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If you've watched Games Done Quick or other charity streams, you might have seen his face before. Meet Alex Van Camp, a self-proclaimed abolitionist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist and anti-fascist from Chicago. Similar in vein to Matt Myers and Secret Gamer Girl, Alex tweets a lot, so much that he Twitter'd himself into unemployment and ostracised himself from nearly all his former peers. Alex is completely obsessed with anti-fascism and the "dismantling of capitalism", topics which he Tweets about virtually every day while harassing the social media interns of various companies. Alex believes the US government has tried to sabotage the software he has written with planted girlfriends and want to put him in a CIA blacksite. In even more recent happenings, Alex believes he might be Jewish because he fucked around with a synthesizer.
But, Alex wasn't always like this.
Humble Beginnings
Alex usually had a rather modest footprint on the internet. Alex's claims to fame started in the early 2010s, where he played and casted high-level Team Fortress 2 matches as Lange. Alex was rather respected at this time, being around many high-profile names in the community and lauded for his work on the scene. In 2014, Alex retired from competitive TF2 with a then-viral video and took a more passive role in his community.
After announcing his retirement from the sport, Alex co-founded Tip of the Hats, a TF2-oriented charity event which would take place on an annual basis. This is also when Alex started developing NodeCG, software that would eventually make broadcast graphics easier, cheaper and more readily available for amateur streamers. Initially used to power the graphics for his charity event, NodeCG was then used for Games Done Quick, for which Alex would provide on-site support through Support Class, a company he founded to provide first-party support for his own project.
Alex's career went as high as having Activision Blizzard be one of his company's clients. This continued until September 2019, when Alex left a ~$100k position at Blizzard and Support Class to take up a full-time engineering role with Games Done Quick. This venture soon ended in July 2020, when Alex was fired for "focusing on resistance and education". Alex had stopped doing any work whatsoever and spent a majority of his free time at BLM demonstrations in Chicago.
(archive)
This brings us to today, where Alex is unemployed and actively burning bridges with former and potential employers. Alex posts a sheer number of nonsensical Tweets every day, either to massage his ego or attack a company or former colleague. Alex has unfollowed virtually everyone he used to follow on Twitter with the exception of a single BLM organiser in his local area. With the exception of a handful of asspatters encouraging his delusions of grandeur, Alex loses alienated followers on a daily basis.
(archive)
Internet commenters concerned of Alex's mental wellbeing point to him being kept in confinement due to the 2020 outbreak of the novel coronavirus. In mid-May, Alex stopped contributing to certain private GitHub repositories speculated to be work-related, perhaps why he was fired, if not because they decided he was no longer fit to be in charge of mission-critical software. Alex himself chalks up his behavioural change to what he calls "dissociative amnesia", which Alex appears to mention a number of times. Despite many believing he is instead suffering from schizophrenia, Alex vehemently denies this.
Alex used to be roommates with Tagg, another former TF2 pro who appears to have moved out to live elsewhere in July 2019, although they appeared to remain friends. Since then, Alex has been alone - a combination of loneliness, confinement and white guilt activism may have had an impact on his deteriorating mental state. The competitive TF2 community has since discovered Lange's mental lapse, as covered on teamfortress.tv over a thread where they discuss his love for pegging (1,2,3,4,5).
(archive)
Antifa Alex vs. Fascism
Alex didn't reveal much about his activism until late 2018, where he claims he joined CAARPR, or the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression two years prior. However, Alex's activism prior to 2020 is a footnote compared to the George Floyd riots. Even with the current climate and an entire generation of Twitter users who have no idea what the word means, Alex says 'fascist' a lot, and I mean a lot. Nobody is safe.
(archive)
This extends as far as someone just taking a photograph of him at a protest in 2018.
(1, 2)
Alex believes wearing a blue shirt gives him magical psyops powers, and disguises him as an undercover cop as far as the fascists are aware, to the point of scaring black (with a B) women who tell him to leave...
(archive)
...despite still getting pepper sprayed. Even though Alex was wearing glasses at the time, he whines about the pepper spray and mentions it several times over future posts.
