Nickmercs wants to protect children, and on that basis you’d think no one would argue with him. If we saw a child running into the road, or lost and scared in the supermarket, we’d want to help them. We have a compulsion as a species to protect children from harm, which is why Nickmercs and people like him latch onto this phrase. But the context of Nickmercs’ remarks is key, and he commented under a video of Proud Boys attacking LGBT activists, causing Call of Duty to remove his skin pack from sale.
This is an old attack line that has been used for several decades now, suggesting that queer people are paedophiles seeking to corrupt, target, and harm children. When Nickmercs first spewed this vitriol into the aether, my colleague Ben Sledge wrote a full breakdown of how wrong this lie is, but the context is clear. Homophobes shroud themselves in the veneer of protecting children (and often preach the importance of religion, which is highly ironic). Nickmercs wasn’t saying we should protect the children from any specific harm, but was a general endorsement that the Proud Boys (who have been legally declared a terrorist organisation in several countries) were doing the right thing.
Homophobes often try to turn this around and argue that by not wanting to protect children, LGBT people are proving themselves to be predators. But that’s a false, childish logic. If someone says ‘men shouldn’t have sex with elephants!’ then we’d all agree that they’re correct. If someone said that under a picture of your wedding photo, you’d probably be pissed off about it. When you see a terrorist organisation attacking activists who want children to know that it’s okay if they feel differently from their classmates, and side with the terrorists, you cede the moral high ground.
What Nickmercs specifically said was that “[LGBT people] should leave little children alone”, and has since pointed out that he feels this way as a new father. So either he thinks all LGBT people are paedophiles, or he doesn’t want his children to learn about gay people at all - the latter being an ever so slightly more charitable interpretation of his words and still highly homophobic.
While Nickmercs has shrouded his intention, the basic message is clear: Nickmercs doesn’t like gay people. TimTheTatMan has been more cowardly still, saying on his stream that he has spoken to Nickmercs and assuring fans he’s okay (as he should be, having suffered no real consequences), before asking Call of Duty to also take his own skin off the store after Activision removed Nickmercs’, in a show of support for his friend.
Here’s the thing though - just say you hate gay people. Use your faith or how you were raised as your bullshit reasoning if you want to. All I’m asking is that you’re honest about it. Nickmercs, to his meagre credit, has made it clear what side of the divide he stands on. Since his community is mostly edgy teens and conservative men, he’s getting praise for it in the short term. Long term, he’ll end up damaged goods like Adin Ross, but TimTheTatMan wants it both ways.
In standing with Nickmercs, he’s obviously appealing to the conservative crowd, showing support for a man who lends his voice to the Proud Boys in calling queer people paedophiles. But he also wants the comfortable deniability of having not personally said anything about gay people so that when the tide turns - and it will, the tides of history always land on the shores of progress - he’s in the clear. He should not be allowed that luxury. If TimTheTatMan is homophobic, he should come out and say it so we all know where we stand. If he’s not, he should stop playing up that crowd.
He may say he’s just supporting his friend, but consider what that means. It’s not as if Nickmercs has gone through some terrible ordeal - if he suffered an injury or disease, or spoke about mental illness, then I would understand people in his industry supporting him despite previous questionable behaviour. But instead a custom skin has been removed from Call of Duty, and will likely be quietly added back in at a later date. There’s no suffering here.
Attacking a minority who are the target of rising hate crimes and who are made increasingly vulnerable through legislation stripping them of their dignity is cowardly enough. To do it under the guise of supporting your friend, who himself lent his voice to the Proud Boy cause, is embarrassing. TimTheTatMan will want us to forget this in time. We should remember it always.