General Gaming Racism in Gaming is Getting Some Mainstream Coverage Now...

[Mercury33]

11 minutes ago, ShreddieMercuryRising said:

I'm baffled by how it's somehow an issue to... think that racist online behavior is an issue?  Rather than recognize that the insane, toxic, racist, misogynist, etc. environment of online video games should not be tolerated?  What in the fuck is this thread.  I don't give a shit how old they are, fuck racists, and more generally, fuck gamers.

This. Name one other area of society where toxic, racist, misogynist behavior is so rampant that it’s just shrugged off as “that’s just the way it is”.  It’s embarassing that nothing has been done about it to this point. And to take the stance of “if you don’t like it then don’t go there”??? Fuck that. What an embarrassingly cowardly view point to have. 

[Bloodporne]

 

I was just trying to think of my generation's equivalent of being able to talk such insane levels of shit to an actual human being without getting punched in the face, not sure it exists. Growing up with that being available to you can't be good and should be heavily moderated whether it's ideal that kids are playing the games or not. 

[crispy4000]

34 minutes ago, Mercury33 said:

Name one other area of society where toxic, racist, misogynist behavior is so rampant that it’s just shrugged off as “that’s just the way it is”.

 

4chan
 

The greater the impression of anonymity and lack of moderation, the more likely these things are to fester.

[skillzdadirecta]

5 minutes ago, Bloodporne said:

 

I was just trying to think of my generation's equivalent of being able to talk such insane levels of shit to an actual human being without getting punched in the face, not sure it exists. Growing up with that being available to you can't be good and should be heavily moderated whether it's ideal that kids are playing the games or not. 

It DIDN'T exist. We had what I call "Playground rules" growing up and there were always immediate consequences for your actions becaus every activity was face to face. Even gaming which was either at the arcade or playing with family and friends on the couch. One of the first times I EVER got punched in the face was an incident when I was 12 involving a quarter, Mr. Do and a Puerto Rican kid who snuck me after we both got kicked out of the corner store for arguing. Little basterd punched me in the eye and ran off laughing... I'm still looking for him till this day 

[Bloodporne]

5 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

It DIDN'T exist. We had what I call "Playground rules" growing up and there were always immediate consequences for your actions becaus every activity was face to face. Even gaming which was either at the arcade or playing with family and friends on the couch. One of the first times I EVER got punched in the face was an incident when I was 12 involving a quarter, Mr. Do and a Puerto Rican kid who snuck me after we both got kicked out of the corner store for arguing. Little basterd punched me in the eye and ran off laughing... I'm still looking for him till this day 

One of my first forays into Manhattan alone after coming to the States was actually to an arcade in Chinatown and a kid took my stack of quarters right from the top of the machine while walking by. Alas, he was not Puerto Rican to my knowledge otherwise we might've had a serial arcade terrorizer on our hands.

[skillzdadirecta]

2 minutes ago, Bloodporne said:

One of my first forays into Manhattan alone after coming to the States was actually to an arcade in Chinatown and a kid took my stack of quarters right from the top of the machine while walking by. Alas, he was not Puerto Rican to my knowledge otherwise we might've had a serial arcade terrorizer on our hands.

Those Chinatown arcades back in the day were simultaneously awesome and terrifying. Always had games you couldn't find anywhere else. Times Square used to have some good ones too. We had a good one in downtown Newark that I practially lived at from the ages of 12 through college. There was ALWAYS a fight happening there and my mother routinely forbade me from hanging out there. It never stopped me though 

[Ghost_MH]

20 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Those Chinatown arcades back in the day were simultaneously awesome and terrifying. Always had games you couldn't find anywhere else. Times Square used to have some good ones too. We had a good one in downtown Newark that I practially lived at from the ages of 12 through college. There was ALWAYS a fight happening there and my mother routinely forbade me from hanging out there. It never stopped me though 

 

Ha. That's basically me at a local bar that had Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam. Like I probably shouldn't have been hanging out at a bar playing games at like twelve, but the bar owner kept ratting my friends and I out to my mom so she probably thought it was fine. She never really did stop me, but that's probably because she didn't realize it was Mortal Kombat I went there to play.

[Bloodporne]

31 minutes ago, Man of Culture said:

I put those quarters to good use.

