Popular chess YouTube creator GothamChess is fed up with viewers leaving misogynistic comments on his streams about female players. Levy ‘GothamChess’ Rozman is one of the top chess YouTubers and he’s on a quest to finally reach the rank of Grandmaster by competing in a variety of tournaments. The YouTuber has been streaming his matches, with his latest competition being the Spilimbergo Open in Italy.
During round 4 of the tournament, Rozman took on Polish pro Liwia Jarocka and secured a draw with the black pieces. During his stream of the match, his viewers made comments about his opponent that sparked backlash. (segment begins at 1:00 ) Many of the remarks were misogynistic and upset Rozman so much that he slammed those users at the beginning of his latest video analyzing the match.
“Before I tell you about the game, I want to address something I’m extremely disappointed in,” he said. “The live stream comments in today’s game against my opponent, as well as my opponent in the second round, who was also a woman, the comments were disgusting.” GothamChess continued, labeling the remarks a “fundamental lack of respect” to his opponent, him, and the game of chess itself.
“All live stream chats are bad. They’re trolly, they’re terrible. I understand that some of you writing comments on the videos and the livestream are young.
You’re teenagers and you write idiotic stuff on the internet all the time. What’s your repercussion? You don’t even think.