xQc shares surprising thoughts on the state of top female players in esports

Popular Twitch streamer and Overwatch pro Félix ‘xQc’ Lengyel spoke out on the conversation about women in esports, which stemmed from the Overwatch Contenders’ ‘Ellie’ scandal from early January.

xQc went live in a broadcast on January 10, where he reacted to YouTube king Felix ‘PewDiePie’ Kjellberg’s video on the topic.

xQc argued that Overwatch’s sparse amount of top female players stems from problems within the gaming community, itself, calling the scene “garbage” and “trash.”

• Read More: Overwatch fans have created some incredible artwork to show their love for the new Ana skin

“The problem is not that there’s not enough girls,” xQc asserted. “The problem is that the girls are being bottlenecked by the trash community and the garbage culture around gamers… that stops them from going further.”

However, xQc likewise held that “overly-including” women into the space could introduce another set of problems entirely, claiming that it would lead to “the exact opposite” of what teams hope to achieve by introducing an influx of female gamers into the competitive scene.

• Read More: PewDiePie mocks outrage surrounding Overwatch Contenders’ ‘Ellie’ scandal

“If you use the argument, ‘There’s not enough girls,’ and overly-include them, it does the exact opposite of the goal you tried to reach in the first place,” he continued. “But they’re too fucking stupid to know that.”

xQc’s comments stem from the recent scandal around a rising-star Overwatch Contenders account by the name of ‘Ellie,’ which turned out to be run by male pro player ‘Punisher’ as a “social experiment.”

Punisher reportedly asked “many women” to speak over the microphone while he played to keep up the facade, which was later exposed by an Overwatch League representative on January 6.