 

36 minutes ago, Bloodporne said:

Alas, he was not Puerto Rican

 

1 hour ago, Man of Culture said:

B) I'm Puerto Rican

 

[Zaku3]

1 hour ago, Keyser_Soze said:

DOTA gets a bad rap for having a toxic community but you rarely hear racist stuff or cursing stuff. I mean some people get mad but it's mainly for mistakes being made.

 

From what I have experienced it's more that in this day and age. I don't run into people cursing or using racial slurs. It's mainly people being toxic if you suck. It happens with me as well. In my defense HOI4 games can take up to 8 hours or more so losing because someone sucks can get to you. It is rare for me though.

 

There is still racial slurs but I find it more in the HOI4 community. Which makes sense given the subject matter. (You can play as Nazi Germany) 

 

It mainly the annomitity the internet provides. Doubt any of these people would use those words in front of a minority for fear of getting beat down. Video gaming atleast online lacks the social contract that say tabletop gaming has. You have to be nice because people won't want to play with otherwise.

[Bloodporne]

10 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

Ha. That's basically me at a local bar that had Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam. Like I probably shouldn't have been hanging out at a bar playing games at like twelve, but the bar owner kept ratting my friends and I out to my mom so she probably thought it was fine. She never really did stop me, but that's probably because she didn't realize it was Mortal Kombat I went there to play.

Actually my neighborhood bar had one of those Neo Geo multi-game arcade machines in it and it was such a watering hole, they always let me in there anyway. It had Samurai Shodown III, Metal Slug and Magician Lord. 

[Ghost_MH]

1 minute ago, Bloodporne said:

Actually my neighborhood bar had one of those Neo Geo multi-game arcade machines in it and it was such a watering hole, they always let me in there anyway. It had Samurai Shodown III, Metal Slug and Magician Lord. 

 

The corner bodega was where I went for Neo Geo gaming. They had Metal Slug, King of Fighters, Ghost Pilots, and some random brawler whose name escapes me. Between the bar and bodega, it's what kept me from really ever becoming much of a Capcom fighter fan. I was always just playing either a Mortal Kombat or some variant of KoF. Good times.

[CitizenVectron]

2 hours ago, Man of Culture said:

 

 

Anyone who gets hit hard by a slur spoke aloud by some random 500 miles away is emotionally incompetent and possibly narcissistic if they out that much stock into their immutable characteristics. That being said, Ubisoft seems to be the only one who actually gives a damn, unfortunately it seems they only really give a damn about Siege. I see hundreds of people banned almost daily for toxic behavior. You get a nice ticker on the upper right hand corner of your screen of who they banned and why and on a good day, sometimes that shit scrolls for a straight minute. Can't really say the same for For Honor though.

 

 

Edit: in my 20+ years of experience with online gaming, most of this casual racism comes specifically from males aged 12-21 with zero parental supervision. Too young to know any better, too stupid to behave like a normal human and parents who don't really pay attention.

 

2 hours ago, Man of Culture said:

 

If you suspect that your kid can't handle it, remove them from the environment. That's your job as a parent to protect your kid and if you know you can't control the environment and you know that the people who run the environment have no incentive to change it, then it's incumbent upon you to make sure you remove your child from it.

 

Anyway, your kid is more likely to get bullied and killed by their high School peers on Facebook than through Call of Duty.

 

You're a piece of trash, man. This is 100% victim-blaming "If you suspect your child can't handle being raped, don't let them go to the park" bullshit, and the obvious opinion of someone who hasn't faced this sort of behaviour in their life. Heaven forbid we complain about the situation and want it to improve.

 

"Anyone who gets hit hard by a slur spoke aloud by some random 500 miles away is emotionally incompetent and possibly narcissistic if they out that much stock into their immutable characteristics. "

 

Anyone who feels bad when someone insults something they can't change about themselves is a pussy, in other words. Man, fuck you.

 

@Emperor Diocletian II We tolerate pieces of trash like this around here?

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

@CitizenVectron - I've instructed the mods accordingly.

[Bloodporne]

Pizza room on fire gif....?

 

[Slug]

I play a lot of Call of Duty and holy shit it's bad in there.  Maybe every third match there's someone or multiple people just spewing racist bullshit over voice chat.  You used to be able to report players for it, but that option was sadly removed some time ago.

