• r/Games is closed today to “shed some light” on hate speech in gaming
    151 replies, posted
I don't think that's fair at all, especially do I not think it's fair to say they're "breeding grounds" for it. Some better moderation would be nice though.
Agreed, good plan. We'll start with games and film, then once that's done with we can get around to burning the books.
Aren't you the same dude that said that John Wick 3 is NRA propaganda?
I seem some stupid posts in my lifetime but this one takes the cake
So because some fucking idiots decide to take particular settings and/or themes and/or gameplay as license and motive to spout shitty views or purposely-offensive vitriol, 40%? more? of games should simply not be allowed to exist. Gotcha. What of the particular challenges and scenarios (ie sources of fun) inherent in the gameplay the theme/setting informs? The fact is when you combine a relatively insular platform (ie a game sever where communication is seldom recorded and those doing the communicating are semi-anonymised) with competition, you're practically guaranteed to get some dickheads using purposefully offensive language to express their frustration, upset their opponents or simply be an edgy bellend. Do the people who created those games or run those servers/game services have a responsibility to stamp that sort of shit out? I would say so, and most do. Does it mean they're to blame for those peoples' warped opinions and misguided sense of what's acceptable in the first place? Fuck no. That's more a consequence of the avenues the internet provides in anonymity and forming echo-chambers, ie allowing one to insulate themselves from criticism or their views being challenged. Because the themes and settings of (particularly historical) military games are intertwined with the reasons behind what they portray or emulate - nationalism and its often-inherent racism - of course that shit's going to spill out from the people who take it as an opportunity. Warfare is a part of what humans are, and to ignore it on the cultural scale is to give its roots no outlet until it manifests its self in more actual violence. Combat is the purest form of competition, and the combat most familiar and historically/culturally relevant to the most people alive today is that which takes place during warfare. To think that it wouldn't (or shouldn't) be emulated in entertainment media is pure nonsense. And that's all to say nothing of the explorations of morality surrounding warfare in films, TV and a small handful of games - Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Paths of Glory, Generation War - shit I could go on forever. Do you believe that simply by existing, this type of media is an endorsement or glorification of the morally questionable (or indeed deplorable) acts they portray? Because that's how black-and-white you're coming at this.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/1808/f498639f-73cd-4844-8198-7f9a64033f1c/fantasy.jpg Is this you?
Aye, I typically avoid voice chat in games for that reason myself. The amount of toxicity is a real problem and it shouldn't be tolerated.
War and conflict is part of the human condition. Video games with artistic merit intend to explore that part of the human condition. That's all there is to it. What is your defintion of a 'war-film' or a 'war-themed piece of media?' Do you really believe that there's no 'anti-war' media, at all? I suggest you play This War of Mine, a game fundamentally about war and conflict, but you'd be a fool to say that it's pro-war.
The amount of times I've met people who I genuinely enjoyed playing with who then went on to say shit like "dude, did you hear that tranny? that's totally a tranny, that's a trap, man" or "I met this total faggot yesterday" has just turned me off of multiplayer games entirely. If half the people who like me actually knew anything about me, I'd be just another faggot. Interacting with people like that feels more lonely than actually being alone. It's like talking to cockroaches disguised in human skin. People who treat others like that should just die.
Harassment for being a girl is horrible, and it really tends to show some of the worst in people. Maybe not as bad as trans harassment, but still pretty nasty. I just don't play online games with pubs, or anyone but my closely knit circle of friends anymore. If I have to play publicly, I straight up unplug my mic so I don't even risk anyone hearing me. It far too frequently started an immediate shitstorm. Before I quit just trying to use my mic, I have heard off the top of my head: Go back to the kitchen, make me a sandwich, misc. other sexist statements and insults [Insert long list of vulgar requests for sexual acts here, some sarcastically, some actually serious, including nudes and the like] Accusation of trying to be an attention whore by using my gender to get free shit/easy plays (??????????? Never in my life have I done this.) Being told I'm shit at games because wimmen cant play video gaemz (sometimes said to me as I sat at the top of the scoreboard or was carrying the entire team, which I usually found more amusing than upsetting) Being told to shut up because my voice is annoying, or wimmen aren't funny/blah blah blah Disbelief of my gender, thinking I was actually a lying little boy, asking for pics for proof (one time I obliged, instant regret as the "wow you're ugly/fat/whatever hahaha" bandwagon emerged) General straight up intense hostility The best ones are when people would praise my gameplay, until I dared open my mouth. Then it fell apart pretty quick and some people didn't like what I was doing so much anymore. There've been plenty of good people who didn't care and it helped some that not everyone I ever met was like that, but man, even so, the frequency of bad encounters just became too much to deal with. I play to have fun. Not get shit slung at me. Stopping to type to communicate in critical moments because you can't use your mic is the total opposite of fun. Serious question, what is it about women playing online games that make some folks froth at the mouth and have a massive cognitive aneurysm?
