A Reminder that Beyond the Virtual World there is a Human Being

I was just victim to some very intense verbal abuse while playing League of Legends. A game, that while I play for fun, I still try to be competitive. We were in a long game (closing in on an hour) and I was playing Maokai. At one point, a team fight erupted, it was a bad engage, so I backed out and three of us were able to escape. However, the adc and support did not like my decision. What happened after that was some of the worst verbal abuse I've ever witnessed. I'm a pretty sensitive person, and despite the fact it really should not have an impact on my life, it did. I had already had a pretty crappy weekend, and was playing a little League of Legends to have some fun. What I was met with just made my life a little bit worse... nothing like trying to play something for fun (and yes, of course I did want to win too) and instead getting called awful names repeatedly until you actually do start to feel like trash.

So, in an effort to hopefully make it better on other sensitive people like myself, this is just a reminder to everyone... you may see a maokai on the screen, but behind that computer screen is an actual human being that has feelings and deserves respect. You are not raging at a computer generated character when you type those things in the chat box, but a human. You do not know how their day has gone, you don not know how depressed they may be... think before you talk.

At the end of the day, I know some people don't like to hear it, but this is a game. A video game. So lighten up and have fun. You'll soon find that encouraging people instead of discouraging them with flaming will actually make them play better.