[heydude93]

2 hours ago, Man of Culture said:

 

 

Who says I "normalized" this behavior? I merely expect brats and idiots to act like brats and idiots when they have no moderating force to keep them in line. Once again, I'll use Siege as an example as it seems to be the only game where any company has decided to actually do fuck all about the problem of racism and sexism. Pre-2019 voice and text chat we're almost on par with what you'd expect from a typical COD lobby. Devs instituted a more proactive approach to moderation and started taking reports more seriously. This has resulted in tens of thousands of people being banned for toxicity, whether it just be the standard TK types all the way to people who start N towers and everything in between. I know this because  A) the company has been vocal about it,  B) you can literally see who is being banned and what for, C) and I've leveled a few reports myself and all of them had action taken that resulted in a toxic player being banned.

 

The mistake here is that you, among others believe that I'm not in favor of companies cleaning up their spaces. That's incorrect, I'm all for it.

 

I simply understand that most of this "nefarious and evil" racism and sexism is literally just kids and young idiots who finally have no filter and are being edgy as fuck. I know what racism is. I know what it's like to be ganged up on and have your body literally broken over being the wrong ethnicity. I know what it's like to see your parents denied a home they have more than enough money to buy because your mother's skin color isn't the right tone for the neighborhood. I know what it's like to be denied a job because you ticked the wrong racial box. I know what all of that is like personally and I agree that racism and sexism are problems that need to be tackled. 

 

But I'm also of the mind that this starts with the parents. It starts by teaching your children that their immutable characteristics should be the least important and interesting thing about them. It starts with teaching your children that there are people who will say mean and nasty things just to get a rise out of you. It starts with letting them know that they have avenues of recourse and support should they be bullied. My avenue of recourse was literally beating the shit out of those people. I don't want my daughter to go what I had to to through, but I'm a realist.  I know that kids and teens can be scummy and cruel, so I put my daughter through (and will continue to) martial arts and I take the time to actually monitor what she is doing online and who she is doing it with. I teach her why something someone said or did is wrong and what she can do about it should she face such a situation where I or her mother aren't present. If you can't give your kids that time, then they shouldn't be playing online games until they're old enough to handle a few nasty words thrown their way.

 

So you would say allowing individual companies to moderate things however they want is more effective than applying evidence-based consequentialist approaches across the board that are proven to be most effective? And the other option for tackling bigots is taking martial arts classes to be a good enough fighter to beat them up in person?

 

Is it possible these strategies might have bad utility in terms of effectiveness and equity for everyone combating injustice, and a more evidence-based approach via current understandings of intersectionality might have better utility, or do you genuinely think the best anti-hate world we can strive for is one where all individual companies should be trusted to handle these issues fairly how they see fit and everyone who experiences bigotry can/should be forced to learn how to fight like Anderson Silva to deal with their haters?

 

I'll go out on a limb and say you've done a poor job presenting useful solutions for tackling/preventing normalization of increasing bigotry, and that's why you're getting pushback.

[skillzdadirecta]

25 minutes ago, Bloodporne said:

Pizza room on fire gif....?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bloodporne]

17 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good. It can't always be me posting this shit lol

[skillzdadirecta]

Amazing how much damage one determined troll can do... you would think that this thread was full of people who don't/won't see what the issue is. Nope. Just ONE user determined to draw as much attention to themselves as possible.

[heydude93]

24 minutes ago, Man of Culture said:

 

 

I live in the United States and I truly believe that people should be free to do and say as they wish, with the understanding that what they do and say can lead to potentially negative consequences, morally, legally, socially and financially. 

 

Mind you, we are talking about online spaces here, specifically. 

 

I believe that companies that provide a space for people to gather and interact with each other provide tools to their users that allow them to directly moderate their own experience. To mute or block text chat from specific players who say or do things to be highly disruptive or cruel. To be able to report such players for their behavior with the expectations that the companies will take such reports seriously and issue the appropriate sanctions per their terms of service.

 

I don't use the term "equity" or "Anti-Racism" because it's a loaded term that's been hijacked by idealogues who apply their own sense of morality that ultimately ends up being racist in other ways.

 

I understand that I ultimately cannot control the interactions I happen across in these spaces beyond the methods provided to me by the companies who created these spaces. As such, I know that no matter what, I will eventually run into a problematic person who cares not for company rules, cares not that they're reported and will be an insufferable douchebag to no end. So I do in the virtual world, that which I've done in the real one. Beat them so badly that they don't talk shit again. When words and tools fail, all that's left is violence. In the end, when my elite MVP animation plays and I outscored the douche bag by a significant margin, I take solace in the fact that they're seething on the other end of that connection. Knowing that they're raging over being so thoroughly embarrassed helps me sleep at night and lets me know that all is right with the world.