Honestly in my experience, most guys who treat women like that do so to protect their ego and worldview. This is purely conjecture, but I'll try to explain why I think so. Some men simply see women as these alternate species, and to concede that women are human like they are and can have the same interests is something that breaks their worldview. That might cause them to reflect on why they never had female friends, or why they're alone, and it may cause anxiety to realise that there are gamer girls out there that they could be friends with or fall in love with. Thus, they are the only thing stopping themselves from meeting new people with shared interests. By rejecting the possibility, they can stay in their comfort zone, and don't have to worry about meeting women or having female friends or a girlfriend. For some men, being confronted with femininity reminds them of the shame they feel for not "having a gf," like it's a status symbol and not a relationship with a human being. They may have parents or family goading them to date, asking why they don't have a girlfriend, and making them feel inadequate and not up to par with their peers for being alone. To combat that feeling of shame, they use anger: they blame women for their inability to have a relationship by believing women to have key traits that are incompatible with themselves. To them, women are inferior unintelligent creatures not worth the effort or time, "Stacys" who only will accept "Chads", who are also portrayed as unintelligent and inferior aside from their musculature and confidence (things that the gamer will never have). Chads cannot be intelligent nor can they play the kind of games that true gamers play, because they are dumb, and to concede otherwise means that the gamer in question is the only thing stopping themselves from improving their confidence or physique. Thus by externalizing their inability to find meaningful relationships with women being due to key differences with women as a whole, they avoid looking at their own flaws. Its just women who are the problem, not the gamer's shitty personality, social anxiety, shitty confidence/social skills or lack of hygiene causing them to be alone. And if they concede that there are gamer girls, they believe those girls all to be ugly and thus not up to their standards and value, so they can safely disregard the thought of being in a relationship with someone who enjoys gaming because they're superior looking to gamer girls and they don't need to "settle", and since there are no attractive gamer girls, they don't need to improve themselves or leave their comfort zone and meet women. Seeing women playing video games (especially if they "sound attractive" or look attractive) threatens that view of women, and threatens their complacency with being alone and not improving themselves. Thus, they deny, denigrate, or abscribe ulterior motivation to women who game. Alternatively, some people are just toxic assholes who place sich a high value on winning that they need to be a winner no matter what, and anyone who beats them is still inferior in some way, either because they "used a cheap strategy/character/playstyle", or "lucked out", or "cheated", etc. Even if they played fair and won based on skill alone, there still must be some trait that makes the other person inferior; this is where bigotry comes into play, and things like race or gender are used as insults. Talking down skilled gamers who are women soothes their ego, so they can still claim to be superior even if they suck at video games. By attacking women verbally, or by claiming they're men, it helps soothe their insecurity because "women are inferior so I'm still better" or "no women play video games so it's just a person trying to trick people and thus I'm better", which ties into the formerly mentioned insecurity by avoiding the idea of gamer girls existing, which avoids the need to reflect on their inadequacy or "lack of gf" and thus their safe space isn't being threatened since it can't possibly be a girl who beat them. But that's just my armchair psychology perception of the issue, based on some people I know and have talked to personally, anxiety support groups, incel forums/documentaries, and reflecting on the reasons why people tend to externalize their problems onto others as a defense mechanism. Basically, if you get some shithead berating your for having a feminine voice, or for being gay/trans, remember that they're shitty insecure people who need to insult or deny the existence of others to protect their ego. It still hurts hearing hurtful stereotypes, but at least you're not a shitty insecure loser.
The "Gamers hate women and minorities" meme is not a meme. It's scary how much they really do.
Don't forget they also hate old people and the disabled too
Yeah, the sad thing is the whole "gamers rise up" meme is Poe's law incarnate.
Didn't MomBot got doxed by her own group and they openly made semi-transbhoic comments about her (saying her chest was to big to a girl, and causing doubt she was a girl?) I think stuff like that, is why games close down for a day, you guys are screaming "but they downvoted!!! It's the mod responsibility to remove them!" ignoring the fact that if they did remove them, those same gamers are gonna cry "censorship!! and freeze peach!!" and go to other subreddits doing the exact same shit The problem isn't that crap keeps happening on r/games, the problem is that happens everywhere
Gamers don't hate women and minorities anymore than the average population in my experience. I think the real issue is that the type of people who are bigoted are the most likely to start shit talking. Because everyone else is a normal person just trying to enjoy the game.
Wow this is such a gross over exaggeration.
No, where the hell did you get that from? Closest thing to MomBot getting doxxed was when she set up a fake identity of "Zach" using pictures of a white dude from a Japanese Tourism pamphlette to bait anti-GG'ers into trying to doxx "Zach" and they fell for it hook, line, and sinker.
They are taking shitty memes too seriously. If anything hate speech in videogames isn't nearly as bad as it was 10 years ago. Play Halo or Tf2 and you still get people calling each other racial insults constantly, but if you play a modern AAA game you rarely see it. I can't remember anyone calling someone a faggot in Overwatch while it happened on a minute by minute basis on many TF2 servers.
I wonder how many kids there are who play games and have legitimately never experienced a game that involved being actually nice to each other
We think that because we, as gamers, visit so many shittily moderated gaming message boards which become overwhelmed with transphobia, homophobia and racism. Our bias causes us to look down on the very group we are a member of. But go to absolutely ANY hobbiest board for any hobby, that has the same lack of moderation and number of posters, and you'll see the same shit. Do we assume movie watchers are all sexist assholes because Kelly Marie Tran was harassed off of Twitter? If not, why are we making these sweeping generalizations about gamers? It's not a problem exclusively or even correlative with gamers, it's a problem with the internet. We assume it's a problem with gamers because gaming in general has so many huge, poorly moderated communities, and it doesn't matter what those communities were about, the size and lack of moderation is going to end up with a ton of transphobia, homophobia and racism, because that's just the state of the world right now.
The majority of people who play video games don't call themselves gamers, and most of the worst people in the gaming community do.
Source?
Literally the only people "in the gaming community" that I've seen who go out of their way to not call themselves gamers, are people like you.
Isn't gamer just a simple way of saying "person who plays video games"?
You are this close to bringing up GamerGate in 2019
This is seriously the root issue. The mods aren't doing their jobs and then they get mad at the users about it.
"Oh yes, I do consume interactive digital media through the use of controllers or touchscreens now and again. I am a fan of sports emulation, while my brother partakes in Farming simulation on his mobile devices."
Vocal minority is one hell of a drug.
You've stated before that you literally get your news from curated follows ok Tumblr so I doubt it
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