It’s sad that toxic game culture is so prevalent cuz like. As someone who has ended up in random matches with kids before, I can attest to how fucking easy it is to reverse and un-teach shitty attitudes in kids.
Example: I downloaded Friday the 13th because it’s free on psn. I dunno how to play, so I just enter quick play and I’m matched with 3-4 kids on mic. Immediately on mic they’re shitty and disparaging to each other. They laugh at each others deaths, they actively work against team mates and self sabotage, they call each other “fags”, etc. From the sounds of the voices they cannot be older than 13-14.
I put on my mic and just decide I ain’t havin it. I am nice. I thank them for barricading doors or leaving me items. When they break free from Jason’s grasp I say “good job!” or I try to help them. One kid survived for most of the match by himself. When he dies, I tell him he did a fantastic job.
The mood shift is practically INSTANT. These kids almost immediately stop being dick heads. They start encouraging each other and being kind. After the match all of them try to friend request me. Which should tell you a couple of things:
A) kids want to be kind, and they want to have a nice time playing games. But encounters with adults like me or so rare that they’ve trained themselves to instantly put on a toxic, shitty, defensive veneer when encountering any new person online. It’s literally just THAT EASY to not groom a horrible gaming community, it’s just that NO ONE does it.
B) the speed of which they all tried to friend me was cute, but paints for me such a sad picture? Like these kids are SO desperate to find people to play with who aren’t crappy jerks. They played with me for 10 minutes TOPS and all instantly tried to reach out to me.
tl;dr: The kids are alright. Adults are shit heads.
I cant agree with this post more
I witnessed something similar with my younger brother (this was when he was In fifth grade so bear with me here) and his friends. The teacher assigned for them to build a somewhat accurate spanish mission in Minecraft because their school had gotten some iPads and she needed to assign them something other than a PowerPoint.
Now here’s the thing. Most of these boys, my brother included, have ADD/ADHD. About a week into the project all they had in their shared world was chaos. Somebody filled the place with tnt and lit it up. Holes everywhere. Whenever one would attempt to try and build something (mostly wood huts and not the actual project) it would be destroyed within minutes as the boys began to insult each other heavily and complain that the design was ugly.
I brought my own ipad with me and decided to sit with the boys while they continued their reign of terror. I joined the world and built a hallway out of brick at the very center of this war zone. Immediately one of them tried to destroy it under the impression that “it looks bad”.
“Well, what should I make it out of?”
“Diamond.”
The ten year old mind is a mystery to me…
Anyway, then I showed him some pictures similar to these:
I reasoned that it would be easier to sway this kid toward another pretty block than trying to get him to stick to the materials of the time, so I asked him if he would like to help me replace my brick design with quartz (eh, it’s white).
Bam! One of the ten year old anarchists is dutifully building me a glittering gem hallway for our insanely rich monks.
The other three are off somewhere still yelling at each other and setting off explosives, but we have something built. Much to my surprise the kid asked if he could build the church next because he “wanted to build the most important part”.
Here’s where I learned something important. I don’t have ADD or ADHD but as I said before my brother does. When he gets fixated on something, he’s really gets into it. Once a few minutes had passed and this kid already had four walls up I decided to grid up the entire mission. One gets the church, one gets the farm, etc.
After playing the game with them for an hour, I had a pretty good idea of where each kid should go.
Church kid, I found, was very particular about materials and shape(hence his hangup over the brick). I gave him free reign over the outer walls of the mission and showed him the reference pictures to get him started.
My brother liked the farms most (he was building dirt domes over the cows don’t ask me how I made this connection it just worked, okay), so he was in charge of building pens for the animals.
Another kid was, at first glance, very loud and bossy when it came to decorating (constantly said we were making chairs wrong). Turns out he likes interior design, like putting benches and beds in the little rooms, so his bossiness was just frustration with my brother’s artistic sense I guess.
Another was very good with placing trees and plants around the exterior (I guessed this because he covered the place in a ridiculous amount of trees and I asked him if he would like to know where they are supposed to go). He got to make a vineyard for us and organized how the crops should go.
So how did it turn out?
Actually very nice!!
So what did we learn? Kids actually like to play games and be praised for their creativity and intuition. If I had just told them to stop messing around rather than direct their attention to areas within their interests, they never would have gotten anything done.
After an hour of gaming they:
Mirrored my language; “thank you!”, “which part are you working on?”, “I like this block.”
Realized each other’s strengths; “hey [kid name] can you help me with the roof?” “How do you make the big trees [kid name]?”
Were able to articulate exactly what they did or didn’t like without using force; “that looks good!”, “how about we put it there?”, “I don’t like that block, how about this one?”
On the plus side, since we moved the game file to my device for safekeeping, I now have a cute little souvenir of the time I played Minecraft with four ten year olds.
