There was a top level comment about the TOs of Nightclub (formerly Hax’s Nightclub) which I replied to, but now it’s no longer here. [Probably because Hax deleted it, since he’s been actively trying to avoid antagonizing them in any way because they hold the key to his future.] Since I wrote a lot and had the comment saved in a note, I’m gonna repost it below. All I ask is that you please do not dox anyone on either/any side, and to please respect the personhood of NYC Melee TOs. It’s not as simple as you say it is. Some of the TOs said outright to people at Nightclub when he first made his apology years ago “oh snap, now that he’s apologized, we might have to deal with his annoying personality again. I hate working with him.” Slightly paraphrased. So they made him agree to these insane selfish manipulative conditions that nobody would normally accept if they had even a tiny bit of leverage. They just didn’t like him man, people know this. He had to agree to being barred from ever taking a TO/leadership position in an event that he STARTED! He found the venue, he negotiated everything, he got them in the building, and they took his name off of it and barred him from ever being a part of it. And then they told him he wasn’t allowed to ever talk about it. Ever. This is why he was re-banned. Because he talked about the Leffen situation. Which he has diagnosed PTSD over and takes medication for. They were so happy to get rid of him again because they hate dealing with his “annoying” personality, they hate that he Res presents all this drama, they hate dealing with his fans because they don’t actually listen to what Hax says they glob into what he represents, and these TOs and their friends feel justified in treating Hax like he’s less than human because they perceive their moral high ground as a justification for acting out all their personal feelings about him. The way people have treated him is deplorable and completely devoid of empathy. They write people off based on hearsay and jump to conclusions. Once you’re part of the “out group”, the viciousness comes out. They treat “out group” people like they are sub human. With cold hearts and self righteousness. People in NY and Tristate want a change but they are afraid to becoming part of the out group. They don’t speak up about the mistreatment of people I don’t even dare name because some of those people have privately said they don’t want to have anything to do with the community that hurt them so bad and in some cases even attempted to ruin their lives. Filled with malicious people, liars, and the self-righteous people who believe them without proof. Dog-pilling on the poor individuals who get pushed out. So Hax, who is no saint but *clearly* isn’t a monster either, becomes this imperfect symbol for the mismanagement of the community by people who know how to run a video game tournament but are clueless when it comes to “HR” and conflict mired in murky situations and complicated ethical questions. Just because someone can run an event doesn’t mean they are in any way qualified to make those kinds of sensitive decisions that in real life we have things like HR departments and courts and official protocols and lawyers and industry standard procedures and a little thing called *due process* for. You don’t even know. You have no clue how deep it does. There are people who will never be talked about again. There are EXTREMELY relevant things that honestly recontextualize everything about the initial videos… that Hax will never talk about because he either legally can’t because he wasn’t able to afford a good enough lawyer to defend himself from malicious legal trickery by people who literally stole from him AND because he doesn’t want to look like he’s defending his old actions he has years ago distanced himself from. And I don’t even like Hax like that. I think he made a bunch of HUGE mistakes along the way that made things much worse for him and I don’t have the patience for it. But I don’t demonize him like half of the community does, because I understand WHY someone backed into a corner in the position he was in would do what he did, and I don’t believe that it’s healthy for a society or a community to condemn people for their mistakes or to judge a person’s overall character as being equal to the worst of those mistakes. People immediately think about murder and extreme crimes when you say this, but there’s a huge difference between mistake and the clear violent actions and literally *anti-social* behavior of individuals with dangerous psychopathy (murderers, deranged arsonists, paranoid schizophrenics with delusions). We gotta stop looking at the top shelf exceptions and using those standards to judge weird nerds who made mistakes. One group is full of rare outliers that are literally dangerous to society, and the other is capable of learning and is totally redeemable. Look how hard Hax has tried, he has been taking responsibility for mistakes left and right, even in situations where it was debatable if he should. He set that aside, turned the other cheek, and took personal accountability. Work with him!! He could be such a success story of re-socialization. But instead unqualified people in undeserved positions of power kick him down and use him as a prop in their pseudo political rhetorical conversations like some sick case study in what happens when you give power to people who got picked on and never want to be the bottom dog themselves again. Stay down, Hax!! Be our bottom dog so we don’t have to acknowledge the dark parts of ourselves we leave unexamined by carefully wrapping ourselves up in the flags of otherwise righteous causes that truthfully have little to do with the complex realities of the Melee community. Stay down, Hax. Don’t for a minute let us ponder the hypocrisy of our performative moral absolutism masking the darkness and aggression within our hearts.
