Yogesh the Martyr

Hey, Yogesh! Remember me? You told me if I tried to email you again, you would take it as a form of harassment. So, you know I’m not going to email you. Nope. Instead I’m just going to write some thoughts in an open letter. Maybe you’ll see them. Maybe you won’t. It doesn’t really matter because it likely won’t change your mind as it’s clear nothing will at this point. 

 

So why write this? Well, because you won’t shut up and you keep telling the same lies over and over again and distorting the truth and twisting facts. And while there are people out there who just believe all your drivel, maybe some folks would like to hear a different perspective. So, I thought, “Hey, I had a front row seat to a lot of things. Let’s let it all out.”

 

Oh, and as you can see, I launched my blog this week. It’s an homage to your blog as you can tell, and it’s all about you because it’s clear you like being the center of attention. Indeed, the whole world should pay attention to Yogesh, who never gets any credit for all the stuff he has accomplished.  

 

So, here’s the biggest lie or distortion that you keep talking about over and over again. You were never banned from Geek Bowl, at least not in any official capacity. Yeah, I know you probably don’t even believe it, but did you ever actually talk with anybody at Geeks Who Drink after the 2019 Geek Bowl? Like did you communicate directly with them at all? An email, a phone call, a letter? Anything? The answer, of course, is NO, you didn’t.

 

So how come you weren’t at Geek Bowl 2020 in Chicago? Well, we need to dial it back a few years. If memory serves correct, it goes back to Las Cruces, New Mexico, in 2016, at your weekly GWD pub quiz where you unsurprisingly put together a dominant team that routinely put up one of the top scores in the country. Great! You won bar trivia!!! Then something happened: A new host took over and your weekly winning stopped. Was the fix in? Was the host manipulating the scores to make you lose? If so, why? Well, I wasn’t there, so I don’t know. But I know the bar trivia industry and I had some educated guesses. I suspected then that your winning, combined with your lack of spending, made you a customer for whom the bar did not care. I don’t doubt they were fixing the quiz to make you lose, and if bar trivia were solely about rewarding knowledge, that would stink. But bar trivia is also about bars making money and, well, you don’t help bars do that. 

 

Anyway, you complained on social media and our mutual friend at the time and main editor of GWD offered to step in. The two of you messaged on Facebook, and he said he would try to get to the bottom of it. Now, was a formal investigation launched? Well, no, because this is bar trivia and nobody cares enough. While a few inquiries were made, at the end of the day the bar didn’t want you there. The reason you were supposedly given may have been a load of bull, but it was their bar (not Geeks Who Drink’s bar) and you were persona non grata. 

 

So, what happened next? Well, you felt the intervention you got from GWD higher-ups wasn’t sufficient. In fact, you felt you had been lied to and your character maligned. At no point did that happen. Remember when you and I discussed this in my hotel in Vegas and you whipped out the smoking gun? You had those Facebook messages between you and GWD that you were so confident would make me see things your way. Once I read them, I felt you were even more in the wrong. So, where are those messages today? If they are so damning, why in all your ranting and raving about GWD have you never shown them publicly? If they told such malicious lies about you, put it out there. Let the world see. 

 

But that was 2016, seven years ago. So, why is this still an issue you are ranting about in 2023? Well, you took every opportunity you could to talk about how awful GWD was — especially their head editor. You questioned his morals, his humanity, his religion and more, and he never publicly said a bad word about you. Still, years went by and you felt wronged so much that you went out and had a shirt made. A shirt with a message to GWD.

 

Do you remember the shirt? I know you do. You still have it. It said, “I don’t forgive you, and you need help.” I remember when I saw you wearing it before Geek Bowl 2019, I thought it was a movie quote I didn’t understand. I googled it and came up with nothing. I didn’t think much of it, but when we were invited on stage at the end you made sure your outer shirt came off and your T-shirt was on full display. It seems so dumb and petty, but your message was received loud and clear. After the show, I went up to the editor to congratulate him on a great game. I could tell he was upset and didn’t look well. When he looked me in the eye and said he wasn’t and that I should know why, I was surprised. I didn’t understand but soon would. 

 

I spoke after the show with several people, one of whom who works for GWD and scolded me for playing with you. I was told you had upset the top brass at GWD. Your years-long social media smear campaign had worked, to a degree. I was told they might not let us play next year and I started to realize the severity of it all. 

 

I immediately reached out to GWD to make this right and I then spoke to each member of our team, and we decided we needed to all talk to you together. The next day, all but one of the team who had an early flight met with you on the campus of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. 

