Harassment in Gaming and Online

[Annoying]

Just go sit in twitch chat for one of the larger female streamer channels. Lynxaria has told me tales of the horror that is her twitch message inbox.

[StayTuned]

It's like this:
I find a group
Join TS3
Say "hey"
Roll eyes and shake at "lol girl!" comments

In all fairness, I've had the exact opposite experience. Girls in guilds seemed to always have a higher status than anybody else in the guild, like little special snowflakes who get catered to by the raid/guild lead.

Or maybe all leads I've ever had were just horny nerds. I don't know. To me it never really mattered, because ultimately I was playing on a level where it was only important to have skill, it didn't matter if you are a girl or not.

It's the lowbobs and children without friends who would harass or even just giggle at a girl in Teamspeak. These people don't get far.

[Addict]

It depends from person to person what they seem to precieve as harrassment.

For some its about disagreements on various issues as gender, religion, politics, factions in games etc. For others nothing really counts as harrassment since "it's online and who gives a crap what people online say" mentality. There are already various tools to deal with harrassment in forms of blocking, ignoring etc - but they're all tools after it have already been made, what some people want atm is a tool to prevent future possible harrassment and to this end they want automated blocklists often using "guilt by association" to remove other potential harrassers.

I personally think the tools already are well enough, as I don't think people ought to be judged before they commit a bad action. You have the option to remove someone from ever contacting you, and if they presist there are legal actions that can be taken to punish said harrasser if it goes to the extreme.

[Independent voter]

A lot of guys dream about dating a gamer girl. Thing is, a lot of girls choose to appear as male online. So even though the gamer guy might have a teammate/guildie who is the perfect match for him, he'll never meet her.

[Revi]

I don't know whether to laugh or to cry about this video. It's like men put in women's bodies and talking with female voices, with some topics swapped to accomodate gender.

It is though? I played WoW for many years, all the raid groups I was in had women in it, for the last two years until I quit our 25-man group had 10 women who were among the most active on the server, and this topic came up a lot. Nothing in that video remotely matches my experience playing with 25-40 people on voicecoms for years, vanilla through MoP, or the experiences of those women I played with. The occasional creep, sure. They got put on ignore and kicked off the coms/group if they went too far or made anyone uncomfortable, because the rest of the guys and girls didn't tolerate it.

Making this out to be how men act, or anything commonly accepted, is completely contrary to my experiences and the experiences of people I played with.

That's not to say there wasn't the occasional comment about sex, totally was, towards women the same way it was towards men. That wasn't anything anyone perceived as harassment, merely joking around or talking to each other as functioning adults.

[Addict]

Harassment is a very real thing, and I've experienced it. Sexual harassment to be precise. It didn't give me STDs or whatever (I'm not a SJW), but were I a guy, I wouldn't have dealt with it

If some female made it to Blizzcon 3v3 Championship, I can't even imagine what she would experience. If she is a bit on the heavy side, she's a fat whale who should kill herself. If she's superhot model, dream-GF, weighing 40 kgs with DD boob size, she's a slut who exchanged blowjobs for rating. No one will care about her skill, just her looks, which is sad. And sure, we women might not even be terrible supportive of her, either.

One of reasons I stopped with WoW PvP is this sewage you wade through as a female. It's a feeling of not being taken seriously, and all eyes are on you, really. If you screw up, it's because girls can't play, not because a person, regardless of gender, did a mistake.

It's like this:
I find a group
Join TS3
Say "hey"
Roll eyes and shake at "lol girl!" comments

I mean, just look at female streamers as opposed to the "lads". Even if they are showing some cleavage for extra attention, my brain cells commit suicide twice as fast when reading the "comments" as opposed to a guy's comment section.

At certain times, it just feels like being a woman playing PvP is rarer than a woman driving in Saudi Arabia, or having 2 PhDs in some very boring and narrow science stuff, like theoretical astrophysics. Yes, I think that's boring, and I would assume not many females venture this way.

