"Gaming" at its lowest
Published: Sun 17 Jan, 2010 | 25 CommentsTags: xbox live, xbox, racism, sexism, gay
I want to begin by apologising in advance for if this missive doesn't really go anywhere - I was just moments ago spurred into writing this by reading an article at a big-name gaming website, an article that got my blood boiling badly, and I really wanted to vent some serious ire. I will endeavour to give it a point.
I would like to continue by offering my own humble opinion on Xbox Live, and I appreciate that this probably isn't a view shared by many here. As I wrote on that gaming website's comment list, and based on both the article and my own experiences with Live, I think that "Xbox Live is a natural congregation site for the dumbest, most ignorant, immature, inbred f**kwits human society is capable of generating".
The article in question reports a rapidly-increasing amount of homophobic-centric abuse, indeed gang mentality behaviour towards demographics such as gays and lesbians, and, astoundingly, even women, blacks and Jews, over Xbox Live.
Just to clarfiy things, I am neither female nor black nor gay nor Jewish (nor any religion, come to think of it). I just hate people who can't "live and let live", people who persecute others for just... being themselves.
As I've often shrieked before, usually in a shrill, ranting tone, the anonymity of the internet is often the perfect inducement for people to express what they really believe. What the hell are we to make of this then? That a scarily-large number of Live users, who I'm guessing are primarily (surprise bloody surprise) US-based, are bona fide gay-bashing, black-bashing sexist anti-Semites? Or maybe that should read *STILL* bona fide gay-bashing, black-bashing sexist anti-Semites, due to large numbers of the population having failed to move on from the ol' "1967 Little Rock, Arkansas" school of thinking. What other explanation could there be, good old fashioned childishness aside?
Even then, isn't that scarier? If it is young'uns expressing those sentiments, and they really believe what they spout, that's an even bigger concern. I don't think it actually has much to do with the games in such instances - I think the games/Xbox Live just act as an enticement to the expression of such beliefs. What's worse is it's not like this is a particularly obscure cross-section of society - this is very mainstream, accessible stuff.
You might be inclined to write such events off as a case of "Oh what, that's so gay!"-type flippant remarks. No doubt some of them are, but apparently the reported abuse got much more sinister, including hatemail, and the victims being tracked down later on (in Live and in cyberspace) and abused long after the game session had ended. You can always give a bit away to plain old immaturity, but humans being humans, you can always give away A LOT MORE to ignorance-bred hate. Again, it's almost guaranteed that the vast majority of those Live users are in the USA, that spiritual home of the bible-thumper, the Neo-Nazi, and the angst teen shooter.
Maybe NZGamer know the actual numbers for Live usage? It would make for interesting reading. Certainly, being aware of this kind of thing only lowers my esteem for Live-style online interaction further. Such is why I revere single-player games like Oblivion and Fallout 3 so.
And I can promise you this - if you come round and play Mario Kart Wii with me and my mates, you'll never be racially or sexually derided; the only thing you might get called is a cheating blue-shell son of a b*tch.
-LS
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COMMENTS (25)
PC, Console, Forums, Blogs and even RL...people are just being more of d*ckheads.
TIME TO REVOLT!
Except for MW2 . stupid party chat restrictions.
I am of same opinion with you on this LS,
i muted most ignorant little sh*ts that i played online when i had my 360.
Young brits and yanks who run their mouths, i used to get so aggravated with them, until i realized, yes.. i have a mute button.
Ha ha, very observant of you, but we know that in this instance it's of the flippant, off-the-cuff variety of slang, not the genuine-hatred variety. Context counts, and the way people communicate with each other in cyberspace is often markedly different to how they might address that person in real life, often for the worse (the mark of a coward, surely?).
And yes, Deanology, on all of the occasions when I went to try PGR or Forza online, I also seemed to end up playing with the most appalling, foul-mouthed chavs from the British ghettoes. I swear they were all at least 30, and by my time calculations, should have been at a job of some sort. After 5 minutes of listening to their verbal diarrhoea, I just had to quit and get off Live - it was becoming far too irritating.
Oddly the worst racism I encountered on PS3 was playing Midnight Club LA which has a near non-existent online community these days. I couldn't find the mute button so I just quit out. I'm not putting up with some 14 year old American hick kid screaming in my ears.
I swear the thing that makes me laugh most about the Xbox Live marketing is the way the adverts are always so cringe-inducingly wholesome and sugary. Good wholesome families, ma, pa and their 2.5 children all gathered round the 360, big beaming smiles on their faces, ready to get stuck in for a night of good wholesome family online play. Or the young n' trendy group of friends, always of the Levi's-jeans-beautiful-people variety (who have curiously decided that what beautiful popular people do on their Saturday nights is not go out and party and booze up and engage in promiscuous relations, but play games over the internet). Goodness, now I wonder why Microsoft didn't publish the ad that features the 14-year-old closet white supremacist with the motormouth? I mean, jeez I simply can't work that one out!
I mean, I of course am 6’ 4”, have the chiselled physic of Atlas, and am burdened with a face too much like (please choose): Brad Pitt, Denzel Washington, George Clooney, Johnny Depp, Tyrees, Robert Pattinson … what can I say, it’s tough!
