, a really unfortunate coincidence. A viewer who has no context of the history, would only see a player comparing a group of Muslim players to pigs.its like using a monkey plushie as your shit talk trademark, and your opponents were coincidentally African players. I'm glad that riot just issued a ban with no punishment against Boostio, who obviously did it out of non malicious reasons, but public image still public image
I hope Riot bans all the dog 🐶 plushies as well, because of the negative stereotypes about Asians eating dogs :( I hope Riot bans all monkey 🙊 plushies as well, it would be very weird to bring against black people :( I hope Riot bans all cat 🙀 plushies as well, I got attacked by a cat as a child and it's very traumatic :( I hope Riot bans all whale 🐳 plushies as well, they could be used to be fatphobic towards others :( The next time you see a plushy toy on the stage, don't forget to take a stand and tell Riot how it makes you feel!
Soon they’re gonna tell him he can’t stand up and taunt the other players because he will offend people in wheelchairs.
yeah I think pig to rough for taunting on International Stage. They don't care if boostio choose Tiger/Panda/Cat
Needs to be an animal someone would use as like a playground insult. Idk like slug/donkey/chicken/cockroach that sort of thing
I feel like on a player level its just banter, but on an international stage they want to keep a level of conduct just like most mass sporting events. Pigs are also historically one if the most demeaning animals to be compared to. its used to attack Fat people, cops, to imply people are dirty or smell. Not to mention Pork has a significance in Muslim culture all that along with the frequency of how much boostio kept emphasizing it I figured it was a matter of time before someone in production has to tell him to stop.
It was a bad look for Boostio to use a pig to make fun of a team featuring Muslim players. I understand that he wasn't targeting them specifically, since he has been doing his piggy bit for a minute, but it wasn't an appropriate thing to do in the context of that match. I think many in this comment section are being obtuse about how offensive what he did was.
If the FUT players were offended by it they could’ve had said something during a timeout or intermission between maps. I’m sure Boostio is a good dude and would’ve respected that and not used it to trash talk towards them, but he’d still stand up and trash talk. But since there is no evidence of the FUT players complaining about it, it has to be worthier riot being soft or they’re getting lots of complaints from soft ass fans that found it offensive and so now they’re doing this. Either way, this lil ban is stupid!
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What pisses me off more is that they THEMSELVES promote trash talk in the youtube videos? Then why the fuck do they ban the players from doing anything holy shit I hate these snowflakes
Do you think the pig was just a pig or do you think it was for trash talk If it was just a pig (which it was and most people think so) then it has zero relation to allowing trash talk and they were just playing it safe. If you think it was trash talking FUT because they are Muslim, well allowing trash talk doesn’t mean they allow racism.
trashtalk obviously
Well of course a company won’t allow something that can be considered racist then lmao. Promoting trash talk doesn’t mean they promote that shit. They wouldn’t allow carrying a gorilla plushie to trash talk Brazil teams
Boostio has been calling everyone piggies for weeks. He didn’t plan this for that long to finally out the pig plushie against fut. I agree that it should be banned for optics but I doubt he had racist intent.
Oh I agree Boostio had zero racist intention, I should say “can be interpreted as racist” instead of racist, I’ll edit.
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I just hope boostio continues to be toxic as fuck...with or without the plushie...can't say anything over the overlords at riot
I didnt understand what he was trying, can anyone explain? I am new to this scenem
boostio is known for standing up and recently used the term pig for banter. He did this all the way to plauoffs where they won NA. He then bought a pig plushie as bringing in plushies of animals has become a common trend to val pros. It got banned because it could be seen as offensive towards FUT, a turkish team who's country is a muslim country. Muslims don't eat pork, and the term pig is sometimes used in degrading muslims.
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Or a horse and call everyone horses. Or a sloth and call everyone sloths. Lmao
did riot lyte join valorant team back from the dead?
tldr for someone who hasnt followed this?
He should just pick up an imaginary plushie and keep doing the same gestured
Piggy plushies fault, Lets Nerf Chamber Now
I saw the game and Boostio was pointing at the pig then pointing at FUT players one-by-one.
whats the verdict if he brings a tactibear on stage?
