Deadmau5, a 38-Year-Old Man, Gets Suspended on Twitch for Using a Homophobic Slur

Deadmau5, a 38-year-old man, has been suspended by the streaming service Twitch for lobbing a homophobic slur against an opponent in PUBG. The EDM superstar, who was born in early 1981, almost four decades ago, used a three-letter word that’s an offensive insult to gays because another player may or may not have been cheating in a videogame.

Deadmau5, whose real name is Joel Thomas Zimmerman, and who was born the day before Ronald Reagan’s first presidential term was certified, is not happy about Twitch’s decision. The middle-aged man took to Reddit to complain about what he considers to be Twitch’s “double standard when it comes to censoring and suspending me for harmless shit,” and announced that he would no longer partner with the company. He also staunchly defended himself from accusations of homophobia, insulting anybody who thinks it’s inappropriate to use hate speech while playing videogames, and refusing to apologize.

“If im [sic] sorry for antying [sic], im [sic] sorry that we live in a world where bottom feeding pieces of shit can sit there starring [sic] at a monitor, watching me play videos games [sic], and just waiting for someone to get tilted so he can get a few fucking clicks,” wrote the world-famous DJ, who is the perfect age to have watched the Sesame Street episode about Mr. Hooper’s death on the day it originally aired.

Deadmau5, who’s famous for performing in an oversized mouse mask, and who is old enough to have adult children if he had started a family when he turned 20, apparently believes Twitch’s decision to punish a user for violating its terms of service to be a form of censorship. Of course, Twitch is free to censor its users as they see fit—the freedom of speech guaranteed by America’s First Amendment pertains only to governmental censorship, and not the policies of private companies, who understandably wouldn’t want to be seen as tolerating hate speech. Zimmerman, who was 11 when the most recent Constitutional amendment was ratified almost 27 years ago, might not understand how that works, as a Canadian, and hopefully this will be a teachable moment for him.

The musician, who was born seven months before IBM released its first PC, and who, again, apparently thinks videogames justify calling people by hurtful and derogatory words, ends his post by echoing the “heat of the moment” / “gamer words” defense that has been tried before by people in the same situation: “the sane people who knew what it was in the heat of the moment knew the purpose of the statement, and the people that think otherwise, Im [sic] better off not even fucking knowing and they can just keep way the fuck clear of me.” If you’d like to read the now-deleted Reddit post by Deadmau5, who was born a few months before the very first Space Shuttle mission, you can find a screencap in this tweet from Rod “Slasher” Breslau.

Twitch has banned @deadmau5 for ‘hate speech’ for using a homophobic slur against a stream sniper in PUBG.

In a response on Reddit, deadmau5 says he will likely no longer partner with or stream on Twitch due to the platform’s double standards on censorship and suspensions. pic.twitter.com/fRI9ogF64j

— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) February 13, 2019