This is a really long post, but it’s super important. In games like Fortnite where you’ll find lots of kids, it’s important (if you can) to steer them away from toxicity. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve run into kids who talk like toxic adults and the act of just being nice to them completely turns them around.
This isn’t limited to games, by far. When younger kids are exposed to snide, aggressive older people in any capacity their instinctive response is to adapt that behavior to seem cool and adult and avoid being a target.
Maybe you’re not even an asshole and you just play around with your friends by ironically insulting them, but kids don’t really know the difference. They don’t have that context. And they can continue to develop thinking this is just the way you’re supposed to act and that any sensitivity or vulnerability is something to be laughed at.
I experienced this as a 13 year old on 90′s webforums and I didn’t break out of a non-stop snarky rude mode until like 22.
if you have hearing loss & ask me to repeat something & I say ‘nevermind’ I promise it’s not cause I’m a jerk treating you like an inconvenience, it’s cause I realized what i said was fucking stupid
Okay but like, please repeat it anyway, and then add that you realize it’s stupid? Or at least say “I’ve realized it was stupid, so I’d like not to repeat it”. Please don’t just say “nevermind”.
Yes PLEASE do this. I’m hard of hearing and when someone says “nevermind” it always feels like they’re actually saying “ugh your hearing loss is such a pain in the ass, it’s not worth the damn effort” even if that isnt the truth. I don’t care how dumb it is, the clarification makes me feel so much better.
this is really important feedback, thank you! From now on I will make certain to either repeat myself or explain respectfully why I prefer not. You deserve to feel comfortable and respected in all conversations. My insecurities and self-consciousness is a issue, but it’s my issue to deal with.
you know that trope in shows or movies where the evil character is in captivity and starts talking to the Heroes to try and mess with their minds, and starts analysing them going “face it you’ll never be good enough” … “you try to act tough but inside you’re broken” … and the Hero gets really rattled and upset.
well i want a scene like that where it doesn’t work
Villain: “You have a darkness inside of you. You try to hide it, but it’s there–”
Hero: “Yeah that’s the depression, there’s pills for that.”
Villain: “You try every day to make your mother proud. Even after death, it still haunts you. But she’ll never be proud of.”
Hero: “Well yeah, she was an emotionally abusive narcissist, she was never proud of anything I did, what else is new.”
Villain: “You put on a good show, but deep inside I know you don’t feel worthy.”
Hero: “I know, man, I’ve been trying to work on that in therapy.”
Like… give me characters who know they’re mentally ill and traumatised who can’t have it used against them because they’ve fully accepted it
Hi. It me.
I believe the exchange OP is looking for is:
“This is going to hurt.”
“Man, shut the hell up.”
THIS HAS BEEN DONE AND GLORIOUSLY!
I was really enjoying this, and then it got gay, and now I love it.
I LITERALLY WENT AND LOOKED UP EVERYTHING THESE TWO ARE IN AND I’M SERIOUSLY IN LOVE NOW
IN OTHER NEWS, WICCAN IS ME IF I WERE A REALITY-WARPING MAGICAL MESSIAH
welcome to the Young Avengers fandom, you can pick up your
complementary homosexuality at the door
Get you a man who’ll kiss you moments after watching you unvore a squid.
andy’s mom doing his soldiers dirty after he leaves for college
This is so fucking funny like you see this cool, tacky golden weave bowl & look closer to see that it’s a mass of writhing bodies of fallen soilders twisted into another in agony like something out of full metal alchemist
This is like…. some kinda exaggerated metaphor about the middle class profiting from while simultaneously covering up the sacrifice of poor people to the military industrial complex, Esp since the fruit bowl is ye olde symbolism for extramagance and gluttony.
All it needs is an acousitc minor key version of “Fortunate Son” playing as the music
looking for a nice tasteful centerpiece? why not try the tormented souls of the damned
Since joining Tumblr, I’ve met a lot of young queer people. Look, I’m a bisexual man in a gay relationship, and I’m approaching 30. I was still a kid when Matthew Shepard’s story was being covered on the news. I remember thinking, “I better keep my mouth shut about these feelings I’m having.”
And then I met Dominic when I was 12, and people could see how in love we were. And we got the shit beat out of us. The year I met him, some kids in the grade above me held me down against the bleachers in our gym and stomped on my hand until my fingers broke. Instead of sending me to the nurse, the teacher sent me to the assistant principal to explain the situation. She asked why the kids had beat me up. I said, “They were calling me gay.”
Her response was, “Well, are you?”
My, “I don’t know,” earned a call to my parents, and I was outed. Efforts were made to keep me from seeing Dom. Throughout high school, Dom’s stepmother intensified these efforts. He slept in the basement of the house. Although he was an incredibly talented student, he was prohibited from participating in any extracurriculars. He suffered a lot of physical abuse during those years.