 

 

And if you want to talk about actual racism in the real world? I've experienced ten fold the racism in inner city public schools, by minorities and their parents, than I ever have in literal Trump country. But that's acceptable and we don't talk about it because "prejudice +power". That being said, it's another subject for another thread and definitely not on a games board.

 

I think it's fair game to talk about this stuff on a games board because of how politics and games tend to intersect, but that's me.

 

So to recap, you think the concepts of social equity and anti-racism are propaganda, you think companies should be allowed the freedom to moderate toxic behavior however they want with no concern necessary of applying more effective strategies than ones they might be using (many approaches come down to banning someone and only when they drop slurs, which can be good, but that alone has dogshit effectiveness in preventing subtle and codified bigotry), and the only other approach you advocate is using extreme violence (something that can be necessary in self defense, but not everyone has the ability to do effectively). That violence should be prioritized over psychology and changing political and social powers that enable white supremacy, heteronormativity, sexism, etc (which might sometimes require applying ideas represented via those terms you feel are loaded and propagandistic).

 

I can definitely see why you expressed feeling hesitant to talk about politics here.

[heydude93]

13 minutes ago, Man of Culture said:

Edit: and yes, I fully believe that concepts like critical theory and intersectionality are completely delusional when it comes to predicting human behavior and it's proponents seek to create a world that is physically impossible to create unless you don't mind getting a lot of blood on your hands. I would rather live in a more liberal society and deal with vestigial traces of racism whenever they come up than a progressive society with a morality police making sure you say the right things all the time. 

 

Equity is a sham. Full stop.

 

I understand why you would feel that way about critical theory and intersectionality.  That's all I have left to add to our exchange here.  Take care.  

[run32.dll]

Developers are pretty limited in what they can do to address this unless they're going to double their budget to have a babysitter in every lobby or have people review every instant ban done by an AI to deal with the false positives. It's a culture issue and part of the reason it persists is because the people doing it think they're in an echo chamber and everyone agrees with them. It will most likely never change unless people with thick skin are willing to tell them to shut up.

[crispy4000]

17 minutes ago, run32.dll said:

Developers are pretty limited in what they can do to address this unless they're going to double their budget to have a babysitter in every lobby or have people review every instant ban done by an AI to deal with the false positives. It's a culture issue and part of the reason it persists is because the people doing it think they're in an echo chamber and everyone agrees with them. It will most likely never change unless people with thick skin are willing to tell them to shut up.

Part of the reason, sure, but definitely not the entirety of it.   With gaming, it's likely most about trying to drive a wedge between troll culture and racism.  No easy task.

People can be optimistic about change, or feel outraged that we aren't taking as strong of a stand as we should, etc.  But trying to tell some random person on the internet to stop taunting and jeering is also giving them what they want.  Bullying 101.

Most of the change, culturally, isn't going to happen with you shouting down a racist stranger.  IMO

[Biggie]

1 hour ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Amazing how much damage one determined troll can do... you would think that this thread was full of people who don't/won't see what the issue is. Nope. Just ONE user determined to draw as much attention to themselves as possible.

[skillzdadirecta]

13 minutes ago, run32.dll said:

Developers are pretty limited in what they can do to address this unless they're going to double their budget to have a babysitter in every lobby or have people review every instant ban done by an AI to deal with the false positives. It's a culture issue and part of the reason it persists is because the people doing it think they're in an echo chamber and everyone agrees with them. It will most likely never change unless people with thick skin are willing to tell them to shut up.

Bunch of false choices here... when users have actual evidence, screen grabs or recordings that they can provide to developers of harassment this excuse rings false. It REALLY rings false when you relaize we're talking about PAID SERVICES.  Nothing can be done if the will isn't there but since gaming is becoming more and more mainstream and there will be more visibility on these companies to do something about the toxic communities they've allowed to fester on their watch, I FULLY expect we'll start to see some changes

 

 

 

[Ghost_MH]

3 minutes ago, run32.dll said:

Developers are pretty limited in what they can do to address this unless they're going to double their budget to have a babysitter in every lobby or have people review every instant ban done by an AI to deal with the false positives. It's a culture issue and part of the reason it persists is because the people doing it think they're in an echo chamber and everyone agrees with them. It will most likely never change unless people with thick skin are willing to tell them to shut up.

