Female Creators’ Images Morphed: S8UL Mamba Lashes Out at Indian Gaming Community

At the start of the year, members of the streaming community were enraged by Twitch streamer Brandon “Atrioc” Ewing after he was accidentally caught looking at not-safe-for-work (NSFW) deepfakes of fellow streamers. Following this, Atrioc issued a tearful apology on his stream and made amends. He took corrective action by working with a DMCA company called Ceartas to help Twitch streamers take down NSFW and deepfake content from the internet. It has now come to light that members of the Indian Gaming Community (IGC) are allegedly involved in morphing images of female content creators and sharing them online. 

In a recent livestream, S8UL Esports content creator Salman “Mamba” Ahmed lost his cool and alleged that photos of female creators are being morphed and misused using Artificial Intelligence (AI). 

Mamba stated that he has a separate Google Drive where he has been storing evidence so that he could take legal action against offenders.

“This is not the meaning of fanbases,” says Mamba

During the livestream, Mamba revealed that he was upset and talked about the serious issue of people using AI bots and software to manipulate images of female creators. He was on a call with S8UL Yash “VipeR” Soni and revealed to him that he has created a Google Drive link where he has been storing these alleged morphed images. Mamba said, “The day I collect a good amount of matter (evidence), and show it to the community, the whole community will be shocked.”

Mamba was angry at the community and broke into a series of expletives as he addressed the issue. He also stated that this is not how fanbases work and branded this exploitation and objectification of women streamers and content creators as the work of an “anti-fanbase.” Mamba emphasized that being a fan of one organization does not warrant morphing images. The streamer said, “Even for an anti-fan, this was very low and such actions do not support any teams.”

The S8UL content creator disclosed the existence of a website that allegedly allows people to morph photos of anybody and that this poses a significant threat to female creators in the community. 

Mamba pointed out many instances where the IGC had been toxic towards women streamers and content creators in the past. He shared an incident about Payal “Payal Gaming” Dhare getting hate comments on Instagram which upset Payal. Mamba added that she was forced to turn off the comments on her Instagram.

He also stated that members of the GodLike Esports BGMI lineup were subjected to hate comments during the Krafton launch party event. Mamba said, “While they appeared on-screen for interviews, there were many vile comments.” He opined that these individuals are not genuine fans of any specific organization and that they only thrive on spreading hate. He concluded that strict legal action must be taken against them. 

According to Mamba, simply addressing this issue by posting on social media is not enough and he demanded decisive, legal action against those responsible.

Earlier last week, Payal Dhare talked in a livestream about receiving death and rape threats from Instagram accounts that have “gdxl” (Commonly used to refer to GodLike) on their handles. Following this, GodLike Esports coach Abhijeet “Ghatak” Andhare called out these accounts for spreading hate and noted that the organization will be taking action against them.

Tanmay “Scout” Singh also stated that he is taking action against one of the accounts that were spreading hate. He revealed that he has filed a police complaint against the account and that the account allegedly morphed images of female content creators and shared them online.

Time and again women have been told that they do not belong in the gaming and esports ecosystem and have always been treated as outsiders by the industry. On top of this, women gamers and creators have to endure constant objectification and harassment online. Most online games have an inherent problem of toxicity and trolls thrive on the fact that they are anonymous behind their in-game name (IGN). According to a study conducted jointly by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Newzoo, Dota 2 and Valorant are the most toxic online games, both of which are popular in the Indian gaming community.

It is increasingly important, as a community, to create and nurture a safe space for women to play video games and the first step towards that is to call out offenders and abusers and take proper legal action against them.