162: Multiple Personality Disorders

[Imitation Saccharin]

Calling someone racial slurs or insinuating they fuck several species of animal is not about being young, white, or male.

It is entirely a function of forbidden fruit. Fuck, shit, crap, these words are common online, and lack the naughty aspect they once held. But the still-reviled avenues of racism, sexism, and homophobia?

I would wager 10-to-1 most people who are so inclined toward this behavior are entirely fine people in normal life. But if you tell someone they can't, in most cases they will. It has nothing to do with hidden racism.

 

[alfonzo]

i believe its the "troll" that feels any hate speech,racism,or sexism they express to other gamers online bears no serious negative repercussions on them such as in reality calling a woman a "whore",a person of another ethnic race some racist slur,a man or woman of another religion something that could offend their beliefs,or even higher authority say their employer some kind hateful word like a "fucker" or something else could serious backlash and cause resent towards them

they can also feel as though all eyes are on them and they are receiving some sort of attention,that may come from thier lives that they feel is void of any attention and through any manner they must obtain it,and they sum up that maybe angering someone else may cause them to even pitch of a small amount of their time to maybe argue or tell of the other making the troll feel as though they are being acknowledged

if you can just ignore them dont fuel the ignorent fire of a attention hungering brat
but thanks to a couple good ideas or so...we have the mute button!

 

[zoozilla]

I was treated no differently than a homosexual -- often accussed of being gay -- not because I had an interest in men, but because I hadn't yet developed an interest in women. As with any group trying to establish an identity, failing to identify with that groups' principles excludes you from the group.

This rings particularly true to me, having been of the same ilk. Throughout my adolescence and even through my first 3 years of high school I fielded accusations of being gay, not necessarily because I had not yet developed an interest in women, because I had. But simply because I didn't pursue my interest with a bestial vigor. Being from a small, rural town where being the "alpha male" is even more pronounced when you throw macho pursuits like hunting and fast cars into the mix (I actually was accused of being gay because I drove a Mercedes in high school, it was an old, beaten-up, hand-me down from an older sibling, but nonetheless I was attacked for my brand of car).

I was always a very reserved person, I still am, so it took a lot for me to get close to anyone, and even then, growing up, it had always been other boys who were my friends. So getting close to a female then is an even more unknown territory and therefore even harder for me. I just was never able to easily summon up the courage to approach a girl, whereas most guys walk up to them with a bravado that almost screams, "Want to have sex with me right now?"

So is that what I have to look forward to?


The whole problem is the anonymity of the Internet. Anonymity breeds assholes, as the great Penny Arcade comic (which I can't find right now) illustrates. Anonymity is what allows people to share their deepest, darkest secrets through a Confession. It's what people find so appealing in making prank calls; the fact that you can say things you would never say in a public/formal setting, and no one can find you out.

There needs to be a way to make communities like Xbox Live similar to a public setting where people would think twice before making a bigoted, discriminatory statement. Somehow, being the "troll" or the "badass" of these communities has become "cool". If there were a way to change that general opinion, most of these problems would be controlled.

How would people go about doing that? No idea. People's ideas on what is and what isn't acceptable change so quickly it's hard to keep up. Just last year I'm pretty sure you couldn't hear "shit" on any TV program rated TV-MA or under. Now, it seems like I'm hearing it much more often.

 

[FunkyJ]

Maybe the problem is with defining it as "hate speech" - a ridiculous Americanism to start with.

I was called a fag, a girl, a retard, too in school. You know the difference between me and most other people though - I didn't take it personally, because EVERYONE was a a fag, a girl, a retard, to these people.

When people say "n*gger", "b*tch", "c*nt", "fag", "f*ckhead", "retard", "girl", "noob" - it doesn't matter it means all the same thing.

It's an insult, plain and simple. There's no hate. There's no homophobia or racism or sexism or what other concepts your pissant psychology thinks is there...

It's just a plain insult, designed to make you react in a certain way.

Considering most people get upset by those terms, consider those people successful.