Of course, that’s not the case at all. In fact, I’m only 6’, just barely the “right weight”, and look like my dad! … but that’s not the point here.
The point I guess for me personally is that I can relate to one of those categories (I am a born and bred New Zealander, but my parents are from Samoa).
Whilst I have no doubt there are pockets within our awesome country where there is perhaps small groups who think there is a “priority queue” when it comes to ones race, religion, and yes, even sexual preference, it rarely makes it to the surface of the wider community. I guess mainly because as a country, whilst we are considered the “newest”, we are unquestionably years ahead of some of the more so-called developed countries when it comes to just getting along!
Life’s way too short to be so narrow minded … and gaming is way too expensive to have to put up with it.
I am fortunate to have a handful of friends who don’t seem to mind what colour any of us are, what religion any of us are, and what sexual preference any of us have – despite the fact we are all of differing “types” in almost each category.
All we’re worried about is when the bl@@dy hell Gran Turismo 5 is actually going to show its face!! … simple group we are!
Hey great blog again leopardsqueezy. You keep fighting the good fight! … my friends and I would be honoured to join your army!
Gaming is supposed to be something you enjoy, and along with the argument of why one console is better than the other (I’m sick of that one!), having to hear anyone slander your colour, sex, or religion makes you wonder whether all the gaming critics might actually have a point?!
You know that would make an awesome piss take clip, The whole family sitting around about to enjoy their gaming then getting abused online by 15 year olds.
I read the same article though and yeah I fully agree, it's more annoying then anything, which is why I just mute everyone except my friends.
Loving the blog buddy! Keep up the good work!
I definitely agree with the OP that this does seem to be a culture among young, spoilt, poorly educated american youths.
Yup, ieex, we are a young country. In fact the good ol' Yanks were probably herding Africans onto plantations when the Treaty of Waitangi was being signed!
NZ has always been a leader of the pack with human rights - the anti-apartheid riots, women's suffrage (we were the first country in the world to let women vote, just in case any of you aren't aware, in which case shame on you), our open doors to refugees, Sir Edmund's lifelong service to the people of Tibet (that has resulted in all subsequent Kiwi travellers to the area being treated like demi-gods).
That's a national legacy you can be seriously proud of, and one really worth upholding, but even here you can still find dropkicks - like my best mate, who's a NZ-born-indian, walking with his also-indian work colleague along The Esplanade here in Wellington today, and copping an earful of "currymuncher", "go back to where you came from" from some 16-year-old losers in a lowered Honda (well, do you find anyone else in a lowered Honda?).
Obviously, they'll be the last people to work out that he IS where he came from, and that he's also a far better representation of NZ, and living organisms in general, than they are, but there you go.
Good read and total agree. Although i must admit to the occasional racist remark and hideously bad joke taking the mickey out of some minority.
The birth of the internet and thus freedom of view of which people can express is part to blame for what you have said as repercussions of ones words are small and meaningless yet the damages to the receiptant is amplified.
After wanting to for the longest time, I finally got around to getting broadband to play some of the newer online games, and what do I find... I'm a PC gamer but the story's the same.
After muting or ignoring it for a few months I'd had enough. As if pwnd joo noob wasn't bad enough from the mouth of someone undoubtedly far less that half my age. Some of the filth unleashed was enough for me to quit and ban my kids from playing certain games online altogether.
Except for closed games with friends only, I have totally shunned online gaming. Kudos to the game makers that haven't gone for the multi-player dollar.
Yup, I'm like you OriginalSin. People seem to think that not having online multiplayer is like some kind of flaw, where all games are better if they have online play. What a load of crap. Half the reason I love Oblivion so much is that it's just ME - I can just disappear into it's epic world for hours, proper escapism styles. If there were other people around, like the jerks on Live, it would totally spoil the atmos. And now the Elderscrolls forums are full of people pestering to have MMO added to the next game! As Napoleon Dynamite said, "Idiots!"
Also don't confuse any of this with me hating plain old multiplayer - I adore it! Circuit Breakers on PS1, Wii Sports 4-player tennis, Guardian Heroes on Saturn, Streetfighter Alpha - Ryu and Ken vs Bison - all some of my absolute faves! I just don't care for playing with the random retards on Xbox Live, is all.
Good blog. Luckily I have barely encountered the said abuse, probably because I suck. What I hear of it is pretty awful. I have heard a few people joking around about things, in-game, and I was pretty appalled by it. Like the other day I heard Chatterboxzombie say some thing like: "is there a Jew class?" And something about the sniper should be able to kill them instantly, or something like that. Yes, I was there and I owe you a coke, CBZ.
Nothing much to add to the general conversation, but I've hardly had bad experiences with online communities. On my PS3 I've played Resistance: Fall Of Man, online for several years before the second came out and destroyed the withering multiplayer of the first. Never met a bad person throughout the entire time.
After that, it's been all MMO's for me, most recently WoW. I've been pretty lucky, I think, because wherever I start a new game I manage to always find nice people that are fun to talk to, etc.
But then again, I think most of the PC crowd is more mature than console gamers. Could it be because most are older?
Nice read.
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