Jeremy Hambly's Gen Con Assault Controversy

Overview

Jeremy Hambly's Gen Con Assault Controversy refers to an alleged encounter in which Jeremy Hambly, known as TheQuartering on YouTube, claimed to have been assaulted by an attendee at the Gen Con 2018 convention.

Background

Gen Con is a North American table-top game convention founded in 1968. They describe themselves as "The Best Four Days in Gaming", as well as "the longest-running gaming convention in the world". ^[1]

Hambly's Alleged Assault

On May 30th, 2018, Hambly, an outspoken critic of social justice and Anita Sarkeesian, posted a tweet criticizing the inclusion of Anita Sarkeesian at Gen Con 2018 (shown below).

On August 2nd, Hambly uploaded a video retelling an encounter he had with a stranger wearing a rainbow shirt with a four-day Gen Con pass hanging on his neck, walking with an affiliate he described as a "short-stacky guy" wearing pants and a black shirt. Hambly claims the stranger asked him if his name was "Jeremy" and upon confirming his question he was punched in the back of the head "5-10 times" by the unknown man. After the incident, Hambly claimed that the owner of the bar told him to not call the police and that the bar made no attempt to escort the stranger out or intervene in the conflict.

The video has since been taken down by the uploader, but a backup still exists on Hambly's BitChute account (shown below).

That day, Hambly called for the bar to release footage of the incident to the public (shown below). ^[13]

Developments

Identification

On August 2nd, 2018, Jeremy posted a photograph on Twitter account of a man at the convention, who he claimed "matches the description" (shown below, left). Shortly after, Hambly tweeted another photo claiming that an eyewitnessed identified the man as Matt Loter, known online as "Matt Fantastic" (shown below, right).

Soon afterward, Matt protected, and then subsequently disabled, his Twitter account. However, viewers were still able to archive the main page of his Twitter account ^[2], including a tweet that challenged anyone who had issue with Anita Sarkeesian being invited to Gen Con to "fucking fight me" (shown below). ^[3]

Gen Con Social Media Blockings

On August 2nd, Twitter user @grpeephole303 stated that he was blocked by the Gen Con Twitter account after mentioning the incident. ^[4] Twitter user @Deplorabl3 was also blocked after directly commenting on one of Gen Con's tweets ^[5] (both shown below).

Other Twitter users began getting blocked as well. On the same day, @MechAniki posted a tweet listing several screenshots of multiple Twitch users getting banned from the Twitch chat after mentioning the assault, as well as restricting the chat to only 3 month followers (shown below). ^[6]

On August 6th, a Reddit post on /r/gencon by the user BoldGambit discussing the assault was removed. ^[7] On August 9th, the Gen Con Facebook page made an official statement regarding the incident (shown below). ^[8]

Matt Loter Fired from Quinnipiac University

On August 13th, all mentions of Matt Loter have been removed from Quinnipiac University's website, including the "Introduction to Game Design" sections listed on their website, which now displays two blank spaces where there would normally be an instructor listed (shown below). ^[11]

On August 14th, TheQuartering uploaded a YouTube video discussing Quinnipiac University's decision (shown below).
‍

Online Reaction

On August 2nd, Twitter user @shoe0nhead responded by making the conclusion that Matt assaulted Jeremy over internet opinions.^[9] On August 4th, Redditor RedMonsterPowerBang made a post on /r/boardgames reporting the incident. ^[10]

News Media Coverage

On August 3rd, 93.1 WIBC posted an article reporting the incident. ^[12]

Search Interest

External References