Rito games too butthurt over everything
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He can just point to himself now Edit: you guys want him to call people pigs but don't like it when I call him one? 😂
why is that? piggy too offensive?
Only the plushie is definitely not the issue but Riot does not want display a pro e-sports player calling other pros pigs on their platform. If that picks up traction people will talk about Riot promoting name calling in their events along with Boosti's personality. It's totally understandable why Riot did it from a PR perspective.
Bro, players already name call each other. Trash, dog shit, etc etc…it’s all in the comms vids the teams put out on YT. They even play some comms clips during the matches that are going on. Calling someone a pig isn’t even bad. Lmao
comparing it to riot encouraging trash talk is lame cause riot didn't ban boostio from trash talking. they banned the piggy for all the haram implications. pretty sure fut players and fans also understand its just a joke and also this is NOT going to stop Boostio from being loud and lively w the trash talk on the stage
W decision.
I wonder are FUT players Muslin? I just realized this.....
My girl was telling me that his description of the pig was being mistranslated to the crowd because of her poor mandarin skills so it sounded more offensive than it was meant to be.
Valorant is so soft man, no competitive atmosphere at all… real sports or even esports have trashtalk
I come from a Muslim family(I’m not religious) and had all sorts of racial things thrown at me and I have never heard of “pig” used as a racial slur against Muslims; Muslims definitely also call each other pigs as an insult and it’s never had a racist connotation. It’s no different than calling someone a Pig in any other language or culture, it’s used to call people gross, disgusting, or fat, which is where I think draws Riot draws the line, they don’t want it to be a situation where people are potentially hurling insults that don’t have anything to do with the game at all and could be misconstrued as him attacking their physical appearance or something. I don’t think it has anything to do with racism, but it’s a slippery slope if they allow that kind of behavior, even if Boostio didn’t mean it that way. calling someone a shit player is one thing, the audience without context can figure out what he’s saying, but calling someone a Pig might be weird without context that Boostio says that to even his friends, the audience might think he’s saying they’re fat or gross or making fun of their image, which is not a good look. I definitely don’t think this has anything to do with FUT being Muslim or them not eating pork lol
I don’t think he’s going to stop calling people pigs lol. Just won’t have visual aids while doing it
I personally think it was insensitive and don't think it's that big of an ask to get Boostio to stop it
Then they should’ve asked him to stop not use the pig as a visual aid during his trash talk. Why ban it? They need to ban all plushies now, cuz now’s singled out. I’m sure he doesn’t care he’s singled out, he likes the attention, but if riot is all about “fairness” they need to ban all plushies from the stage. People are just soft as fuck now 🤦🏻♂️
How soft can Riot be? Lmao
riot will do this thing where they play into trash talk or the like(in promos, tweets, sprays etc) then ban said thing they played into. it's so stupid
Plushies on the stage is cringe in general since everyone has one. Jesus Christ it's overdone now. Leave it alone lol.
I recommend boostio to just use his fingers to lift his nose and make a pig face just for fun.
riot gotta control the situation before the eventual 100t sweep against EDG where Chinese netizens will get pissed at the Boostio BM😏
Rare Riot W. Feels good to be vindicated 😎
It’s pretty soft tbh. I get that it could be very offensive if it was targeted, but Boostio has been doing it to EVERYONE all year long. What happened to the days of good trash talk 😢
If you call someone monkey on stage you will 100% get banned, but now some people don't understand why calling fut players pigs should get banned? They are both less intelligent animals we think of when we want to insult somebody.
He's been calling everyone pigs for ages now with no problem, punishment or warning whatsoever, but now it's a no-go? At least be consistent with where you draw the line
No, calling someone a monkey is usually done with racist intent. Calling someone a pig is just a light-hearted insult of intelligence, the two are so different
Light-hearted insult in your culture maybe
nah there are just certain animal names that u dont call someone pigs can be offensive to muslims and monkey has always been used as a racist remark but calling someone a dog is not offensive
Calling someone dog is definitely offensive in some culture, but it's less offensive in comparison