The Eurogamer Expo took place over the weekend and offered game developers the opportunity to put their best foot forward and show off their upcoming titles in front of fans and journalists alike. Unfortunately, not everyone put out their best.
According to trans video game journalist Laura Kate Dale, during the Xbox One’s trade show, host and comedian Fraser Millward humiliated her in front of the audience by reportedly referring to her as “he,” “it” and “thing.” According to Kotaku, Laura Kate Dale took to Twitter, saying “Hope someone from Microsoft sees this. Your presenter made completely dehumanised me in front of an audience. Ruined my Eurogamer. Shows me for trying to take part and have fun like everyone else.”
[Image via NintendoLife]
While Millward doesn’t actually work for Microsoft, the company did send Kotaku a message apologizing for the incident, saying, “We are aware of an incident yesterday on the Xbox booth at the Eurogamer Expo, at which an inappropriate comment was made, and we apologise for any offence caused.”
As a comedian and a presenter, it is your job to pull in the audience and occasionally rib on them a little, but you’re supposed to draw the line at being unkind. I doubt Millward went in intentionally trying to hurt anyone, but he was careless with his act, and it ended up humiliating someone while making him and the rest of the show look bad.
This isn’t about telling anyone what they can and can’t say so much as it is a reminder that yes, what people say has consequences. A person’s words do represent them, whether they like it or not, and they have to think about what they say and the consequences their words have on others.
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