We can blame our government, Obama, political leaders, Hollywood, racism, political correctness, any number of things is to why our society and the internet is devolving into darkness. It easier to blame others for what we see everyday. Lets face it tho; it is each and every one of us that is devolving socially it is just a matter of degrees as to how much. We see so much of it everyday it is hard to push it away, some creeps in, we may not recognize it at first, as soon as a little bit of it slips out, we are shocked that it came from ourselves. We will even deny that we did it. Sadly many people are not ashamed of this type of behavior, they relish it, they thrive for it and are proud that they can anger, hurt, belittle someone for their own sick self-esteem.
Video Games (Gaming) is one area I have looked into the over the past few months; it’s not a pretty. While I don’t believe the games themselves are bad; the culture/community in gaming is highly questionable along with sportsmanship and ethics.
Let me start off by saying that children learn behavior from the parents or any adult for that matter; when it comes to multiplayer gaming; kids are copying language from many of the adults playing these games. I have heard and be called from adults; the most hateful, vile and disgusting names while playing, kids follow suit; laughing and giggling. The adults praise this behavior and encourage more of it. I joined a COD Blacks Ops 2 game recently, a young boy was calling out every name he could think for every part of the female anatomy. You ask politely for them to stop and you are verbally attacked.
The raging (aggression/violence) from some of these players is disheartening. I like to play games for the pure fun, the challenge and excitement of it. Many of these players feel the need to be the best at everything, losing is a bad thing. When players lose or don’t do as well as they think they should have, they rage at other players by threatening to harm them. Rage quitting is another outlet for them, they aggressively attack you then they quit the game because of a potential loss or because of not doing as well as they believed they should have. This is true for male or female, child or adult.
Gaming trolls (is someone who posts/says offensive, controversial, or divisive material.) are an unfortunately common occurrence on many gaming communities. I have experienced on more than one occasion two or more individuals gang up on another person for the sole purpose of trolling him. The purpose of trolling is to make an individual rage, rage quit or report that individual for offensive language. The people trolling laugh and think it’s great to ridicule another human being for the sick enjoyment of it. I have even see parents, yes I said mothers or fathers being trolled by some of these commentators by asking the child to get a parent. The trollers act like they are from Sony or Microsoft telling you, your child has been hacking, or something else. Smile for the video!
Some players like to call themselves a “Hacker.” Let me set the record straight, a true hacker is interested in digging deep to see what really makes computer systems tick, they are not malicious. The want free or open information. True hackers subscribe to a code of ethics and do not conduct illegal activity. In the gaming community there is rampant people developing exploits for games; the purpose of this is to grief (A griefer is a player in a multiplayer video game who deliberately irritates and harasses other players within the game, using aspects of the game in unintended ways.) Exact griefing methods differ from game to game. Common methods may include but are not limited to: Friendly fire in a FPS (First Person Shooter), deliberately performing actions detrimental to team members’ game performance, including wasting key game elements, colluding with the opposition, and giving false information.
Personal Note:
There is another group of people who loudly call themselves hackers, but aren’t. These are people (mainly adolescent males) who get a kick out of breaking into computers, software, games and phreaking the phone system. Real hackers call these people ‘crackers’ or ‘script kiddies’ and want nothing to do with them. Real hackers mostly think crackers are lazy, irresponsible, and not very bright, and object that being able to break security doesn’t make you a hacker any more than being able to hot wire cars makes you an automotive engineer. Unfortunately, many journalists and writers have been fooled into using the word ‘hacker’ to describe crackers; this irritates real hackers to no end.
The gaming community has exploded with the integration of live streaming through YouTube and Twitch. I have watched many commentators the past few weeks, some are good, some are bad and some are just rude, vile and have degenerate behavior with no re-guard for who may be watching their live stream or uploaded video’s. I have not watched every commentator on YouTube, some of them that I have watched use profanity, sexual innuendos, vile, hate or racism speech. They need to remember that young children are watching these streams or video’s. One example out of many is a well-known popular commentator was setting up a new game to live stream as they were building the gaming character; they made the comment “Should I make the character look like a pedophile.” Did they even think if anyone watching this stream has had their life affected by such a tragedy? NO, I doubt it. There are YouTube gaming channels that are dedicated to trolling unsuspecting players, they post the video’s and the commentator and the public comment and ridicule the person being trolled. I have run across a few commentators that are dedicated to help players by providing useful information about a game, tricks, tips, strategies. The comments by some subscribers to that channel get rude and talk down to the commentator that was trying to help them. I bought my first FPS game (Call of Duty Black Ops 2)a couple of months ago, I was really have a hard time with it, was struggling very hard at the game. Not all commentators are bad, I found a YouTube channel that helped me out tremendously; at the time of this posting I have not heard back from him to post his channel. I know what you maybe thinking; why doesn’t YouTube do something about these commentators then? Better question to ask yourself is; as a parent why aren’t you doing a better job of monitoring what your child is watching and doing online.
All gaming systems that go online have a “friends list.” Do you know who your child has on this list? Do they have any adults on their list? Are they influencing your child? Are they posting any video’s of your child’s game play? Is your child uploading anything to his or her YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or the countless others social media network sites. As a parent are you to busy to care about what your child is doing online? Is the gaming system a babysitter? Well when I see young children on at 11pm-4am playing online games or yelling at the parents to leave them alone while I’m playing; maybe it’s time for some parenting classes or a spine.
My advice start checking what you kids are uploading, downloading, posting and viewing online!
Did you know…
Most kids are you using a PS3, XBOX 360, PS4, XBOX 1 to view porn! Why? because parents allow those game systems in the child’s bedroom so they wont have to deal with the noise.
If anyone is offended at what I have stated above, then it’s time you look at yourself in the mirror and figure out if your offended because I said the truth or that you couldn’t handle the truth.
Peace and God bless my fellow patriots
Son of Liberty,
Michael