LoL coach Saintvicious under fire after mocking depression as “a made up excuse”
Update, December 9 08:29 am EST: FlyQuest have now confirmed Saintvicious’ resignation, along with an apology statement from the now former head coach.
Original article below.
Twitch streamer, and League of Legends caster and coach, Brandon ‘Saintvicious’ DiMarco has come under fire after claiming that mental illnesses like depression, anxiety and ADHD are “made up bullshit.”
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Saintvicious is a well known figure in League of Legends, currently the coach of NA LCS team FlyQuest, and also streams regularly on Twitch.
During a stream on December 8, Saintvicious answered a question from chat about mental illness, specifically depression, and his answer surprised viewers.
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He said that having experienced “depression” in his own life, he was able to cure himself by ‘fighting his way out of it’.
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“I have been in points of my life where I’m like ‘depressed’ or down. But then I just woke up one day and I’m like ‘I’m going to fight my way out of this shit, because I’m being a little weak bitch.”
He goes on to claim that it’s not an illness, and also mentions other mental health issues like anxiety and ADHD, calling them “made up bullshit.”
[ad name=”article3″]His comments were later shared to Reddit, where users blasted Saintvicious for his view on depression and mental health.
User dispoable writes “The problem is he’s totally willfully ignorant to all of those topics. What he had was some bad days but depression, anxiety, and ADHD is empirically proven to be real things.”
Another commenter was surprised that this was the stance Saintvicious took since he claims he too has suffered from depression.
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Saintvicious has a popular stream with over 180,000 followers on Twitch, but even many of his fans and viewers were not in agreement with his stance, with one writing in chat “lost all my respect” and another saying “I don’t see what’s wrong with getting help.”
Mental health has been a major issue within the gaming community particularly, and so it is surprising to hear a prominent esports coach voice this opinion, clearly angering some fans.
At the time of writing, Saintvicious has not responded to any of the backlash or attempted to clarify his comments.
