There are many themes that overlap within the terrible story of the boy from Bologna who took his life live and who called himself Inquisitor Ghost on TikTok. Because there are many subcultures, references and aesthetics that intertwine in the events that arise online and that the news sometimes spills onto the front pages and into the mainstream.
The story has already been extensively described in recent hours, so let’s try to unravel the various aspects that compose it to go beyond easy readings full of prejudices of the type “lonely boy takes refuge in video games and kills himself”.
The first and most important thing to say is that if you feel in particularly stressful situations, if you think that no one is listening to you, if you feel a sense of isolation you need to know that you are not.
If you or someone you know has suicidal thoughts, you can call the Helpline on +39 324 011 7252 or 02 23272327 or via the internet from here, every day from 10am to midnight. You can also call the Samaritans on the toll-free number 800 86 00 22 from landline or 06 77208977 from mobile, every day from 1pm to 10pm.
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What does cosplayer mean
Said this. Inquisitor Ghost is described as a cosplayer. What are we talking about? Cosplay is a word composed of Costume and Player and refers to the act of dressing up as your favorite characters from films, video games, comics, TV series and so on. It’s something that it goes beyond simple disguise for Carnival and results in the celebration of characters who are particularly loved by those who play them or by fans. In some cases cosplay can become a jobespecially for particularly famous personalities within the reference communities who find themselves collaborating with those who organize events or directly with the original producers of the reference work.
Given the beauty and refinement of some costumes, cosplay can also be a way to become particularly popular on social networks, either by showing how costumes are made or for one’s skill in interpreting the characters. Sometimes cosplay can involve transforming a male character into a female character or vice versa, or mixing multiple pop references to create unique characters. That’s why in some scenes Inquisitor Ghost appears with the red lightsaber: it mixed two of his passions. Call of Duty and Star Wars.
Why was Inquisitor Ghost called that?
“Inquisitor” is probably a reference to Star Wars, given that the inquisitors are a group of characters from the saga who are mainly seen in video games and animated series, but who have recently also made their appearance in the Ahsoka and Obi Wan TV series. As for “Ghost”, the character that made him famous wears the mask of one of the most iconic Call of Duty characters, a war title with many chapters set in different historical periods and full of different characters. Among these characters is Ghost, a soldier who always wears a skull mask, which is not too rare even for real soldiers or mercenaries, whose face or eyes we only know. In recent years this character has grown enormously in popularity, not only because the macabre charm of a mysterious soldier can appeal to the public but because his particularly empty gaze, devoid of reactions, of someone who has seen too many things, has become a meme, a way to demonstrate one’s stoicism, even ironic, towards particularly stressful situations.
TV Cyberbullying, the State Police documentary film 01 February 2023
Why was Inquisitor Ghost famous?
Because by staging small videos disguised as Ghost he had intercepted part of the Call of Duty community and the TikTok algorithms, as often happens, had fueled this success. Unfortunately, it happens very often that this success attracts envy and antipathy or the pure pleasure of ruining the lives of others that fuels the most toxic part of communities. Precisely in Call of Duty, for example, there is the “swatting” phenomenon, a name that derives from SWAT, the special unit of the US police that intervenes in the most risky cases. Simply put, swatting involves calling the police by providing a streamer’s home address and reporting that there is a hostage situation or an armed person, with the intention of witnessing the raid in the victim’s room live. . It is the extreme version of fake bomb scares and in 2017 a boy was killed by the police following the raid on his house by officers who thought they were facing an armed threat.
The case of Inquisitor Ghost does not fall within this casuistry but in a broader context of contrasts between members of the Call of Duty community and the content creators and cosplayers who gravitate around it.
The story is still far from being clear but revolves around alleged accusations against Inquisitor Ghost of being a sexual predator and a “groomer”, grooming means the practice of adults exercising their influence on minors with the aim of “raising” them as they wish and having a sexual relationship with them based on a distorted relationship between master and disciple. These accusations would be based on messages exchanged with a girl and spread by her boyfriend and cascaded by other accounts linked to the world of cosplay and Call of Duty, messages which however would have been taken out of context and even obtained by lying about one’s age. The girl in question, in fact, would be 17 years old while Inquisitor was 23.
More than a story of video games, we are therefore faced with yet another one moment of ferocious cruelty fueled by social mechanicsfrom the pleasure of exposing someone to the pillory and, perhaps, also that of attacking someone who seems to be more successful in the same area of content creation.