Celebrated by LGBTQIA+ folks across the world in June, Pride Month honors the individuality, struggles and achievements of queer populations each year, with activists, brands and progressives all expressing solidarity and renewing their commitment to the cause in their own ways. Unfortunately, June also sees much controversy in the form of reactionary vitriol or even problematic messaging from otherwise-anodyne personalities. In such an incident this year, Activision has removed the NICKMERCS Operator bundle from the Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone store after FaZe Nickmercs shared controversial remarks on the LGBTQIA+ community on June 7.

• More Call of Duty Reading: Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2 Season 4 Kicks Off June 14 With New Maps, Operators & Features; Warzone 2 Renamed to “Warzone”

On June 7, esports caster and former Call of Duty professional Chris “Puckett” Puckett quote-retweeted footage of LGBTQIA+ demonstrators apparently being attacked by conservative protestors outside of a schoolboard meeting in Glendale, California. The schoolboard is – according to the original tweet – voting on recognizing June as Pride Month. Puckett, whose Overwatch League apartment is located near the area of the incident, expressed disappointment about the situation, calling on Americans at large to “let people love who they love and live your own life.”

They should leave little children alone. That’s the real issue.

— FaZe Nickmercs (@NICKMERCS) June 7, 2023

As is visible in the tweet chain, FaZe co-owner Nicholas “Nickmercs” Kolcheff responded to the tweet on the same day with the following remark:

They should leave little children alone. That’s the real issue.

Nickmercs’ tweet, while not incendiary, reflects and reinforces the malicious far-right stereotyping of LGBTQIA+ representation and messaging as harmful for children and even outright child predation. Nickmercs was called out for his remarks by the community as well as Puckett himself, who stressed the importance of LGBTQIA+ acceptance in reducing the incidence of child suicides, and that “gay doesn’t = pedo.”

Yesterday evening, Activision chose to quietly remove the NICKMERCS Operator bundle (which was added on May 31) from the Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone store. It acknowledged the removal later with the following tweet:

Due to recent events, we have removed the “NICKMERCS Operator” bundle from the Modern Warfare II and Warzone store. We are focused on celebrating PRIDE with our employees and our community.

— Call of Duty (@CallofDuty) June 9, 2023

Nickmercs addressed the situation on his Twitch channel, claiming that he did not mean to offend and that he is not against LGTBQIA+ discourse, but stands by what he said:

I just don’t think it’s any place for a teacher or a school – I don’t think it’s the place to speak about things like that. It’s not that I think it shouldn’t be spoken about. If that’s what you got from that tweet, then you’re just wrong.

I don’t have any quarrel with anybody in here. I don’t have any quarrel with people on the internet. It wasn’t an anti – I guess – gay tweet. That wasn’t what it was. If you think that I hate you because you’re a certain way, you couldn’t be any more wrong.

I want to be the one – and my wife wants to be the one – to speak with our child about stuff like that. And that was the tweet… I didn’t mean to upset anybody. I know that I did. I’m not apologizing about the tweet, because I don’t feel like it’s wrong. I’m gonna stand by what I said.

Regardless of Nickmercs’ true intentions with respect to his tweets or his personal opinions, it is an unfortunate situation for such a popular, beloved creator to be mired in such a controversy especially during Pride Month. We at MP1st fully believe in equality for queer folks and the celebration of LGBTQIA+ values and history, and hope that the situation with Nickmercs can resolve soon through effective, accepting discourse and discussion.

Happy Pride Month!