Wolfe “WolfeyVGC” Glick is among the most prolific aggressive Pokémon gamers within the house. He’s received the official World Championship event, competed in a number of occasions world wide, and has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers on his YouTube channel the place he talks about aggressive Pokémon and the occasions he attends. Nevertheless, Glick says in a prolonged new video that he’ll probably step away from in-person occasions due to harassment from followers.
The professional participant says he’s needed to take care of followers groping him throughout photos and pushing boundaries like touching him with out consent. He says this meant leaving this 12 months’s Worlds event early as a result of he wasn’t capable of watch the occasion in peace after he’d been eradicated and that the stress he feels from these occasions has now began to outweigh his enjoyment of competing within the tournaments themselves.
Glick additionally says he needs to be there primarily to compete, however the fan interactions have begun overtaking his personal time on the reveals and even, in some instances, prevented him from attending to the matches on time.
Past that, Glick says that he doesn’t need to make a video for this 12 months’s Worlds event as a result of it might make him “relive” the occasion and all of the unhealthy recollections he has related to it. For now, he’ll be taking time without work from in-person occasions, which might have an effect on whether or not or not he qualifies for 2026’s World Championship.
“Even when I do qualify for the World Championships this 12 months, it is vitally probably that I can’t attend,” Glick says within the video. “It’s gonna rely upon how the remainder of the season and the way the remainder of these occasions go. However what I’ll say is that I don’t need to have one other Worlds just like the one I simply had. I’d relatively not attend than take the chance as a result of I believe that if I don’t attend Worlds there’s an opportunity I might come again sooner or later. I believe if I’ve another Worlds like this one, I don’t assume I’m coming again.”
Glick says that these “parasocial” interactions have been each an issue in-person and on-line. The professional claims that whereas he isn’t above criticism, the “vitriol” from some has turn into so prevalent that he’s not comfy interacting with followers or critics on-line, and that the undesirable consideration has included sexual harassment in on-line messages too.
“I suppose what I’m making an attempt to say is that I really feel like I’ve turn into extra of a logo and fewer of an individual,” he continues. “There may be a variety of duty and I’m very privileged to be in that place, however on the similar time, I want to be an individual. Generally I want to be Wolfe and never WolfeyVGC.”
For now, Glick might be taking social media breaks, doing fewer movies, and even enjoying Pokémon Legends: Z-A in solitude relatively than on stream. He indicators off the video saying that he nonetheless needs to create content material about aggressive Pokémon, however that he’ll should take time to reevaluate his method after these “dehumanizing” experiences. However he isn’t totally strolling away and says he nonetheless needs to make modifications to enhance his relationship with the aggressive Pokémon house.
“I at all times figured that if I ended competing it might be as a result of competitors stopped being enjoyable for me; like I misplaced the love of the sport or perhaps I wasn’t capable of sustain with a brand new guard and it was actually laborious for me to by no means win. […] The factor I’ll say about this that’s constructive is that I’m nonetheless having enjoyable. I nonetheless love competing and I’m nonetheless having a blast. If I might simply do the competitors a part of tournaments and never every part else, that might be nice for me. […] As a result of it’s nonetheless enjoyable for me, I’ve motivation to attempt to make things better.”
“I want that I might do extra,” Glick says. “I want there was extra of me to present. I actually have tried for thus laborious for thus a few years to be the particular person folks see me as, as this image, as this sort of unshakable bastion within the scene, however I’m solely human, and I believe pretending that I’m not isn’t doing me otherwise you any favors.”
