Good thing I’m already dead.
[Loud Ayying]
I’m starting to notice after many years of not playing WoW, the WoW community across the board has become… Fanatically sensitive to words and names on the internet. Racially charged, or not. I’ve never seen more “I REPORTED THIS MAN” threads in my life.
I shouldn’t be surprised though, with today’s environment. The boredom of the night causes the mind to question things in the universe.
And this ended up being questioned out of anything.
It’s the state of society in general. It’s the new form of the Inquisition and witch burning.
As with anything, if it’s out there and people choose to do it, it’s fine. The problem comes when the people that do it try to force it down everyone’s throat.
Has it? It’s not just a vocal minority drowning out the indifference of the majority?
I can’t say I’ve ever seen a single thing brought up on the forums that has been commented on ingame.
It’s almost like the people actively playing don’t actually care about what’s posted on the forums.
Not trying to discourage discussion but it really does come off as two different realities sometimes; what people on the forums bring up vs what people ingame do.
There is a difference between having a different opinion than someone and being a troll. What has actually happened, for the most part, is people have become much better at discerning the latter.
It could be people realized what they themselves thought was ok or funny when they were twelve actually isn’t now that they’ve had the opportunity to grow up.
Well let’s just say I have enough time to witness both of these realities you seem to be putting out there.
Besides, lurking forums isn’t hard to accomplish on a little flight path trip.
I mean I find a lot of things funny and I’m pretty maintained in life as an adult.
The ‘Growing Up’ phase is actually pretty messed up. Reality is a hard thing to adjust too.
I’d expect edgy teens to find poop/fart jokes just as funny as racist/“I don’t quite understand what I’m making fun of but it sounds funny cause the guy telling the joke is laughing!” statements. I’d expect people, when they get older, to differentiate between the two and act accordingly.
This game is almost old enough to vote, just to put things into perspective.
It’s very exhausting seeing things that are being violated either which are ToS violations or Code of Conduct violations. Repeat offenders should be shed to light so others can make their own decisions about how to respond. Anyone making accusations should not be allowed to bash anyone that replies to them.
EDIT: I enjoy what the moderators on the Subreddit have said about trying to make a megathread regarding ninja looters or people that should be blacklisted. Should check it out if you have time.
It has been my lifelong experience that people who complain about “snowflakes,” “fragile sissies,” or “People who can’t take a joke” are almost unilaterally just dicks who think they should have a free license to be dicks without consequence. Most well-adjusted individuals understand the importance of knowing your audience and moderating your own tone so that you don’t create more problems for yourself.
You can usually tell when an “adult” is actually just a kid in their 20s because they’re still in the “I’m an adult so I can say what I want” phase, versus “I’m now an adult and I have some semblance of sympathy and/or empathy”.
The tell-tale phrase is usually, “They’re just words!”
There’s a huge difference between “being a snowflake” and expecting people to be somewhat civil. Use those words when you’re by yourself or with your clique; that’s between you and The Almighty. Understanding that “just words” can be much more to someone else is a sign of maturity, not a sign of weakness.
Also, another sign of maturity is being able to speak on topics like this from experience. I am not afraid to admit I was a little turd in my early twenties, and was guilty of a lot of this. Thankfully I got better.
The forums are not the game community. Most people in game don’t gaf about the forums, and rightfully so.
NPR had an interesting story on this. Some kids got accepted to Harvard, posted memes, and got their acceptances rescinded when Harvard learned what was being posted.
There are far too many people who need a wake-up call like this to realize the sort of nonsense they’re spewing.
https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=758281834
Ah, yes. “The way I think is right and anything else is wrong.” A true sign of maturity.
Somewhere, a neckbeard is raking his cheeto-stained fingers through his neckscruff, laughing about how “freedom of speech” is somehow misunderstood within the context of private forums, video games, and the fact companies don’t need to follow it.
One of these days people will actually begin to understand what the First Amendment is about and what it actually applies to and what it absolutely does not.
Randall Monroe put it pretty succinctly:
https://xkcd.com/1357/
Baseless ad hominem temper tantrums and web comics used as a frame of reference. Very mature adults.