 

[rougeknife]

My experience with US public servers is one... best left for the profanity filter. Aussie servers tend to have this mateship and comradely feeling, the communities know eachother well and are there to have a good time. Granted there are a few servers that are shitholes, however servers are usually hosted by peoples ISP's down here and an admin/moderator is only an email away. Undesirables are faced with a choice we call FIFO
"Fit in or Fuck Off"

NOTE: There is also a standard rule on Australian Servers:
-No excessive swearing or abuse

Keyword excessive.

 

[gains]

How about the game companies, Microsoft, and Sony getting behind a movement to mark offenders. If a person gets a specified number of complaints, a tag could be added to their account that shows up in all games. The tag could specify the offense they have been accused of. The would need to be accused multiple times from multiple people. Complaints could be sent in using standard items so the tags could be easily applied. Things like "Racist Comments", "Homophobic Attacks", "Sexist Remarks", etc... I know those are not great terms but hopefully you get the idea. The tags should not be nice to have associated with you. Not only would this be visually embarrassing but other gamers could setup filters so that they did not have to play with anyone that has these tags. Similar to blocking a specific person but instead you block someone with tags you don't want to deal with.

The tags could be temporary too. That way a person could have a second or third chance. However if they get the same tag two or three times it becomes permanent or they have it for a very long time.

I liked this idea, until I realized that for trolls this becomes an achievment award.

"Check it out! I got Racially Intolerant tatooed on my avatar's forehead AND Sexist Comments! If I get Homophobic Language I'll complete the set!"

 

[clericsdaughter]

I think the article makes an important point in that it's not only our own fun and enjoyment that's at stake here, but the public perception of our entire demographic (the gamer subculture). Most of us have found ways to deal with trolls online because we encounter them all the time--we ignore them, chastise them or try to have them banned. The real trouble is that the thoughtful, more socially acceptable aspects of gamer culture tend to be drowned out by loud trolls screeching hate-filled epithets at everyone who is new or different. No wonder we can't get people to respect our hobby and stop thinking of it as the main agent of society's destruction.

 

[wadark]

Maybe the problem is with defining it as "hate speech" - a ridiculous Americanism to start with.

I was called a fag, a girl, a retard, too in school. You know the difference between me and most other people though - I didn't take it personally, because EVERYONE was a a fag, a girl, a retard, to these people.

When people say "n*gger", "b*tch", "c*nt", "fag", "f*ckhead", "retard", "girl", "noob" - it doesn't matter it means all the same thing.

It's an insult, plain and simple. There's no hate. There's no homophobia or racism or sexism or what other concepts your pissant psychology thinks is there...

It's just a plain insult, designed to make you react in a certain way.

Considering most people get upset by those terms, consider those people successful.

Just because they don't mean it as a racial slur doesn't mean it isn't one though. Clerks 2 is funny enough, but "Porch Monkey" is still considered a racial slur. Its not about what you mean, its about what you say. And, just like you, I didn't take it personally either. I gave them a courteous smile and went about my day. We're not talking about the effects these statements have on people we're talking about the mere fact that these statements exist and why?

Why does someone feel the need to be as belligerent as possible, especially online. Anonymity is the main reason because, as I stated previously, its all about being the Alpha. The biggest, baddest (most looked-up-to) MFer. And part of attaining that role is putting other people below you, but moreso, as I said, its about never being wrong. And if it looks like someone is about to prove you wrong, you just start spouting off the most insulting crap, because if you can't destroy them logically, destroy them socially. However, in society, using such words as "******" and "fag" is extremely frowned upon (usually) and there are consequences, whether they be in the form of legal punishment or societal punishment. Now we get to the anonymity of the internet. If you're anonymous, they can't find you, and if they can't find you, they can't punish you. And so now we're free to use whatever means necessary and/or whatever words necessary to throw others to the ground and climb to the top.

It doesn't matter if they're racially or sexually charged words, and it doesn't matter if the person saying them means them as a racial or sexual slur. The fact is they're said, and they're said with malice, perhaps not the same malice as the word implies, but with malice nonetheless.