What to do about it? Nothing. I just stopped with PvP, I couldn't be bothered anymore.

"But 'lol girls' comments aren't hurtful/bad,m just think about all the friendless guys that don't get this attention!"
I really don't care. I just want to play in peace. I've never been attention seeking, and certain comments just make me feel uneasy, as the feeling of being watched

you'd still deal with harrassment, just a diffrent kind. They use what they can to piss you off, if you're a girl they use that, if you're gay they use that. if you're male they'll use that. It doesnt stop because gender nor sexuality, it just changes form.

[StayTuned]

Just go sit in twitch chat for one of the larger female streamer channels. Lynxaria has told me tales of the horror that is her twitch message inbox.

My cousin watches Twich. He's 14.

Just the way he behaves irl makes me want to vomit thinking this is how he writes to girl streamers. But probably it's even worse due to relative anonymity.

I wish there was a study done on how old the harassers are on average, because I highly doubt it's a lot higher than 16. I believe this to be a puberty problem where guys have to act out their bravado.

[Independent voter]

It is though? I played WoW for many years, all the raid groups I was in had women in it, for the last two years until I quit our 25-man group had 10 women who were among the most active on the server, and this topic came up a lot. Nothing in that video remotely matches my experience playing with 25-40 people on voicecoms for years, vanilla through MoP, or the experiences of those women I played with. The occasional creep, sure. They got put on ignore and kicked off the coms/group if they went too far or made anyone uncomfortable, because the rest of the guys and girls didn't tolerate it.

Making this out to be how men act, or anything commonly accepted, is completely contrary to my experiences and the experiences of people I played with.

You play with a better crowd I think. I joined a more mature guild once, lot of wives and girlfriends were there with their men. It was nice but we struggled overcoming the content.

The macho guilds that were mostly teen males were a bit hostile to women but we cleared a lot of content.

I forgot where I was going with this...

Oh yeah, your experience with the game can vary widely, that was my point. lol

[Kurioxan]

Superficial narcissists who want sympathy but have easy lives will find any reason to claim they are being hurt in order to get sympathy.

It's sort of like how alcoholics will use any excuse to take a drink.

Pretty much this.

The concept boggles the mind, unlike real harassment, online "harassment" can be dealt with using any of the many tools present in all forums/games, such as "ignore/mute", reportable, or simply, ignoring it yourself/turning the computer off.
Its a non issue raised by people who don't have the maturity to simply use one of those tools and instead choses to make a drama out of some random idiots being idiots.

But to say that there is no such thing, is a tad odd. Ofc there is, tons of idiots on the internet throwing insults and being annoying, its just so easy to deal with it that it doesnt matter.

[StayTuned]

You play with a better crowd I think. I joined a more mature guild once, lot of wives and girlfriends were there with their men. It was nice but we struggled overcoming the content.

The macho guilds that were mostly teen males were a bit hostile to women but we cleared a lot of content.

I forgot where I was going with this...

I don't know. At my best time I was in a German top 5, 25 man guild. I think we were ranked somewhere world top 20 or 30, it's been way too long ago. What I do remember is that our tank was female, and almost all our healers (I think we had a total of 10 girls in our guild including one or two casuals/lead friends). Plus, we were an exclusive 18+ guild, so no kids, no matter what your skill was.

Trust me, no guy would have ever dared to even make a misogynistic joke, let alone actually harass a girl. The shitstorm would have been immense.

In my personal experience, the real deal happens in low content guilds that can't get their shit together and accept everyone and their mom.

[Mayhem]

Hm i´ve always played in guilds that required members to be at least 18, if they acted mature enough it was rarely reduced to 17 or even 16, but i think that happened not even three times. Maybe it´s an age thing. I honestly can´t remember anyone i don´t know calling me anything, it´s mostly guys i do know that say not too nice things about me, though these are jokes.

[StayTuned]

Just go sit in twitch chat for one of the larger female streamer channels. Lynxaria has told me tales of the horror that is her twitch message inbox.

