Ah, I was wondering when the pile-up would start. So you guys aggressively feel no empathy for one half of an entire generation, but they’re the bad guys because they don’t feel empathy themselves? Hmm… it’s almost like there’s a correlation between those two facts…
Not that I’m a fan of boorish behaviour, but y’know, funny how that works out.
Yeah, I really can’t be on board with the idea that the internet is socially isolating. It’s a different kind of socializing than RL socializing, for sure, and it probably isn’t healthy to get none of the RL kind, but it does count. I’ve made so many friends around the world through forums, games, dating sites and MUDs/MUCKs and while I don’t get to hang out in quite the same way, usually, it translates pretty well in the occasional case where I actually get to meet them, I’ve found.
My bunghole is friendly and totally well-adjusted member of society!
Well first, go watch Black Mirror U.S.S Callister if you haven’t yet.
But to your point, I think social media and anonymous forums like 4chan have been the bigger issue. And again shitty behavior like this has been ongoing for a long time. Back when I was in college in the early 90s, when I and my friends were into Alternative music and had the style to match, we got called a lot of nasty things by people, whether walking to class or from passing cars. And while “freak” was common it was another F word that was far more so.
Man I hope you are right and this is all selection bias.
They’re not kids. These are grown ass men.
Ehh people are tadpoles until age 25.
As a 58 year old I’d say 30. But what does someone who is over half a century old know? ")
I don’t think you know anything, with age does not come wisdom. You just don’t sweat the small shit as much. And it’s mostly small shit.
Probably not that small if you are a woman or a minority harassed constantly by men who refuse to grow up, but I guess you’d have to be not a white man to know that.
Adrenaline is always a solid trigger, not to ruin the mood, but modern athletes can be really rude bunch. Also isn’t there a movie about John McEnroe?
League of legends is the ultimate rage inducer imho
Such nonsense. This sort of behavior is rare to non-existent in live sports - it is 100% due to anonymity, lack of concern for physical consequences and this generation being raised into a bunch of losers.
I’d agree with that. But I did read something studying the effects of most of the interaction people have being via devices. This includes smartphones, and texting to each other as well as the picture and short video format sites. I’m not sure gaming was included.
That is an important point.
The study found a correlation between using devices to mediate conflict, as opposed to face to face to inhibit both empathy and conflict resolution skills. Usually proportionally to the time used.
This isn’t gaming, but relevant here. More younger people fight “not in person”, making them more likely to pursue that and other conflicts. When you don’t see the look the other party has when you say something, you don’t know if you really caused pain, and it becomes irrelevant to conflict resolution. Which, they think is where the lower empathy and conflict resolution skills come from.
So they aren’t isolated, and the technically aren’t sociopaths.
They are very connected people, with low empathy, who like to prefer conflict electronically. Add that to the competitive game, and I am becoming unsurprised.
Fits with what I have seen. Someone I know has three boys, two gamed an average amount, were normal kids. I played LoL with them even a couple of times, they were the average sort of mouthy, not the really toxic. The other brother doesn’t game much, autistic, prefers more control when he interacts. Games were messy, preferred quiet time to socializing on his phone. Guess which has more productive interactions with other adults now all three are adult? Guess which one has a job? So I think with the subset of younger people, it may not be “games”, or “the internet” so much as a change in the way they learn to interact with “faceless” people, removed from the emotional impact of their words.
/shrug
Time will tell.
Kids might be worse, especially in the younger teens, but I’ve run into plenty of these guys who I know are adults. I think they’re just assholes. They’re the kind of people who would yell at their subordinates if they were a manager or their spouse if they were married. But they’re not, so they pour out all that abuse onto other gamers. Maybe in an earlier time they would have had no outlet for it and just let it stew.
Somebody got up on the wrong side of bed this morning. 🙄
I just checked twitter, nobody #metoo’d me.
I’m pretty sure my nephew swatted the opposing team’s pitcher after losing his T-ball game. They bring 'em up hard these days.
Spoken like someone who doesn’t watch much sports.
True that I don’t watch professional ones that are predominately American, at least. Other than MMA.
Yep, this was the solution we used when I played Quake 2 CTF, which of course was quite some time ago, and coincidentally about the time I stopped playing MP for most of the reasons described in this thread.
Live on server accountability made MP not only entirely possible but enjoyable because there were no ass-hats on the server for much longer than it took them to exhibit the behavior that would get them kicked.
You’re playing the game with the most toxic community ever.
It is kind of funny that this topic comes up because i just started watching this guy on twitch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P48abml48JM
He is reformed now, but he was a picture perfect example of the league community.