P.S. Gains: I was thinking the exact same thing, but you put it into words. Anyone who's using such language probably doesn't care, as long as they can still play the game. They'll just play with others who use the same language and have all the more fun because of it. Banning, unfortunately, seems the only thing to even remotely work.

Also, I forgot to mention that I didn't censor myself above because even if I shove an * in it, you still know what I'm saying and the word doesn't change. So what's the point of trying desperately to look politically correct?

 

[Bakery]

Maybe the problem is with defining it as "hate speech" - a ridiculous Americanism to start with.

I was called a fag, a girl, a retard, too in school. You know the difference between me and most other people though - I didn't take it personally, because EVERYONE was a a fag, a girl, a retard, to these people.

When people say "n*gger", "b*tch", "c*nt", "fag", "f*ckhead", "retard", "girl", "noob" - it doesn't matter it means all the same thing.

It's an insult, plain and simple. There's no hate. There's no homophobia or racism or sexism or what other concepts your pissant psychology thinks is there...

It's just a plain insult, designed to make you react in a certain way.

Considering most people get upset by those terms, consider those people successful.

I agree with this. I think the reason people say 'fag' or 'gay' or whatever is because all other swears have been overused to the point that they have lost all meaning. If someone tells you to 'fuck off' or calls you a '************' it means nothing to you because you have heard the terms used thousands of times in movies, music and tv. If you really want to insult someone, you want to shock them. Notice Yahtzee's reviews didn't contain the word (and excuse me) '****' until later ones? I watched a few episodes of Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares a while back and didn't hear the C-bomb dropped until one of the very last episodes.

So since it means nothing to call someone 'shit', 'asshole', '************' or any of the most common ones, in order to hurt and shock, people resort to cultural incensitivities.

'Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar'. In my opinion (and in this context, that is online gaming) an insult is just an insult.

 

[clericsdaughter]

Maybe the problem is with defining it as "hate speech" - a ridiculous Americanism to start with.

I was called a fag, a girl, a retard, too in school. You know the difference between me and most other people though - I didn't take it personally, because EVERYONE was a a fag, a girl, a retard, to these people.

When people say "n*gger", "b*tch", "c*nt", "fag", "f*ckhead", "retard", "girl", "noob" - it doesn't matter it means all the same thing.

It's an insult, plain and simple. There's no hate. There's no homophobia or racism or sexism or what other concepts your pissant psychology thinks is there...

It's just a plain insult, designed to make you react in a certain way.

Considering most people get upset by those terms, consider those people successful.

I agree with this. I think the reason people say 'fag' or 'gay' or whatever is because all other swears have been overused to the point that they have lost all meaning. If someone tells you to 'fuck off' or calls you a '************' it means nothing to you because you have heard the terms used thousands of times in movies, music and tv. If you really want to insult someone, you want to shock them. Notice Yahtzee's reviews didn't contain the word (and excuse me) '****' until later ones? I watched a few episodes of Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares a while back and didn't hear the C-bomb dropped until one of the very last episodes.

So since it means nothing to call someone 'shit', 'asshole', '************' or any of the most common ones, in order to hurt and shock, people resort to cultural incensitivities.

'Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar'. In my opinion (and in this context, that is online gaming) an insult is just an insult.

All true. But the main issue at stake here is that so many gamers feel the need "to hurt and shock" others in the first place. Sure, we all dealt with this crap in school, but I'd like to think that as adults we've learned a little more emotional maturity. And it would be easy to blame all the hate-speak on 14-year-old idiots, but we all know that there are plenty of trolls in their 20s and 30s (and even older) who are likely acting like complete grown-ups in their day-to-day lives (at least, I hope). What is it about gaming culture that brings out the worst in these people? Whether or not their behavior can be justified, it's dragging down the medium we love.

 

[CanadianWolverine]

Most games have mute for voice communication but only a very few have allowed me to mute someone's text chat.

When it comes this kind of behavior, I detest it, so I actively seek out servers that do not put up with it, period. If a game does not support ways to let me filter out that behavior, I do not play that game and will even return it for a refund. Some of this is finding like minded people who want to have fun with others, rather than at the expense of others, and the other part of it is the responsibility of those making the games.