 

I'll outline a system every dev can use freely...

 

AI to filter for abusive/hateful language

Immediately mute the abusive player on detection

 

Seriously, that's it. That alone would do a ton of curb a lot of this toxic behavior.

 

However, if you want to go further you could also just ask players after a match if <insert clip here> was abusive and/or hateful And dole out punishments from there.

 

If, at any moment, you thought to yourself that it would be a lot of work to ask players to do then you understand that's only because there's so much toxicity in online gaming and that's not a good thing and should never be tolerated.

 

No, the real reason nothing is done about it is because developers either don't think it's that big a deal or because they're fearful of turning away a large chunk of their player base.

[crispy4000]

 

14 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Bunch of false choices here... when users have actual evidence, screen grabs or recordings that they can provide to developers of harassment this excuse rings false. It REALLY rings false when you relaize we're talking about PAID SERVICES.  Nothing can be done if the will isn't there but since gaming is becoming more and more mainstream and there will be more visibility on these companies to do something about the toxic communities they've allowed to fester on their watch, I FULLY expect we'll start to see some changes

I think we'll never see toxicity stop being a problem in online gaming.  Even if the words and insults change, the bullying, aggressive blaming and backstabbing will continue.

 

It's really more about trying to enforce certain forms of insults being off limits.  Ideally that weeds out the most problematic people who push things too far.

[crispy4000]

8 minutes ago, Man of Culture said:

The best we can do is protest and boycott companies and hurt them with their bottom line. But that's hard to do when you're also playing the game and purchasing skins or loot boxes that incentivize them to keep things the same.

 

Leaving a game because the community is too toxic is the answer.

[run32.dll]

19 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

Part of the reason, sure, but definitely not the entirety of it.   With gaming, it's likely most about trying to drive a wedge between troll culture and racism.  No easy task.

People can be optimistic about change, or feel outraged that we aren't taking as strong of a stand as we should, etc.  But trying to tell some random person on the internet to stop taunting and jeering is also giving them what they want.  Bullying 101.

Most of the change, culturally, isn't going to happen with you shouting down a racist stranger.  IMO

Right, you're not going to change 20+ years of online gaming culture over night. To clarify I'm not saying to respond with, "P-p-please don't talk like that it's offensive." I'm saying be rude back. Tell them to shut up, make fun of them for being a neckbeard, etc. It's not an all encompassing solution but it let's them know they're not among friends and that if they want to act like that it can come back at them.
 

17 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Bunch of false choices here... when users have actual evidence, screen grabs or recordings that they can provide to developers of harassment this excuse rings false. It REALLY rings false when you relaize we're talking about PAID SERVICES.  Nothing can be done if the will isn't there but since gaming is becoming more and more mainstream and there will be more visibility on these companies to do something about the toxic communities they've allowed to fester on their watch, I FULLY expect we'll start to see some changes

 

 

 

I don't disagree that when a developer is presented with evidence that someone is being racist, sexist, etc. that they should be acting on it. If a developer isn't acting on that then they're just choosing to allow it to continue. I'm not saying they share no responsibility and should do nothing. I'm saying what changes this in a long term is confronting gamer culture and letting them know this is not an echo chamber, we do not all agree with you and you may even be the minority here.
 

17 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

I'll outline a system every dev can use freely...

 

AI to filter for abusive/hateful language

Immediately mute the abusive player on detection

 

Seriously, that's it. That alone would do a ton of curb a lot of this toxic behavior.

 

However, if you want to go further you could also just ask players after a match if <insert clip here> was abusive and/or hateful And dole out punishments from there.

 

If, at any moment, you thought to yourself that it would be a lot of work to ask players to do then you understand that's only because there's so much toxicity in online gaming and that's not a good thing and should never be tolerated.

 

No, the real reason nothing is done about it is because developers either don't think it's that big a deal or because they're fearful of turning away a large chunk of their player base.

That's a good idea and I would like to see it implemented although I think it would need human review by someone not in the game or a system for people to challenge it as a false report because there are people that are going to report someone as being offensive just because they think it's funny.

[heydude93]

On 10/22/2020 at 12:43 PM, run32.dll said:

Developers are pretty limited in what they can do to address this unless they're going to double their budget to have a babysitter in every lobby or have people review every instant ban done by an AI to deal with the false positives. It's a culture issue and part of the reason it persists is because the people doing it think they're in an echo chamber and everyone agrees with them. It will most likely never change unless people with thick skin are willing to tell them to shut up.

