Friday, 11 December 2009

• Trash-Talking In Video Games

  Editor's Note: Video NSFW due to extreme language.

  
  "You can't see me!"

  Some gamers like to run their mouth in a way that can seem needless and unfun. It gets more intimidating (or just irritating) when a number of people in a session carry themselves this way. Granted, you will find assholes and douchebags wherever you may roam. But trash talking isn't just a smattering of disgruntled or egomaniacal players behind the anonymity of a gamertag. And it isn't just your little cousins getting nasty over Mario Kart or Smash Bros. It can be more good-natured and harmless than it seems, even a necessary part of what makes a game what it is.

  
  It's just another day at the arcade, with 'Yipes' Mendoza and his Pringles. 

  Particularly in the case of fighting games, a lot of street and hip hop culture bleeds into the community. There's a bit of parallel between the faux-destructive nature of one-on-one character matches and rap battles, so much of the atmosphere and lingo is similar. "Nigga" et al are terms of endearment free to anyone who can rock them without sounding forced and unwieldy. And "get hype/hungry" is the universal battle cry for fighting gamers to up the tension. All the West Coast this, East Coast that is in the spirit of competitiveness. It's like a manlier version of having cheerleaders belittle the Away team at a football game.

  It wouldn't be comprehensive to single this phenomenon out as simply a quasi-ghetto or competitive thing, though. If we have some kind of spine and a little understanding of what sarcasm is, we've probably traded snide remarks back and forth between friends and family. For some this can even extend to when we play video games. The gray to black area is whether or not it's right to carry this attitude with people you don't really know. Or if it's okay to try and "toughen" someone with it.

  
  If Jecht had been around long enough for Tidus to realize he was just trying to strengthen him,
  we wouldn't have gotten the biggest nancy-boy in all of Final Fantasy.

  The unspoken rule to trash talking is common sense; it's fine where it's warranted and welcome, but unless there's good reason, it should be avoided when it makes someone uncomfortable. In the end, it's hard but probably best to just thicken your skin and shrug off jabbing and boasting. Maybe if you get used enough to it, you too can jump right in the fray and talk smack on the way to the win.

  What do you think, is trash-talking alright counting on the situation?

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