You’re going from your actual rank, to the lower ranks to (1) grieve people by throwing and/or (2) kill those who have no chance to fight back. And then, when they get upset and call you out, you laugh at, mock, and belittle them.
If you smurf, if you defend smurfing, or if you think smurfing is okay, then you are a bullying. It’s literally that simple.
And Blizzard, you should be ashamed for enabling this kind of horrendously toxic behavior.
Nah thats way too far LOL, even though smurfing ruins games its still just a game.
Btw making an alt account/=smurfing.
Smurfing is throwing to low ranks to troll/tryhard in bronze, etc.
By the very definition of the world, smurfing is bullying.
“Bullying is the use of force, coercion, hurtful teasing or threat, to abuse, aggressively dominate or intimidate.”
Ummm?? That’s bullying, not online bullying, its like saying if you kill me ingame you are a murderer, like wtf??
i wouldn’t call smurfing bullying. its closer to cheating if anything.
im not endorsing smurfing, but its isn’t belittling someone, its only belittling someone if you choose to belittle them. you could smurf and not be toxic and it would still be smurfing nonetheless
what smurfing is purposefully throwing or buying a lower level account to play people below your skill level. im not endorsing smurfing, but what smurfing is is abuse of a system. the only way smurfing can be considered bullying is if they are bullying as well as smurfing. they are not attacking or being mean to someone or a group of people directly.
““Cyberbullying or cyberharassment is a form of bullying or harassment using electronic means. Cyberbullying and cyberharassment are also known as online bullying. It has become increasingly common, especially among teenagers, as the digital sphere has expanded and technology has advanced. Cyberbullying is when someone, typically a teenager, bullies or harasses others on the internet and in other digital spaces, particularly on social media sites. Harmful bullying behavior can include posting rumors, threats, sexual remarks, a victims’ personal information, or pejorative labels (i.e. hate speech). Bullying or harassment can be identified by repeated behavior and an intent to harm. Victims of cyberbulling may experience lower self-esteem, increased suicidal ideation, and a variety of negative emotional responses including being scared, frustrated, angry, or depressed.””
none of these apply to smurfing. all you did was give us a block of text that didn’t prove your point whatsoever. smurfing doesn’t follow under any of these definitions.
“…repeated behavior and an intent to harm.”
Smurfs literally do what they do to grieve other players so they can get sadistic enjoyment from the other person’s frustration. I’d say that fall clearly into that “block of text” I posted.
sure, trying to make someone rage on purpose could be considered sadistic depending on the context, but thats assuming thats why the smurf is smurfing. they could be smurfing because they are frustrated in their current rank and wanted to feel better about themselves, not because the other player is losing but because their wining. this may not be true with most smurfs but still. (they could just play against bots, but at the same time it could be damaging to their egos knowing they resorted to that, knowing that they are better then some players out their and proving so could be reassuring to them, we will never really know unless you smurf yourself)
unless the smurf is being toxic along with smurfing then its bullying, if not then its just smurfing. if they have sadistic intent but arn’t being toxic in chat, then it isn’t really hurting anybody except maybe a players rank.
and im not saying smurfing is right, i just don’t think it follows under the category of bullying. smurfing is abuse of a system, not people. and the main problem with reporting a smurf is that it could just be an alt account trying to level, or the player could have really good mechanical skill. there is no real way to prove that someone is a smurf.
Smurfing is like when a professional baseball player crashes your little league softball game to win against children.
Is it bullying? Maybe, maybe not. I think we can all agree it’s selfish and mean though.
It’s not bullying by any means.
It’s a bloody game ffs…
I think whether or not smurfing is online bullying isn’t as important as the fact that it is an inherently terrible and selfish thing to do, regardless of it being just “a game” like a couple people have already mentioned in here.
While I do agree, I do not believe there is anything wrong with being selfish to get the desired experience out of the game if no rules are being broken.
I am going to respectfully disagree (And I imagine the devs do too) because in this case being selfish means actively making other player’s experiences worse.
But besides, smurfing typically involves throwing to derank, so it does break rules anyway.
Erm … dont think it even qualifies as Cyber bullying because its also not targeted, its kinda random and most of the times you can still exit the match, you are not forced to stay and the “harassment” is not really … nah, not even mental or insults etc unless you engage in an insult exchange.
How? … how are they enabling this?
I agree. Smurfs who are there purely to get easy kills on people of lower skill for their own enjoyment are bullies. They intentionally ruin games for other people for their own pleasure.
Its amazing how many smurfs say “my other account got locked, i dont want to smurf but what can i do?”. Suuuure it did mate, just like the other 10 i asked, story checks out.
i hate smurfing as much as the next guy but in reality nothing will ever be done about it. unless we all consent to blizzard or any other video game company to intrude into our pivacy and basically kernal dive into our pc 24/7 while we play. i wouldnt be excited by that prospect and i may quit playing competitive online games if they do that… who knows what may happen, crypto mining or other nefarious means to harm your pc… lag, fps drops in any game you play, etc…
if it bothers you that much your in the wrong “gaming” genre which is online competitive gaming. what is cool about overwatch and probably some other games is that there is a sense of a matchmaker ( its an attempt ) to at least try and put you in an equal battlefield. most games dont do this especially in the past and i kind of enjoy it (matchmaking systems). as the population gets smaller and because of the fact you can buy alt accounts freely and without reprecussion the integrity of the matchmaking system crumbles into dust. at least they tried and i bet with alt accounts they dont mind since $$$.
when it all comes down to it i dont care that much since i can QUIT playing the game and play some other game which i bet many people probably have. then its up to blizzard to try and come up with a solution if it cuts into their profits which i doubt will happen also since they have many other sources of revenue… other games (wow, cod, etc…)
Buying multiple copies of the game is not and will never be against rules
Intentionally throwing to derank however is
Welp, that sound about right
Just like at school teachers dont care about bullying because “kids are just playing” the same is here, devs dont see a problem at all, its just players doing player thing XD
the problem is how would they go about making sure people play on just one account? i dont have any ideas and i bet there would be a lot of loopholes to it all. i kind of wonder how league of legends will do it or if its just a token statement
i dont have a clue on how they would exterminate all smurfing. if banning is part of that goal i bet they might ban the wrong people by mistake… dont think you can have that perfect of a system lol