Dumbledoge reveals years of verbal abuse and homophobia in TCL

Olivia Richman Published 21/02/2020

Turkish League of Legends veteran Mustafa “Dumbledoge” Kemal, also known as the “Faker Slayer,” has announced that he’s a free agent.

On Twitter, Dumbledoge stated that he has left SuperMassive after becoming sick of homophobic treatment from some players on the team. He attached a TwitLonger that outlined homophobic abuse and bullying from 2017 to the present.

In 2017, Dumbledoge left SuperMassive shortly after the Mid-Season Invitational. According to the Turkish player, it wasn’t because of his in-game performance, but because he was simply “not happy.” A rough translation reveals that it may have started when some pro players started talking about Dumbledoge’s sexual orientation in a Facebook group before he had officially come out to the public as a gay man.

He shared some of the related screenshots, which appear to reveal some of the bullies as Şükrü “Uthenera” Şentürk, Uğur “Panky” Taş, and Furkan “Trixucator” Coruk. They call him a “fag” multiple times. Dumbedoge stated that Burkay “Zeitnot” Aşıkuzun’s behavior hurt him the most, since he “loved him as a brother.”

When Dumbledoge went to Riot Games representatives with the conversations, he was allegedly told that nothing could be done since they were “private conversations.” When he found out his contract was preventing him from playing on another team, he simply left.

He soon joined Royal Youth, but became “depressed” at how the team was managing its roster. He became very stressed at the thought of the team performing poorly as the roster continued to be shaky and its roster unclear. After that, Dumbedoge had to pick between returning to SuperMassive and playing with Zeitnot again or just ending his career at that time.

“My competitive spirit weighed heavier and I decided I wanted to be more successful. I would play one more year and decide after if I’ll leave or not. I also told myself that if I figure these out I would be more successful as a person and I would come over problems way easily in my professional career. It didn’t quite work out though,” Dumbledoge recalled.

Dumbledoge points to Zeitnot in homophobic harrassment revelations

Back at the team house, Dumbledoge noted that he was no longer friends with Zeitnot, but that they wanted to remain “as professional as I can be.” But one time, he passed by Zeitnot and Serdar “Pades” Padeş, the team’s current coach, and heard them talking about him once again.

This time, they were talking about him “not giving a single fuck” during scrims because he wasn’t vocal enough about his picks. During next week’s scrims, Dumbledoge got in an argument with Zeitnot over their team comp, which led Zeitnot to supposedly yelled, “IS THAT WHY I FUCKED YOU UP IN YOUR ASS IN THIS MATCHUP DURING PLAYOFFS?”

Dumbledoge overheard Zeitnot talking bad about him again with the coach on another occasion that same week. This time they were talking about how poorly he had played. When Dumbledoge confronted him about the situation, he stated that Zeitnot called him “unspeakable slurs.” Dumbledoge said he started to pack immediately.

“If I cared about his words I would actually respond to him but words really don’t hurt me. It’s just how you hear these words and how you process them. If the person against you is worthless, you just hear, don’t listen. It was wrong of me to leave two days before a match, and I left three other players I really loved, but I couldn’t think any of this in the heat of the moment,” Dumbledoge explained to his fans.

He noted that it wasn’t the first time Zeitnot had talked bad behind his back and he assumed his teammates might have felt similarly, encouraging him to keep trash talking him.

“I’m sorry about this. I left because I believed I was unwanted, but I acted with haste and I regret it. I don’t know how things would have gone, perhaps I would have left after the games during the weekend anyway,” he concluded.

The League of Legends community rallied behind Dumbledoge after the TwitLonger came to light. Many people called Zeitnot a “toxic homophobe” on Reddit, while others called on Riot Turkey to do something to correct these injustices. For many League of Legends players, this meant banning Zeitnot from professional play.

While a lot of players feel that Riot’s office Turkey may not act, they are hoping that once word hits Riot in the United States, the verbal abuse and homophobic bullying Dumbledoge endured will be officially addressed.

Olivia Richman

About Olivia Richman

Olivia has worked in media ever since graduating from college, with her coverage ranging from traditional newspaper reporting to digital coverage of all things gaming, online betting, and nerd culture. She has traveled around the world pursuing that coverage, from the far coasts of the United States to the busy downtown core of Tokyo, Japan. Olivia’s favorite games include Overwatch and Super Smash Smash Bros, and she has been published at Esports Illustrated, Inven Global, EsportsInsider, Upcomer, and elsewhere.

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