 

We talked for well over an hour (maybe close to two) and we were all in agreement that your vendetta had gone too far. We felt you owed an apology to GWD and that even if you were unfairly barred from that original bar trivia, your constant attacks about GWD and their employees were a bridge too far. You were, to say the least, upset. You felt like you weren’t being listened to. You likened yourself to the women of the #metoo movement in the way you had been wronged and had no due process. I still remember the look you had. It was anger and frustration. Your fists were clenched and you were shaking. You had four people who were supposed to be your friends telling you that you were wrong. At the time, you seemed more worried that an official GWD ban might affect you in other areas of trivia, be it Learned League or elsewhere. You also had relocated to the area of Portland, Oregon, and didn’t want to stop playing your local GWD quiz. I found that kind of surprising that as horrible a company as you found Geeks Who Drink to be, you still wanted to play their quiz. After a lot of back and forth, we got nowhere but the other members of the team had places to be, and you were clearly not done. You felt you hadn’t been heard, and I had nothing to do for a few hours, so I invited you to my hotel room to discuss it further. 

 

So, you and I went back to the hotel and talked. By the way: In the team meeting earlier, it’s important to point out that despite what you have claimed, nobody called you uppity. Nobody jumped up and down yelling at you. No racial slurs were ever used. It is downright slanderous for you to have asserted otherwise, which you have done in your blog multiple times.

 

Anyway, you and I spent another couple of hours together, and almost four years later that’s the last time we have spoken to each other. It was then that you showed me those Facebook messages from GWD that you felt would clearly get me to see your side, and as I said earlier, they had the opposite effect. Our conversation went in circles, and it was frustrating I’m sure for both of us. Did I scream at you? I mean I have no doubt I raised my voice, and we all know I’m loud. But no, it wasn’t a scream. Did I use my size to physically intimidate you? Absolutely not! After our conversation went nowhere, I finally had to go, and since we were in my room, so did you. So, I told you we were done and we both left and rode down in the elevator together.

 

The next day, we all flew home and went our separate ways. But it wasn’t over. I had a relationship with GWD, so I spoke with the owner, who was most concerned at the level of vitriol you had for GWD, and he was worried that because you harbored such a long and deep grudge, you might be a potential threat to hurt others. There was a genuine fear that if you held on to such a grudge for so long and had a T-shirt made one year, maybe the next year you would bring something much more dangerous than a T-shirt. It was clear that he was afraid you might bring a gun. It sounded ridiculous at first, but then I remembered your academic problems. 

 

Side note: You’ve not only blogged about GWD but also your academic career where you have again claimed to be a victim of discrimination. You blogged about one incident where you were forced to undergo a psychological evaluation and talk with campus security, as somebody was afraid you might be a danger to yourself or others (i.e., a shooter) and now I am hearing somebody else express this same fear, somebody with no connection to the prior incident. Well, it made me scared. What if it was possible? At the same time, you had chatted with another member of our team where you again expressed concerns about playing bar trivia and what repercussions a formal ban might have.

 

In those conversations, which took place at about the same time, you told our teammate you didn’t care about Geek Bowl and that you didn’t want to play again. GWD said they would not seek to ban you from playing trivia as long as you didn’t continue to attack them or their employees, and it was agreed you would leave our Geek Bowl team. That’s it. You never got any formal ban and you were involved in the process. You even thanked our teammate who helped and said it was an acceptable solution. Heck, you even offered recommendations for a player to replace you on the Geek Bowl team.

 

You then emailed me later that day with the subject line: “Don’t bother to reply I don’t really care what you think anyway.” Well, I read it and I didn’t reply for over three years. About six to eight weeks later, you unfriended me and blocked me on social media as well and besides our email exchange from August 2022, we’ve since had no direct contact.

 

Of course, while we’ve had no contact, I’ve certainly been made aware of several posts or comments you’ve made. I am also sure that over the years, you’ve been told when or if I’ve said something about you, although I have never made any public posts on social media that so much as mentioned you or commented about you publicly. Meanwhile, you have extended me no such courtesy.

 

I’ve certainly never been shy in explaining what happened and telling people why you aren’t playing trivia with us any longer, and I’ve probably not been very complimentary of you beyond your abilities as a trivia player. I mean, as a trivia player, I’ll never be anything but a fan of yours. I’ve always been good at remembering things, and people often ask me if I have a photographic memory. Of course, I tell people not really, but I don’t label anybody racist for asking about a photographic memory because there’s no racism involved in such a benign question. It is a question people ask because they are impressed with the ability to recall details about things that most people just forget.

 

Anyway, the point is we have talked about each other over the years, and I imagine we will talk about each other again in the future. You’ll tell people what a misogynistic white supremacist you think I am, and I’ll tell people what an angry, bitter, irrational and cheap man I think you are despite your years of academic study. 

 

Let’s talk about that anger by the way. It’s not healthy, you know. I mean, you are a behavioral scientist, so you should know. But I think you are too consumed with rage to see anything clearly, and you chastise basically anybody who doesn’t endorse your warped view of the world. 