The day he turned 18, he packed up everything he had and walked to my house, and we’ve lived together ever since. Things are better, but they’re not perfect. I’ve had trucks pull up next to me at stoplights and, seeing the pride sticker on my car, through old drinks and garbage into my window. I no longer speak to my dad’s side of the family. I haven’t been to see them for Christmas or Thanksgiving in years. One of my uncles had cornered me at Thanksgiving when I was 17 and said, “I’m not going to judge you, but I’d be happy to break your neck so God can do the judging a little sooner.”
I joined a support group for trans and intersex people. When I joined, 40 people attended regularly. Within the year, the group was half the size it had been. Some couldn’t make it anymore, because they were staying at the shelter, where their stay hinged on them agreeing to instead to attend homophobic sermons. Some were put in correctional therapy. Five of them died. Three of those, I didn’t know, but I knew Alex, the 19 year old who was fag-dragged in Kentucky and died a day later in the hospital, and I knew Stephanie, who went home to Alabama to care for her mom in hospice and was beaten to death with a baseball bat by her mom’s boyfriend.
Tumblr is not reality. The dynamic here does not reflect the dynamic out there. Here’s the part where I finally make a point, and it might be extremely unpopular – but guys, value your allies.Value each other. We are met with enough hate in our daily lives to enter an online safe-space and meet more hate from our own, over petty things. Don’t go after one another over every little thing you find problematic.
Learn to see nuance. Maybe the word “queer” bothers you, and you see a gay man using it as an umbrella term. Maybe someone called a trans man a trans woman because they’re confused about terminology, but the post where they did it was voicing support for the trans community. Maybe someone is just asking a question, wanting to learn more. Stop. Attacking. These. People.
Allies are being driven away. Members of our own community are being ostracized. Others are feeling nervous and estranged, and it’s largely because of places like Tumblr, where the social justice movement is quickly becoming violent and radical. I am begging you, stop nitpicking “problematic” things and start directing your efforts to create real change. When it comes to comes to your allies, forget the “social justice warrior” mentality and put down your torch. Educate calmly. Be respectful. Be understanding. Be forgiving. And I’m certainly not saying that your anger doesn’t have a good place – when you are met with bigots on the street, congress members who want to pass hateful laws, violent protesters, abusive parents, prejudiced teachers, that is when you need to be a warrior. That’s when it counts. In the real world. When you have the opportunity to protect people from real harm. Attacking your would-be allies via anonymous asks is just going to lose us ground in the long run. And we don’t have time for that, not when trans women of color are being murdered every day, not when states are still fighting against marriage equality, not when there are politicians in office who believe that trans people are possessed by demons, not when we’ve just lost 50 brothers and sisters to one gunman, not when the media won’t even admit that the attack was homophobic.
Please step back. Look at the big picture. Look at where we are, globally. Don’t just log on to your safe space and attack your allies over small missteps. That’s like washing the dishes in a house that’s on fire, kids. Let’s fight on the battlefield, and when we come home to each other, let’s just focus on bandaging up our wounds so we can go out and win the war.
Signal boost to this unbelievably important message.
I’d reblog this a thousand times if I could.
Stop attacking allies. Educate. Not hate.
This is incredibly important. Please read!
Educate calmly. Be respectful. Be understanding. Be forgiving.
Gonna Reblog this every time
Reblogging because this is really fucking important
This is so important there is enough hate out in the world already .try to be alittle kinder to each other .love not hate.
Good advice.
I sometimes wonder if the disproportionate anger I see among those of us who should all be on the same side is transference. We can’t retaliate against the ones who hurt us most, the ones who break bones and pass cruel laws and yell slurs in RL. The things we can do to change their behavior are slow and indirect: joining in protests, supporting lawsuits, voting, educating, explaining the basics over and over to people who are somehow still ignorant.
So when a person on social media uses the wrong pronouns or a term that’s no longer appropriate, or disagrees with us on the nature of the word “queer”, etc, etc, we unleash the frustrated burning fury of a thousand nazi-punching suns on them. We try to gatekeep our community so that it feels as safe as possible for us. We don’t want to do the work of educating and tolerating and openness and patience, for the millionth time. We’re tired and we only want allies who will support us exactly and precisely on OUR terms. Don’t we deserve that?
And that understandable feeling….has a lot in common with “I won’t vote unless there’s a candidate I can genuinely support” and “Anything said by any person in X demographic is garbage” and “I don’t care how much good this program is doing, one of the people involved has done or said a Bad Thing in the past and so the whole enterprise must be shunned”.
(I’m using “we” here not to try and claim any kind of membership or entitlement, but to acknowledge shared responsibility. I get frustrated too. But perfect is the enemy of done, in activism as much as in art or business. Now more than ever, what matters is that the work gets done.)
A lot of it is indeed transference, I think. People are angry, someone has to get hit, they’re not gonna hit someone who’d crush them in retaliation.
artherra 