Revverie
Just wondering, why does a big part of this community enjoys mocking other people, have you thought about why you do it? Are you achieving something by doing it?
In my opinion this has little to do with "human behaviour in it's purest form" since there isnt an exact definition for what that is, you know it's more like an individual thing, that's why while trolls and "dominators" exist but wholesome and caring communities exists and people that don't find support in real life end up finding friends and nice people in the internet, in videogames. If anything, trolls are just a face of online communities, some use games to connect, others to lay down their frustrations in the form of slurs. And honestly a lot of people that have bad behaviours in videogames have bad behaviours in real life too, even though I agree this is exacerbated by thousands thanks to anonymity. But what I say here is that, they DO have a reason for it. I see it more as a cry for help or attention, because not for nothing they're always calling people's attention with this attitude, again, I see it as a frustration canalized through insults towards others, loneliness and lack of communication (you can have friends/family irl, that doesn't mean you're truly expressing yourself) pushed down into other gamers in form of tk.This is not a new behaviour, far from it. In the age of the cyber coffee there was always the typical player who dominated certain games, or all of them, by spending the day between those four walls; insulting when you played badly or, directly, not allowing you to enter a local multiplayer game where everyone was present. The problem has been accentuated in recent years thanks to the anonymity of the internet, which allows many players to expose behaviour that in real life they would never have or would restrict from the view of society.
It is human behaviour in its purest form, capable of creating the most beautiful dreams and at the same time frightening nightmares.
...we could choose to make this community better, and instead of creating an online world of slurs, insults and segregation we could choose to make it a world of joy, understanding and friendship...
People's manners and conduct tend to deteriorate a lot when they feel disconnected from the consequences of their actions. Sometimes I wish, despite how awful it is, that our personal IDs were displayed along all our online activities. I bet the internet would be significantly cleaner.
In real life the upper bound to aggression is getting punched in the face, but on the internet there are no fists so arguments just keep escalating with one or both people in the fight-or-flight stage without being able to swing fists. Calling somebody a keyboard warrior is definitely a cliche, but I do think the lack of physical threat on the internet removes any deterrent to just throwing insults at people.
You monster.
Big **** energy.because 99% of these people are pale weaklings in irl so internet anonymity grants them the only avenue of expressing any power over others