If you are as terminally online as I am you may have seen the r/paintball subreddit flooded with anti nazi posts this week. It’s not the first time, as there has been a “Nazi Punks F*** Off” post pinned at the top for about six months. If you have not been following the turmoil this week, allow me to catch you up.

It all started with Dan

The majority of this controversy started a few months back when the Play The Game Podcast featured the influencer Dan Bilzerian as a guest. Bilzerian is a controversial figure to say the least and has been known to hold some rather anti semitic views.

Despite (or because of)his views Bilzerian has a large platform and the community had a split reaction to him becoming a loud voice in the paintball world. Many were worried that he would turn many off from the sport, spouting the old saying “if a bar allows one Nazi it is now a Nazi bar”. Others dismissed this, often saying that these days everyone is called a Nazi for being even slightly right wing.

The smoking gun

Well, in the end it seems the worries were right. An Instagram story published by Marcelo Margott, one of the hosts of the Play The Game Podcast, earlier this week featured a tour of Bilzarian’s gear collection and some noticed one particular marker in the mix. A Planet Eclipse CS3 with Nazi iconography, right down to a swastika on the feedneck. (Editors note: the above photo was not from Margott’s post, but it is a picture of the marker in question).

Reaction has thankfully been swift. The pro team Seattle Uprising posted that paintball has “no room for n@zis”. Virtue chose a classic scene from Inglorious Bastards to express their distaste. Tylor Harmon, Margott’s cohost, posted on the Play The Game Discord server that Blizerian is not welcome back on the show and that the podcast does not stand behind his views.

Sadly at the time of writing this Margott has not made a public statement and was seen at Bilzarian’s private field coaching his divisional team.

What to do about witch hunts

Many have started hunting for the company that did the anodizing job on the marker. This can be dangerous as false accusations can live on long after they are disproven. I recommend being very careful.

Some have been silent on the issue and I would advise against seeing that as damning (yet). Remember, some may not be aware of the situation or assume some of the details are overblown. Others like the NXL have to weigh their reactions carefully for risk of deformation lawsuits and the like. I have been told posts by the NXL that feature Bilzerian’s team have been deleted.

I would recommend being very careful about turning this into a witch hunt and causing even more division in the community. Though much like Seattle Uprising I feel there is no place for these kinds of people in our community, there are some who are taking silence as support. Give people time and we will hopefully find that paintball is much more united than you may think.