TLDR:
Over work
Mentally draining/abusive workplace
harassment
(maybe intentionally) bad management practices
lack of any signs of improvement
TLDR:
Over work
Mentally draining/abusive workplace
harassment
(maybe intentionally) bad management practices
lack of any signs of improvement
There are a lot of people who are in the running for “worst people on the internet”. Neo-nazis, scammers, etc. But I think gamers take the cake for the ratio of how much awful damage they do vs how trivial their justifications.
There are a lot of people spewing toxic molten flames onto the internet, but for making molehills into murderous volcanic mountains, nobody does it like gamers.
It’s bad because of how mindless it is. 0 forethought into one’s actions, it’s so easy to send a toxic message and never think about it again, then multiply that by the reach of the influencer, and you got a swarm of pure hostility holding no substance whatsoever. It’s so powerful because it’s so careless. This applies to most - if not all - fanbases, but I imagine the immaturity of the younger audiences in gaming spaces leads to this way more easily.
Let’s not forget the anger management problems. There’s a reason “heated gamer moment” is a stereotype. Also the habitual verbal abuse that was cultured during the early days of unmoderated online gaming – fortunately that’s a bit passe now.
I remember during Gamergate there were guys boasting about how gamers were the most obsessive, driven, overly-online people who would stick to whwtever task they set their minds to monomaniacally until it was done.
And if course, in Gamergate, that task was harrassment. Again.
I think the correct term here would be “people who create parasocial relationships with random people on the internet” (I know, too big to call it a term). I have seen the same trait in many communities, where people go to insane lengths for their favourite person on the internet. Whether it be Anime community, K-pop community, hell, even some Taylor Swift fans will shock you with their fanaticism.
I do agree that such people exist in Gaming community as well, but comparing games to groups like Neo-Nazis, Scammers who are in their entirety represents the worst (like you cannot differentiate a good Neo-Nazi vs a bad Neo-Nazi or Scammer, all of them as bad), seems to me like making molehill into murderous volcanic mountains.