 

You constantly rant about privilege without acknowledging your own privileges. Without considering your own status, you often refer to me and others as high-status individuals in the quizzing community. (Ugh. That sounds so pretentious. Let’s just call it trivia.) Yogesh, you are the child of doctors. You grew up not wanting for anything. You attended one of the best high schools in the country and, after high school, spent nearly two decades pursuing degrees at multiple universities. We both know education in this country isn’t cheap, and maybe you took out grants or loans or got scholarships. But my god, man: After a degree or two, most people have to go out and get these things we call jobs. Even the people who are really good at trivia. You, sir, reek of privilege even if not by the color of your skin but by the content of your bank account, which I can only assume has been kept at a healthy amount thanks to the generosity of your parents. 

 

I mean, I don’t want to play the Oppression Olympics. But if we were … well, you would have a hard time even making it on to the podium. You aren’t oppressed because of some immutable characteristics, no sir. You are at times shunned, though, because you are an ass. You are the boy who cried wolf. a man able to find racism and oppression in every scenario. I know you have so many degrees. You’ve studied for years about behavioral psychology. You’ve seen multiple paid therapists who tell you that you are justified.

 

Why doesn’t anybody in your circle of friends tell you this stuff if it’s true? Well, in part because you surround yourself with sycophants and yes men. Most narcissistic people do. There are a lot of those people in the world, and they will coddle you as much as you let them. But it’s not healthy. Over the years, you’ve managed to turn posts about just about anything and center them on you and your vendetta, all under the guise of being some crusader of justice and equality. 

 

A post memorializing a departed friend? Well, let’s rant about how, unlike many, he was an ally against the white supremacy and reference “Apartheid Bowl.”

 

A post about Ukraine? Same thing.

 

A post about Formula One drivers? Yep. Same old broken record 

 

You’ve been dressed down — not just by me and other white people but also by people who aren’t white who tell you how inappropriate your screeds have been. Again, please show your receipts with regard to the racism you scream about. Let’s see those messages with GWD where they defamed you. If the evidence is so clear, show it to the world. Why are there no other victims of all of this oppression? Are you the only person of color involved in high-level quizzing? Why has nobody else stepped forward to talk about how they’ve been barred from bar trivia or any trivia event due to the color of their skin? Remember when Bill Cosby got accused of some shit and then it turned out it wasn’t just one woman but dozens? It got harder and harder to defend Cosby due to the overwhelming consistency of the stories of women who hadn’t met each other and told the same story. If the racism and exclusion you talk about in the quizzing community is so rampant — if you have been so unfairly mistreated and excluded from events solely because of your complexion — then why are you the only one?

 

Now, while you might not have any other people who claim to have faced the same level of discrimination you have, you know what we do have? We have another pub trivia company in another state that also has seen fit to ask you not to play in its game and, of course, the predictable reply from you is racism. Unambiguous racism, in fact. I’ve been running bar trivia nights for 15 years, and do you know how many people have ever been asked to not play at any of the bars I have run games in? ZERO. NONE. NOT A SOUL. Now, if I was impressed with your ability at playing trivia, I am even more impressed with your ability at getting people to ask you to stop playing it. I mean, I’ve never seen that happen with one person before, and here you are getting asked not to play by two different companies in two different states with two completely different games. What are the odds? That is an accomplishment, sir, so bravo to you.

 

So, why have you been asked not to play and made to feel so unwelcome? Well, bar trivia exists not for people to show how much they know or how smart they are. (That component exists, but it isn’t the reason for the game.) The bar trivia experience is there to bring people into the bar to spend money. That means you come in, you spend two hours there, and you should order dinner, a drink, dessert and always tip well (20% minimum but probably more). If you don’t drink alcohol, that is fine. But order a meal, tip well and maybe take something to go as well. You see, if the bars don’t make a profit, the trivia nights get canceled and then we are all losing. Also: Don’t get pedantic with the hosts. If you are already winning by a lot and your score is off by a point or two, be understanding about it, and if you find a detail with a question or fact to be in error, don’t be the guy who argues with the trivia jockey about every detail. Also: If you win often, make sure you are not just spending what is on your gift card or go to the bar on other days of the week to spend the gift card and, again, make sure you’re tipping well. I have played trivia with you, and while you are obviously a smart and capable trivia player, you are not a good bar patron. I am not surprised people don’t want you to play their pub trivia game. It isn’t a punishment because you are too smart. I’ve run plenty of games where one team dominates the game, but if they spend money and have fun, it all works out

 

Is racism out there? Does it exist in the trivia world? Yes and yes. Is it the reason you aren’t welcome at bar trivia? Almost certainly not. Many people who aren’t white men attended the event you called Apartheid Bowl. That doesn’t mean that the trivia world is perfect. A lot of trivia companies are run by white men (like me), a lot of trivia is written by white men (like me), and it’s only natural to write about stuff you know and are interested in, and that’s where stuff like unconscious bias can come into play. If all you were doing is trying to draw attention to such things, well, that would be commendable. But no, you don’t want to better a community. You want to be put up on a pedestal and worshipped. You want acknowledgement that you have spent a lifetime mastering something and are really good at it, and you want it acknowledged with praise and money and whatever else it is your ego craves.  

