This is an edited version of my previous rant, which was deleted. If you would like the original, just PM me. It has naughty words in it.
Please note that this rant is something I wrote up after visiting many, many forums over the last few weeks, many of which, are crude and poorly interpreted. This does not, repeat, NOT apply to RHP forums. They are a shining example of a forum that works.
Thank you.
Why is it so difficult to be a gamer without being a complete idiot? Why does this Almost Men (because the hobby is only 85% male) seem to find it so hard to be normal and tolerable in polite society? Why does every single tiny thing we ever do have to be part of some great big challenge as we search endlessly for an opportunity to prove our superior knowledge over some hapless fruit who hasn't heard of USB 2.0?
Why, whenever we go into a computer chain store, do we find it necessary to smirk at the sales attendants earning $11.50 an hour as we patiently and condescendingly explain to them that the Compaq package PC, which they didn't build and we would never in a million years consider buying, is crap because it only has 133 MHz FSB? Why?
And yet at the same time as we walk around with degaussing wands and interferometers we bought at Dick Smith's pretending to be electronic geniuses, are we subject to endless bag searches at checkouts, while kids in trench coats waltz straight through? We let sales assistants call us "Matey", and patronize us, interrupting us in the middle of our techno-babble to go help some hot chick who just walked in. We treat the world like we're too good for us, and in exchange, the world treats us the same.
Who do we blame for this? Do we blame the games because they have simplistic storylines, gung-ho heroes and women with waistlines inversely proportional to the size of their, ahem, assets? Do we blame a focus on 'realistic' weaponry while lateral thinking is tossed aside along with true interactivity? Or do we blame the lack of social simulators, where a helpful PC program helps you negotiate the horrific faux pas minefield of an evening on the town?
I for one, blame none of these. As Freud more or less said, sometimes a game is just a game. Anti-social Counter Strike behavior is essentially no different to anti-social playground behavior – especially if we ignore the fact that many of these virtual playmates are 17-30 years old. No, rather than the games themselves, I blame the medium of the internet.
The Net is the source of all evil. It's clogged stupid with pornography, and detailed instructions on how to build nuclear bombs from bi-carb soda and the remains of your dead grandfathers' ashes. To me though, the real danger of the Internet, and why it turns merely maladjusted nerds into ravening sociopaths, is the dreaded forum.
That's right, the forum, the self-updating PHP-powered database that displays the wild rantings of socially dissatisfied teens (thank you), to whoever has enough wit to enter in its URL. Everybody has forums – the games, the severs, even magazines. Forums proliferate on the Net like pimples on the over-generous butt of a Trekkie after an all night Star Trek marathon, eating nothing but M&Ms and cheap cola. When forums work, they work very well – users are able to quickly and effectively exchange ideas and get on with whatever bizarre fetish they're into. But when forums go bad, it's horrific.
The problem is this. Imagine you read an article in a newspaper that offends you. You can either quickly dash off an ill-considered ranting email to the editor, full of bitter invective and crude sexual metaphors, that they will never print, or you can take your time and craft an elegant and sophisticated piece of criticism, which may indeed make it into black and white print. A forum, on the other hand, offers instant and largely unmoderated publication for whatever petty passing grievance has you in its clutches, allowing you to spit and howl at the object of your frustration.
But don't forget, once you've published on a forum, it's there for all time. Even if you go back and moderate your own response, other 'helpful' forum users will happily repost what you said out of their own Internet History folders, and call you a stinking coward for self moderating. Even if you apologize later in the thread, people will still be able to read you initial insult and so the soothing balm of forgetfulness and misquotation is never able to do its work – the anger lives on.
This is why the forum is evil. Because of the basic premise outlined above, a whole new set of social rules have evolved, and they are NASTY. No quarter is given, forgiveness and forgetfulness are simply impossible – because the post where you called JohnnyX a rude thing is still there, it's like you're calling him that every day. Imagine the worst thing that anyone ever said to you in the privacy of your own lounge room. Now imagine having it written indelibly on the wall so you see it every time you walk in. That's a forum.
Forum users have been forced to evolve a supreme arrogance where everything they ever say is always true, even when it's been disproved. A simple error of fact can turn into a bitter flaming thread hundreds of posts long, including such wonders as crudely photoshopped images of harDKore pron with your head stuck on top. Every little thing on the forum, because it's always in someone's face, can be a source of fury to others – even your avatar can generate reams and reams of hatred from other users.
It's a maelstrom, an endless fight, a vicious psychonautic head trip where humiliation and intellectually dominance are the only currency. Where else would a statement like "No. Just no." be considered a detailed and well-rounded argument?
Bad forums turn gamers into idiots. Because it's not face to face, because you can think for a few minutes before responding with your stunning comeback to what hyPerGeEk_224 said about your mother, it's tempting to think that this is, at last, and arena where you intellectual superiority can finally reign unchecked.
Think again, idiot.
Originally posted by D43M0N
Bad forums turn gamers into idiots. Because it's not face to face, because you can think for a few minutes before responding with your stunning comeback to what hyPerGeEk_224 said about your mother, it's tempting to think that this is, at last, and arena where you intellectual superiority can finally reign unchecked.
Haha, excelent post ! Hit the nail on the head so many times there.
Funny, only place techy sales people are still safe is in the mobile (cell) phone store. Atleast there PC geeks can't flex they muscles. 🙂