If she's like this one, I'm not surprised



If you use your boobs to make money off of nerds you deserve to be harassed out of the system.

[Deleted]

That video above just seems really fake, isn't this satire like that other girl does?

Also yes, getting sympathy for "being harassed with too much attention" is pretty much a superficial narcissist's wet dream.

[StayTuned]

That video above just seems really fake, isn't this satire like that other girl does?

Also yes, getting sympathy for "being harassed with too much attention" is pretty much a superficial narcissist's wet dream.

I can post about a million of similar videos. Twitch actually started banning girls from doing this. The amount of donations they'd get was starting to get ridiculous.

[cFortyfive]

Trash talk

I don't think what happens sometimes when I am playing go is still trash talk when it usually escalates pretty fast to death threats when I am getting annoyed.

[Independent voter]

If you use your boobs to make money off of nerds you deserve to be harassed out of the system.

IDK, those are some nice boobs.

[Faenskap]

In all fairness, I've had the exact opposite experience. Girls in guilds seemed to always have a higher status than anybody else in the guild, like little special snowflakes who get catered to by the raid/guild lead.

Or maybe all leads I've ever had were just horny nerds. I don't know. To me it never really mattered, because ultimately I was playing on a level where it was only important to have skill, it didn't matter if you are a girl or not.

It's the lowbobs and children without friends who would harass or even just giggle at a girl in Teamspeak. These people don't get far.

Never really had an issue with PvE, it's in PvP for the most time. If I were in a guild, it wasn't so bad and I would feel more at ease. Then all the PvP guilds I'm in die... It's the random PvPers, without a doubt. Not every random PvPer was a shithead, but there were enough of them to make me want to stop PvP. PvP also made me feel less secure. In WotLK, I joined all sorts of pugs, and I lead my own DS groups in Cataclysm. Now I don't even want to join a random normal HFC, because I've witnessed the true nature of some people. That, or I grew more shy as I became older.

[Shige]

We all encounter a porcelain doll once in a while.. some act like it and others are real porcelain dolls that not only blow things completely out of proportion but then seek further sympathy by spreading the story to people they don't even know....

On a side note, there are always those "he touched my bottom, oh no! it's the end of the world" kind of people

[mickybrighteyes]

Harassment is a very real thing, and I've experienced it. Sexual harassment to be precise. It didn't give me STDs or whatever (I'm not a SJW), but were I a guy, I wouldn't have dealt with it

yeah cause the vast majority of people playing these games don't give a damn about men, sexually...

guys still get other kinds of harassment tossed their way. But this particular topic overall will only generate real discussion when any alleged targets of harassment are women... Kind of sexist really.

[Aori]

WoW isn't the best example because you can't do much to other people, but there are other games where you can be a lot more invasive with your presence towards others (by being able to attack people of the same faction, kidnap them ingame, keep them prisoner for a time, etc etc). I've never seen cases like this, only distantly heard about them or read about them.

Eh games like that are different. I mean I'd be the worst person alive by todays standards for things I've done in older games.

Like how about this example.

Many years ago in Lineage 2, I ran into a women who liked to use her feminine charms to get ahead in the game. Early on in her career, I helped her out but I'm more of a I don't care if you're man or woman, pull your weight. So once I figured her only intention was to leech, I gave her the boot. This started some weird feud of verbal assaults for a bit and I left the game for a short while for reasons unrelated.

So I come back to the game some months later. I run into this person again whom was still holding a grudge. Person now has some influence with quite few top tier players on the server now. She continues on where we left off, a lot of public slander. She simply wouldn't let things go, so I stepped it up a notch. I hunted her down and PK'd her. It kept escalating, I kept killing her, killed her clan, her alliance members and anyone who tried to protect her. I went so far as to hold the lowbies of the alliance hostage to get them to stop backing her. She eventually left the game, she was evicted from her alliance, she lost weeks to months worth of experience. This event spanned over the course of a month or two.

Now do you consider this harassment? Who was the harasser then?