 

[NotPigeon]

I'd like to propose an alternate theory:
It's simply the <a href=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheLawOfFanJackassery>Law of Fan Jackassery at play here. For people too lazy to click on the link, the Law of Fan Jackassery states that "The jackassery of a fandom is a unimodal function of the fandom's obscurity."
In other words, a fandom gets more an more unpleasant the less popular it is, until its popularity reaches a certain point at which it begins to drop off again. I would like to propose that the gaming community in general happens to fall rather near the drop off point.

 

[clericsdaughter]

I'd like to propose an alternate theory:
It's simply the <a href=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheLawOfFanJackassery>Law of Fan Jackassery at play here. For people too lazy to click on the link, the Law of Fan Jackassery states that "The jackassery of a fandom is a unimodal function of the fandom's obscurity."
In other words, a fandom gets more an more unpleasant the less popular it is, until its popularity reaches a certain point at which it begins to drop off again. I would like to propose that the gaming community in general happens to fall rather near the drop off point.

While I think this theory seems sound in and of itself, I don't think it applies well to the gaming community as a whole. The hobby is moving towards the mainstream, not away from it. For individual games (like Fallout), it could apply; but WOW and Halo are some of the most popular games out there, and also known to have two of the worst griefer/troll populations. When it comes to particular games, the atmosphere the game encourages might have a more major impact than obscurity on the percentage of its fans that are jackasses.

 

[Bongo Bill]

This is what it looks like to me.

A certain amorphous minority of people discover an anonymous venue for expressing either their own deeply-held hatred, or for saying emptily hateful things that they couldn't get away with in the real world. Such people tend to be loud. Everybody else follows along because that's what the rest of them seem to be doing.

Politeness can be spread in the same way, though it's harder, because politeness is quiet and harder to notice. The faster a community grows, the more likely it is that enough newcomers will miss the point and proceed to be jerkoffs, tipping it back in the other direction.

 

[nohorsetown]

I was a picked-on nerd as a kid, called "fag", etc. Probably has something to do with why I don't treat other people that way. Or maybe I'm just a reasonably nice person with at least half a brain. It bums me out that most of my fellow nerds failed to make the connection. Do unto others, yeah? But nah.. the persecuted geeks, when they finally find somewhere to feel safe, just wanna turn it around and persecute someone else, to be on the other side of it, to feel cool and powerful, to be a macho asshole. When I was a kid, at first I romanticized my nerdy D&D/video games niche. I thought "cool, I wanna hang out with people like me.. we're probably all a bunch of smart, sensitive, esoteric motherfuckers!" Man, was I wrong.

Of course, I guess it's not all dorks anymore.. the "frat boy" types all have Xboxes now.. but I think the uh, "cycle of nerd abuse" accounts for a lot of it. (nothing against frat boys, necessarily. I'm sure there's plenty of nice fraternal fellas out there.. I'm just referring to the stereotypical "kick-sand-in-the-nerd's-face-at-the-beach" kind of macho bully thing.. uh, yeah, I'll shut up now) -anyway, my point is that, mostly, we (nerdy/insecure/picked on white kids) do it to ourselves, and if we're as smart as we think we are, we should freakin' get civilized already.

 

[Pan1cz]

I feel NONE of this "I gotta be the alpha male so I'm gonna put down everyone and call them faggots" mentality. I consider myself WAY above that and to be included in this stereotype SICKENS me.

I don't know how many of you actually are this stereotypical "white adolescent male" but I feel like none of the comments I read (more than half the page) really touch on how I, a white adolescent male, really am in the gaming community.

I myself use many racial and homosexual slurs all the time. I can be rude or swear up a storm at an annoying n00b. But I can also be extremely nice and helpful. I'm not racist whatsoever. I don't really mind gay people. When I or ANYONE i know calls someone a "jew" or "fag" it's no different than jerk or asshole. It carries no racial or homosexual meanings with it WHATSOEVER!

