Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Fuckwad.
This equation is more vital to the advancement of science that E=MC2. I believe anyone who's played online with a headset has encountered this phenomenon. Online multiplayer voice play has been around since the beginning of the decade with games like SoCom II which encouraged players to use the headset to their tactical advantage, as well as trash talk. In the beginning, players were relegated to interacting with others in the queue with other players before being restricted to communication amid their own team. You had to push a button if you wanted to talk, so you weren't constantly being annoyed by twelve year olds swearing and making nonsense noises. Trash talk usually involved conversations like, "Why'd you throw that grenade at me?" and, "Stop team-killing," punctuated by swearing. Everyone had a Southern hick accent. As time progressed, players were looking to enable this feature in games that didn't support it using such computer programs like Vent. These were non-casual players looking to advance their own status through various guilds in games like WoW. Instead of trash talking, they talked mainly about what they wanted other players to do for them, like middle-management types ordering around office workers, while they sat in their parent's basement and ate Cheetos.
With Next-Gen console like XBox 360, voice chat has become far more sophisticated. In many ways, it's even easier than using a phone. This means that anyone can potentially be talking to anyone else at any time, provided they have a mic and a subscription. In Fable II, you can enable it so you can see anyone else using Fable II in the world. As you pass their grey orbs in-game, you can even hear them on their mics, like walking through a crowd. This also makes the game crash like the J.F.K. Jr. In other online multi-player death matches, like GTA IV, everyone can communicate to everyone else while shooting each other in the heads with rocket launchers.
So given this freedom of expression, what are people saying?
"Fuck you, nigger." -jomamma94, etc.
Yes, "Fuck you, nigger." People have chosen to use this technology to spout out any racist crap their 10-year-old intellects can think of.
Why?
Well psychologists may now have the answer:
Racism: Vexed by Online Bigots' Language? Psychologists Say They Want You to Be
In summation of this article: people are fucking dicks. Yes, voice-chat racist rants are becoming part of a soon-to-be carefully documented psychological condition, like necrophilia. It's affecting untold thousands of people globally (by globally, I mean South of the Mason-Dixie Line).
Now bear in mind, if you haven't heard these people, they're not just blurting things out like they have tourettes syndrome. They are constantly saying it the most racist shit they can think of. If they were talking about a TV show they like, like The Office, as opposed to racist shit, you'd be like, "Okay, we get it, you really like The Office. FUCK!" They like acting racist like Barak Obama likes fried chicken... like Oprah likes chiken... like Oprah likes pie... like fat people like pie.
The psychiatrists in the article argue that it's just a device they use to psyche out their opponents, but no, they say this shit to their own team mates too. Yogi Berra said a lot of crazy shit, but he never said, "I want to kill every fucking nigger I see. Fucking queers." They say it because they can get away with it. People aren't going to track them down Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back style. Potentially they could, because their fucking profile is there, but it'll never happen.
They also argue that the best thing to do is to ignore it, much like your mom tells you to ignore the bullies at school (because it works so well). It isn't. They'll be saying this shit no matter what. They could be the only ones on with a mic, and they'd still be saying it to themselves. A part of them knows this. The other option is to say, "Did you know I'm black?" Which doesn't work either, because they keep spewing out racist shit at whoever says they're black, but for some reason they'll call them, "Fucking faggot."
What I usually do is if I can find their tag names and remember it, I will usually use the features allowing be to ban, boot, or report them. Otherwise, I'll make my avatar black and then go hunt them down in-game, because it's fun that way. Does it do anything? No. At worst, the person is booted from their current game session and has to go back to the queue, where they're allowed to say as much shit as they want. You think anyone has been permanently banned over language? GMs just give them a warning at best. They're paying customers.
No one talks this way in real life, even at Neo-Nazi rallies. Eventually the conversation will veer away to hunting knives and monster trucks. Not online, though. People can be talking about a Presidential Debate on TV, then someone will butt-in with, "Fucking Obama is a goddamned nigger."
What about the rest of us? The ones having to listen to it until they find a way to shut their voices off, or else unplug their headsets and leave the game? Are we being psychologically damaged by these psychologically damaged people? The player in the article talks about listening to his fellow co-worker's rant for the entire session, without commenting on it. They were playing Castle Crashers, which is a four player cooperative game involving no black people. The writer tries to make some excuses for his "friend," saying his friend had been playing the game a lot longer than he had and was more serious about it. Which means he should potentially be more professional about it, since as a game reviewer, it's his fucking profession.
Does anyone out there know of any friends or co-workers who do this in their online games, then the next day they act like nothing happened? I want to hear about it.
Why are these comments specifically aimed against niggers African-Americans? There's a lot of groups out there. Most of the white people acting racist towards black people likely don't even live within thirty miles of a spook African-American. Branch out a little, for God's sake. Nobody talks about Koreans anymore.
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