 

Because there are no consequences for their actions when engaging in the behavior offline. That's the starting point, at least.

 

If there were social powers and to some extent legal powers that actually de-incentivize rewarding the dopamine rush and financial gain of being a dumb jerk, there would be less dumb jerks.  And more importantly, well-applied critical thinking skills can prevent the insensitive from becoming giga jerks in the first place. 

 

The amount of idjiots who went full-jerk over the past 5 years is quite staggering and there will probably be long-term effects that we haven't even seen the full scale of yet.  This is of course a reality that becomes willed into existence when personal truths take priority and go unchecked in place of attempting to be more critical about information via approximating what is most objectively truthful when administering justice. 

 

It's the difference between a politically and scientifically literate society where compassion and having a good BS detector are the norm and technology is used as a tool to mostly prevent problems, vs a society like the feudal one in Rashomon where you're at the mercy of what "feels truthful" to any given person.  Almost everyone deals with bias to some extent, but as far as I know most bad opinions can quantifiably be proven bad via research and evidence-based approach that shows how/why they are bad.  

 

[crispy4000]

10 minutes ago, run32.dll said:

Right, you're not going to change 20+ years of online gaming culture over night. To clarify I'm not saying to respond with, "P-p-please don't talk like that it's offensive." I'm saying be rude back. Tell them to shut up, make fun of them for being a neckbeard, etc. It's not an all encompassing solution but it let's them know they're not among friends and that if they want to act like that it can come back at them.

 

Matching their insults with your own does absolutely nothing.  Again, this is just giving them what they want.  They know they're not among friends.  Or in some cases, their friends are in on it and trolling others.

Best thing to do, IMO, is say you're muting and reporting, and follow through.  Puts the question in their head if they'll be punished, and leaves it at that.

[Biggie]

[run32.dll]

1 minute ago, crispy4000 said:

 

Matching their insults with your own does absolutely nothing.  Again, this is just giving them what they want.  They know they're not among friends.  Or in some cases, their friends are in on it and trolling others.

Best thing to do, IMO, is say you're muting and reporting, and follow through.  Puts the question in their head if they'll be punished, and leaves it at that.

If that's what works best for you then stick with it. I've spent enough time in competitive shooters to know they're expecting other people to agree with them and find using the n word hilarious. Odds are I'll eventually just mute them because I'm not going to spend the whole match arguing with them but I'm willing to at least challenge them on it. It's not for everyone but more people doing it would make them feel less comfortable.

[crispy4000]

22 minutes ago, Man of Culture said:

 

Thing is, toxicity is often amplified. We're talking tens of millions of players for the most popular games and if we're only getting bans in the thousands after implementing some serious measures, that tells me the problem isn't actually as bad as we are being led to believe. That doesn't mean there isn't a problem or that we shouldn't strive towards reducing or even eliminating the existing problem and improving conditions for everyone. Just says that we're making a mountain out of a mole hill. But one could also chose to believe that most players are closet racists and they'll just speak in code. Do they exist? Sure. But I reject the notion that it's a majority problem within various gaming communities.

 

It's still a problem a majority of people playing games online will experience.  Tempers flare.  Doesn't mean that people automatically resort to bigotry, but I do think that toxicity is common enough, especially when blame is involved.
 

8 minutes ago, Man of Culture said:

 

I believe his point is that you should show that you're not one to be fucked with. I agree. It's an immediate and selfish solution, but it feels good to come back with a witty retort, especially if they can't reply and you happen to also fuck them up in game. That said, doing such a thing doesn't prevent you from recording, reporting and make sure they get their comeuppance. 

It feels just as good to them to fuck up someone they're trolling, or someone who is telling them to be more sensitive.

 

7 minutes ago, run32.dll said:

If that's what works best for you then stick with it. I've spent enough time in competitive shooters to know they're expecting other people to agree with them and find using the n word hilarious. Odds are I'll eventually just mute them because I'm not going to spend the whole match arguing with them but I'm willing to at least challenge them on it. It's not for everyone but more people doing it would make them feel less comfortable.

 

I don't really think we disagree then on the basics here.

[Guest]

Telling the victims of abuse to toughen up is one of the dopiest notions. One can’t control how they feel about something, but abusers can control their abusive ways.

 

But put the onus on the people to feel a different way. Makes all the sense.