Delusional if you think you are getting back in the community LMAO. Comparing a smash player to Hitler or Stalin is ridiculous and you were 27 at the time! Have fun staying banned.
You’ve been suffering from your inability to play. The reasons for your ban are so minimal. A bunch of immature people cannot forgive and let people learn from their errors; instead, it’s easier to magnify them. Hoping you’re okay and well, having your dream ripped away from you is soul crushing
you have a good soul. do not let others who never had one take you down. anyone with a brain sees that you aren't a threat nor a villain. you were hurting and felt the need to speak out. you had every right to do so. every single right.
I feel like not talking about this stuff may be better. I bet just making content people enjoy and being all around positive would be a better way to try and be unbanned.
This situation has become entirely slanted in my opinion. Hax didnt incite harrassment - He spoke his honest opinion and his experience, based on facts. Thats NOT harrassment. So glad to be done with this community now that this rhetoric is the "status quo" Leffen is the one with actual repeated harrassment attempts, NOT Hax How tf did this situation become so backwards? Put me in charge and I'll unban Hax and host a welcome back supermajor in his honor, and permaban Leffen
they dont want to ban leffen because he's popular. it's just that. it's just money. anyone who has been around the fgc knows how bad things can get at/after events. people will send death threats, get physical, be degenerative around minors, and theyll somehow get away with it. however, hax cant speak his mind in a nonviolent manner...? hax staying banned just sends a signal to anyone familiar with the fgc that nothing has changed for the better due to those in charge of major events and more. the fact he was banned at all proved how bad things got. a suspension would've been understandable for his own sake, but his issues were never the fgc's concerns. modern fgc easily goes down as the worst video game community which is really sad for me to say. it's hard to look at... :c vent.exe over.
I just watched that last video that got you re-banned. What an absolute disgrace that you could ever be re-banned for that. Every TO involved should be beyond ashamed. You clearly were coming from a place of trauma and wanting to explain things retroactively, not a place of malice. What a soft, soft group of people you’re dealing with. Please keep focusing on that technical training, you are too bright and capable to let these weak people influence your life to such a degree. God bless
I understand your reasons for apologizing and respect your efforts to improve yourself as a person, but that doesn't change the fact that Leffen still is who he is.
I'm not a Melee player, but across the Smash communities I've never understood the insistence on sticking with Gamecube controllers. Even in the newer Smash games where there's built-in support for different controllers, there's still the expectation that people should and will play with a GC controller (I do understand the advantages of having a wired controller for in-person events). You've been extremely thorough with documentation on what the Boxx can and can't do, as well as your design philosophy. It feels weird that there's so much pushback when you've shown not only how you're willing to limit what the Boxx can do, but how to improve the user experience for GC controllers as well. I feel like if people can play with a controller that's comfortable and isn't causing some sort of unfair advantage, then there shouldn't be much of an argument against it.
You seem to be genuinely remorseful, and that's great! To an extent anyway - I can certainly understand there being overwhelming regret about your actions, but please make a point not to let that regret consume you. Try to stay grounded and acknowledge that while it makes sense you'd feel bad about the past, it can absolutely go too far and be unhealthy. I don't know one way or the other if that's the case for you since I don't really know you personally, but I figured it was worth saying. The main reason I wanted to comment is that I think it takes commendable conviction to maintain this stance despite all the people in the comments proclaiming that you've done nothing wrong. _Especially_ so for you to have outright acknowledged an "alt-right community" on the outskirts of the rest of Melee! I hope if you read this it isn't hurtful to bring up, but in one of your presentations a couple years ago you referenced a video as being a good overview of some topic I can't remember, but I checked it out and it _reeked_ of veiled right-wing fear mongering. Coming from that, I feel like explicitly distancing yourself from an alt-right side to the community is great, and very illustrative of your earnest changes. It stuck out to me. Keep this stuff up c:
Dude aged like 20 years in 5 years. It’s tragic to see someone degrade so much because of a game. Even if he were to be unbanned nothing would change, his problems seem to go deeper than just not being able to compete. I have a bad feeling this won’t end well.
