Several people implicated in Dumbledoge's bullying/homophobia statement have responded publicly

Image Source: Riot Games

 

Earlier, support player Mustafa Kemal "Dumbledoge" Gökseloğlu issued a public statement about his sudden departure from Turkish Championship League team Papara SuperMassive. In the Twitlonger, he went in-depth about his discovery of a chat group with multiple players, coaches and other personalities in the Turkish League of Legends scene.

 

Said group had been making homophobic remarks about Dumbledoge—an openly gay player since 2018—for a few years. Ultimately Dumbledoge left the team after a final confrontation with SuperMassive's Bot Laner Berkay "Zeitnot" Aşıkuzun, who was also part of the aforementioned group chat.

 

Ever since Dumbledoge spoke out, several of the people implicated in the story have responded to the statement. The replies vary, but most are dismissive of at least some aspects Dumbledoge highlighted. Multiple responses even question Dumbledoge's own integrity in the matter.

 

 

 

The largest name, and biggest target of Dumbledoge's  Twitlonger, is Zeitnot. Dumbledoge literally states: "I would like to thank every single person who was a part of the organization. The reason why I left is Zeitnot, and not the other 3 players on the team." Zeitnot responded with a Twitlonger of his own, albeit a much shorter one:

 

"After Kemal's post a few days ago, I had to make a statement. I waited for today as I did not find it right to make a statement before our weekend matches. First of all, I would like to say that it is not me that you see with the name Zeitnot in the screenshots that Kemal shared. Secondly, I should not have raised my voice and spoke roughly in the discussion between us on Kemal's involvement in the post-training meeting with our coach.

 

"However, I would like you to know that I have never used a discourse that can be perceived as discrimination in any sense in any discussion. I categorically reject accusations and implications of hate speech. Although I have nothing to do with discrimination, I accepted the punishment of my team for acting unprofessional by acting rudely.

 

"I will not touch on the issues that other people have witnessed because I do not want the discussion to reach the point in which It is my word against his. As a person who has responsibilities in the sense of my contract with my teammates, I will not have another statement for all of you until the time these responsibilities disappear.

 

"Finally, I will state a legal reminder: regardless of the reason and purpose, without the permission of the judge or the prosecutor, entering a computer that is in private use of a person with digital correspondence, to take a record without permission, to submit these records to the general public without permission, is a crime. I reserve my rights as outlined by the law related to this subject. Good evening."

 

 

 

Şükrü "Uthenera" Şentürk, who, among other things said "this guy is obviously a f**" before Dumbledoge had revealed his sexual orientation, issues an apology twice on Twitter. After his first statement received a lot of backlash he deleted it, at returned with a more humble tone.

 

"Finally, I'm being lynched rightfully. When I look at the screenshots, I felt embarrassed to death. I could not handle seeing my own wording/language. Every time I see my friends or people I know share the post and I see their comments, I get ashamed again," Uthenera writes. "When I think about the psychological stress Kemal had to go through when he first saw this I get sadder. The only relief is that he accepted my apology."

 

 

 

Former Royal Youth streamer Kaan "Elwind" Atıcı also responded. On screenshots provided in Dumbledoge's statement, Elwind can be seen using homophobic slurs on several occasions. After Dumbledoge posted a picture of himself with his hair braided, Elwind wrote in the group chat: "He has done his lates f** move. He got his hair braided."

 

In two replies to Dumbledoge's statement, Elwind says: "I apologized to Dumble in Rift Rivals 2018 and we talked in person. I'm not homophobic, we don't have a problem with him. As Şükrü [Uthenera] said, 3-5 years ago we had a disgusting way of speaking in that group and I apologized to him two years ago. I already apologized face to face two years ago in Vietnam. I noticed my mistake and tried to fix it and I thought things were okay between us. You [the community] will not be satisfied no matter what I write, but I apologize to Kemal once again."

 

 

 

Former Top Laner Yiğit "Marshall" Kırdökl stated that he doesn't agree with the language used, but thinks the sprouted drama is an overreaction and must be placed in context: "It seems like an exaggeration to display a humorous conversation between friends who are 17-20 years old as real homophobic discourse. It's already a different situation to take private conversations from someone else's computer."

 

He later adds, in another Tweet: "Friends, I'm not saying that the things we said were ok. I tried to emphasize that this happened in 2015-2016. I, Ugur, Furkan etc. were about 16-17 years old. I don't it is right to label us as homophobes at an age at which we did not even know the definition of homophobe."

 

 

 

Though not directly accused of homophobia or other types of bullying, Papara SuperMassive coach Serdar "Pades" Padeş did play a role in the story told by Dumbledoge. According to Dumbledoge, Pades got in between Dumbledoge and Zeitnot in a heated moment, possibly preventing worse than a verbal disagreement. However, this is not how Pades experienced the event.

 

His Twitlonger reads: "Hello, I am writing to clarify the discussion on the balcony that took place as mentioned in the recent posts. The debate arose when we did not agree with Berkay on a decision I made. It is also my duty to see the problems in the team, to measure the discomfort and problems of the players, and to decide to solve them with our team psychologist.

 

"When Kemal was included in our discussion on the balcony, Berkay did not walk towards anyone, he did not display any movement that could be perceived as physical violence and threat. I strictly told him to go his room because he was raising his voice and was being rude. The dialogue between us should not have been reflected to Kemal - I am very sorry for my mistake here. However, during the time we worked together, I did not witness any discrimination, homophobic, sexist, racist words or behavior in the team."

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