 

You want acclaim and glory because you are really good at something and you don’t think you’ve been acknowledged enough. You’ve won state titles in quiz bowl, you’ve been one of the most respected quiz bowl players on the planet for years, you’ve won major trivia competitions. And now because you go on a TV game show, you are getting more attention than ever before … and you think that’s a sign of a problem? Well, let me tell you how TV works. I mean, you watch enough of it, so you would think you might know but millions of people watch shows like “Jeopardy!” That’s why you can earn lots of money on them. They exist to entertain, not to be some system of meritocracy to rank some hierarchy of trivia players. It’s nice that there are avenues where knowledge is rewarded, but let’s remember: It’s a game show. “Jeopardy!” is great because the money you win can really help you live your best life. But it’s not the be-all-end-all of trivia greatness. Some of the best trivia minds on the planet have failed to win a game or only won one to three games. Not everybody goes on a Holzhauerian run of success, and failing to have a long run doesn’t mean you aren’t good at trivia. Having a long run doesn’t make you the best at trivia, either.

 

The existence of “Jeopardy!” doesn’t diminish the trivia community. It enhances it. It gives you a moment to shine. It’s a moment that not everybody is fortunate enough to get, but hey, you got there and that’s great. Sure, you used your moment to boast about beating Jamie, Brad and Ken, but you did manage to bring up the beloved India Cooper. However, even then it was self-serving to talk about what a big fan she was of yours. By the way: When you met India in August 2019, you didn’t have a podcast, but why let facts get in the way of a good story? India, by the way, was a lovely person who also told me how much she admired me, and I also at the time had neither a podcast nor a blog. Most people would say they were a better person for having met India, but to hear you tell it, it makes it sound like India was a better person for having met you. And you wonder why so many people thought you were arrogant.

 

The complaints about you from “Jeopardy!” fans aren’t because of your race. That doesn’t mean there aren’t some racist trolls out there. But most people watching don’t care about the ethnicity of the contestants. They want to see people they want to root for, and you, sir, are as likable as a rash. People generally like to be nice so as not to offend people, so they may laugh at their jokes even if they aren’t funny. They’ll also tell you that you aren’t arrogant even when all you do is boast of your own accomplishments. They won’t often tell you to your face, “Hey, man! You are being an ass.” Well, I ain’t most people, and guess what: You, sir, are an ass!

 

A huge part of your problem is perception. You are so desperate to see slights that you see them even when they don’t exist. Take the “Jeopardy!” fashion tweeter. She didn’t throw shade at you by pointing out your shirt was unique. She tweets about what people wear on “Jeopardy!” It’s her thing. Are there examples of her ever being mean to anybody of any color on the show? If not, why are you yet again the only one? (Besides, in this case, you aren’t because no shade was thrown.)

 

Another side note: How many outfits did you bring? You borrowed a shirt from wardrobe in one game and wore the same shirt it seems in the three others? I mean, what gives? Also, did you show up late on your tape day? And what’s with this nonsense about seeing how they would butcher the pronunciation of your name? I mean, we both know they go over that with you multiple times, and why do you claim they chose what anecdotes to talk about? You know where they get those, right? From you, and they go over them with you repeatedly. Come on, man. Cut the crap, will you? You didn’t come off as arrogant because of edits or something producers chose. You came off as arrogant because you are arrogant.

 

I once regretted the loss of our friendship because, well, I liked you, as I like most people. I wanted us to someday be able to be friends again. But at this point, I don’t make that a priority. However, I still don’t wish you harm. I want you to do well and be happy. But do you even know what happiness is? What is it you want in life? Is acknowledgment from others all you want? Is your life’s goal to have people say, “There goes Yogesh, the greatest trivia mind on the planet”? It’s not easy figuring out what you want in life, is it? But man, you are pushing 40, so maybe try and figure something out and try to make it happen. I’m pushing 50. It took me years to figure out what makes me happy and to embrace that, and I’m still working at it.,

 

 

They say life’s a journey, not a destination. We neither end up in the same places nor take the same routes to get there. But along the way, we hopefully learn to enjoy some of the simpler things and get to know the people whose paths have crossed ours along the way. Our paths crossed for whatever reason, and while I now look at you as a bitter, narcissistic asshole, I’m still hoping you enjoy the journey you are on. And for fuck’s sake, leave my motherfucking name out of your motherfucking mouth and be a better human being. 

 

Love always. Yer pal,

 

Jeremy 

 

 

 

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