Make a 1 hour video explaining the injustices that have been done to Leffen over the years, including your own. THAT would be the start of an actual sincere apology that I believe is coming from someone who has swallowed their ego and is truly willing to do whatever it takes to get unbanned. Taking several hours to say 'fuck you' and 10 minutes to say 'sorry' tells the whole story by itself.
Hax, if you want to get unbanned, then you need to put the same amount of energy and effort into it as what got you banned in the first place. You made several hours of content defaming Leffen, and you haven't done anything to denounce people like Technicals, thefranChise, and all your fanboys. It's become hard for the community to trust you since you've lied and relapsed many times. What I'm suggesting is that you should make a video similar to the Evidence.zip series in which you debunk your own claims and prove to people that Leffen isn't some evil dark tetrad psychopath. The fact that the hate Leffen receives hasn't stopped and you've barely touched upon this sincerely makes people believe you have not changed. You're able to put a lot of research and effort into making videos such as your Melee gameplay mechanics videos, so I know you have the skills and time needed to do this. You were willing to put effort into something bad, so you need to show you are willing to put the same amount of effort into something good and finally clear this up.
Hax at a certain point you need to stop praying for kindness from a bunch of man-children living out their highschool social power fantasies. TOs that could never be bothered to have a public and reviewable discipline process are not going to change course and suddenly give a damn; you gotta start running tournaments yourself. Demonstrating continued value and reliability to the scene in such a social way will also be much harder to ignore than another apology video to people who don't deserve them.
I urge you to find a different community. This one doesnt deserve you nor respects you. The Smash community is run by cowards and losers. Find people who value you. Love you, man
A man who had been around longer than. Most TO’s, revolutionized the competitive scene with his controller/box innovations, was harassed by (debatably) one of the most toxic professional gamers of all time, and above all else has the uptmost respect from 99% of all the top level players…. Yet he’s still “banned”
I hope i could dumb this down to make it understandable (It's still pretty long but i hope that every main point is included). Hax made a 1+ hour long video where he criticised Leffen for a lot of things that were justified like his online toxicity and general treatment towards a lot of individuals online but then went way off the rails by diagnosing him as a psycho- and sociopath without any medical qualification, shared a conspiracy that Leffen was somehow controlling all of Smash as a master manipulator with 0 concrete proof to it besides a lot of paranoid ramblings from him, showed a bunch of testimonies from a 10 year old document that got Leffen temporarely banned in 2014 without the consent of the people who wrote said testimonies and accused Leffen of a bunch of other stuff that can neither be proven or disproven. Hax quickly got indefinetely banned from almost every individual major, regional and local after the vid's publication. He then doubled, tripled and quadrupled down on that video with multiple other concerning videos before "apologizing" in rather unlegit and robotic seeming ways, getting a second chance spoonfed to him as he was allowed to enter his locals again on a vaguely layed out agreement that would have probably gotten him slowly unbanned at every big event before running out of patience with the progress and burning any possibility of him returning by breaking the set in stone terms of the agreement and returning with a video that was meant as his "apology" only to yet again be a direct attack on Leffen. That situation got him permabanned to where we are now. It also just came out that he has been suffering with a lot of mental health issues, that his entire private circle has been suffering from this situation, that all of his apology statements and videos were just insincere lying and that he nonstop harassed almost everyone in the NYC Melee scene (his local community) with unban begging and now seemingly pressures them with suicide if he keeps being outcasted from playing a videogame. His friends, family and entire local scene do not see returning to Melee as the solution for any of his problems in the long term but the echo chamber of internet strangers that has been basing their opinions on the videos still believes that everyone involved only wants to humiliate and harm Hax for "only speaking the truth".
at this point just watch the technicals vid. he's been banned for so long people going on about how he should "take accountability" don't even remember.
this comes off as you desperatly trying your best to get on the good side on inherently corrupt people. Hax, this people will NEVER accept you back as long as you keep bowing down to their demands and walking back your fair made points, what they want from you is to go away and to not deal with the consequences of banning a victim while exhonerating their perpetrator. I know that what you're feeling is regret, but there should be nothing to regret when you did absolutely nothing wrong
Right. The only mental instability I see in Hax is that he bows under the pressure and gives into the false narrative that he is the abuser of Leffen. Its so backwards