As slightly touched on here, I think the MAIN reason for the online community's disgusting, hateful appearance is pure and simply it's anonymity and separation from the real world. There's no pressure to say and act the way society wants. Online I can use whatever slang and term I want to describe anything I want. To me it represents a freedom to say what I want, whether i mean it hurtful or not. All Political correctness is void and i can say midget, fag, jew, or n00b without knowing or caring who it MIGHT hurt.

 

[CanadianWolverine]

The above post is just the sort of player I refuse to play with and ban from any servers I admin on.

 

[foolsama]

I wouldn't necessarily link the crudity to anonymity - although it certainly helps, it's more of a perk than a cause. You'll find the same behavior in a mob. The reason behind it is mostly what's been touched on above - I feel bad about myself (or *you* make me feel bad about myself), and so I must put you beneath me. You can't yet reach across the internet and punch someone, so the most you can do is get them riled up, and angry. *The best way to do that is shock-value insults.* It's also the root of camping, tea-bagging, etc.

It's the *only* form of power the anonymous masses has over each other, and hence the one most used.

It's that simple, and 95% of the time, there's nothing more than that going on. Like the /b/tards say: As soon as you stop reacting, they'll stop acting.

 

[angryscotsman93]

Hmmm. This is a rather hot-button issue, isn't it? Personally, I subscribe to the "Yahtzee theory": a society in which anyone can call anyone else anything they want and just laugh it off is a truly accepting society. However, when we ostracise every singly bloody comment a person makes, we simply continue to create racial division, as people stop trusting in one another.

Take this example: let's say you're white, and you're hanging out with a Hispanic friend. The two of you are making jokes about one another's homelands, and your friend calls you "A haggis-sucking, dress-wearing bastard," to which you respond with something about equal on the "racial insensitivity chart." You both laugh your asses off, but a nearby man, who heard both your comments, gets up and chews you -only you!- out for what you said, inadvertantly using some slurs himself. When he stops, your friend agrees that the guy was being a dick, but now he's got a little niggling worm of doubt that says that maybe what YOU said was racist. So now, not only have you been condemned for something simply meant as a glib, meaningless insult, but now society itself is looking down on you for it. Furthermore, these notions of racism, sexism, and other things are hard to brush off: once you've been marked, I'm sorry to say, you're kinda fucked.

Not only that, but people label you as these things for such stupid reasons. I had a friend who called me racist because I didn't like a TV show. His reasoning: THERE WAS ONE MORE BLACK CHARACTER THAN THERE WERE WHITE CHARACTERS. Yeah, fuck'im. I just didn't enjoy the fucking show! And you know how he responded? He yelled out, in the middle of our middle school, which is filled with Hispanic kids, "Liam hates beaners!" Right then, I wanted to strangle the prick; yelling that out about the person on our campus was signing a death-warrant. I never did get beat up, but I still got pissed at him.

It seems to me that this system of judging racial injustice and insensitivity seems to leave white guys, like me, with the extremely short, pointed, "well-at-least-you-can-jab-yourself-with-it" end of the stick in daily conversation. We can't openly respond to the slurs of others without a cultural backlash, even if it's just to respond to a friend's comment. Now, there's obviously good reason for this- we've smashed just about every other culture in the world in the face- But even then, why should we descendants pay for the sins of our ancestors, when no-one except for white people have to? Why not give Egypt grief for enslaving the Jews? Why not hassle the Mongolians for their brutal conquests of hundreds of nations? Why not ostracise the descendants of the Aztecs for their horrific enslavement of other local civilizations? Want to know why? It seems that it's because they just haven't done it on the same scale as us Europeans. However, even the act of refusing to treat these injustices simply because of some racial background should be judged as racist in of itself.

Obviously, there are limits to this: there are areas that should be "verboten" even now, such as the Holocaust. But even then, the fact that we give these terrible things so much meaning simply shows how juvenile our society is, not the other way around, like a kid laughing at the word 'dick.' When one can't say something without ostensibly offending racial sentiment, it simply shows that our society has not, as a whole, progressed to the point of social maturity at which we can recognize these words for the meaningless, glib insults they are, and laugh them off like normal adults.