(1, 2)
Alex believes he was set up with a fake girlfriend by the US government in order to sabotage him and his broadcast software.
(archive)
Alex thinks the fascists are trying to get his information to poison him in his own home by ringing up and pretending to be pest control services.
(archive)
Alex is Lori Lightfoot's biggest A-Log. Alex claims to have sent some stupid bullshit to the mayor of Chicago a month or so into the Floyd riots, which he later posted to Twitter.
(archive)
Your cowardice appears to be boundless.
Your betrayal of your city is on a scale that has been recorded and will be known for generations.
What do you have to gain by continuing to dig in? By continuing to ally yourself with the very white supremacist forces who you know are only using you, and who can't wait to be done with you?
You are a smart person. Clearly. One does not amass your level of power without being intelligent.
So, ask yourself: what is it that makes you blind to such obvious truths?
Is it fear?
Do you really think people will continue to obey you? You know that they already are choosing not to.
Do you think the city will suddenly accept you if you only change sides when absolutely forced?
I hope you realize what you have to gain by making changes sooner instead of later. You're a smart person.
You can save lives. At any time. If you so choose.
Will you allow cowardice to prevent you from using that power?
Your betrayal of your city is on a scale that has been recorded and will be known for generations.
What do you have to gain by continuing to dig in? By continuing to ally yourself with the very white supremacist forces who you know are only using you, and who can't wait to be done with you?
You are a smart person. Clearly. One does not amass your level of power without being intelligent.
So, ask yourself: what is it that makes you blind to such obvious truths?
Is it fear?
Do you really think people will continue to obey you? You know that they already are choosing not to.
Do you think the city will suddenly accept you if you only change sides when absolutely forced?
I hope you realize what you have to gain by making changes sooner instead of later. You're a smart person.
You can save lives. At any time. If you so choose.
Will you allow cowardice to prevent you from using that power?
Alex occasionally vlogs on and off through his YouTube channel with the same sentiment as his Tweeting.
Alex vs. the Capitalists
Alex's other enemy? Capitalism. Tired of seeing everyone else around him move on to greener pastures, Alex is stuck in a rut and blames capitalism for his shortcomings, despite actively burning bridges with any potential opportunities coming his way.
(archive)
Alex believes he has the power to shut down any tech company by using people power. In particular, Alex hates Blizzard, Valve and Amazon -- all companies he has partnered with in some capacity. Alex will routinely harass companies over Twitter with empty threats.
(archive)
Coincidence or not, these tweets preluded news reports of Blizzard employees revolting for fairer pay, although this left the news cycle quickly as game developers are often hopeless and pacified, and ultimately, nothing transpired. Believing he can still command the incoming tide, Alex doubled down, now additionally getting mad at Games Done Quick, Lori Lightfoot, and Elon Musk:
(archive)
In the same vein of Tweets, Alex is still under the impression that his project, a node.js-powered overlay, is more impactful than it really is. This is something he continues to brag about, despite many alternate methods existing and basically abandoning the software at this point, and simultaneously believing it is going to get him captured by the feds.
(archive)
Alex also boasts about "starting a literal labor revolution" at Geek & Sundry, claiming he caused the entire engineering team to quit. That company? It's Felicia Day's fucking YouTube channel, a rather far cry from the revolution of a poverty-stricken working class.
Personal
1955 W Winnemac Ave, Apt 2
Chicago, IL 60640
DOB June 22 1991
(As an aside, Alex made a $500 donation to Ugo Okere's 2018 campaign for Chicago City Council (search for his name in the contributions here). Okere lost the race to Patrick O'Connor.)
@VanCamp on Twitter (archive)
Alex's YouTube where he occasionally blogs and posts his music. 99% of it is long synthesizer noises, it's boring and I'm not going to archive any of it
Alex's home page (archive)
Lange on Github (archive)
email@alexvan.camp
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, he could have had a good thing going as a coder but is just burning bridges. I love watching a slow fall from the top, this has potential.
