Toxicity in League of Legends
I've been playing league of legends since like Season 3 or 4, and I've been following the game since season 2 always watching my friends play, so I would like to think I have some credentials in this. Toxicity and all the other horrid things that are spoken in League of Legends have gotten completely out of control. I remember back in Season 2 everyone was busy enjoying the actual game and not flaming the living shit out of everything on the rift. These days I can't go a single game without someone spouting some bullshit that ruins any fun I could ever have. I just came out of a game where someone had a spam macro which he used to spam the n word in champ select and endlessly spam "gg ez game" in-game. Even on smurf accounts people die once and start arguing with everyone on their team talking about how "bot lane's feeding jungler doesn't know how to play top lanes shit because he's 3 cs behind" and the whole game degrades to nothing but arguing about the stupidest shit. Sure, maybe this is just a gold, silver, bronze problem (although I know for a god damn fact it's not let's just say it is for argument sake) but even then that's a huge percentage of League of Legends players being subjected to a shit show started by some internet troll that needs some extra attention, when they really just wanted to try Kliptomy Ezreal but found out that it sacrifices damage for the extra utility but because you die once because of the surprising lack of damage everyone's now calling you "%%%got useless garbage ezreal kys" on a macro. (This is partly exaggerated but you get the point) Before before BEFORE anyone says "just mute them that's what the button is for", if you're just a casual player and you can't necessarily do anything about it then fine I guess that's really the best you can do, (also you can report these people regularly and condemn people using words like "%%%got" "kys" and "nig- I'm not finishing that word, there are legitimate gay concentration camps in Chenchnya, suicide rates don't need to get any higher because you feel bad about not being 1v5 Faker, and there are actual nazis in the US that love it every time you say the n word as a joke because it further sets back any progress made thus far.) BUT, if you're reading this and you're someone that can do something directly, it's first of all a sad excuse for you to say "I'm gonna ignore this problem because we can just hide it behind a couple of buttons", and league of legends is a platform that reaches HUNDREDS of millions of people a huge majority of which are still developing physically and mentally, and I would argue that this game has a not insignificant impact on that development. Even if it means that there are losses in players and profit and ratings of the game, I would argue that all those are worthy sacrifices to clean up this community and finally address this issue that's only getting worse day by day. Yes, this post originally started as a complaint that people can just say what they want and they don't get enough punishment for it, but as I write this post I realize I can't ignore the ramifications that these things have on the community as a whole and even beyond that in the real world. If you want to say "it's just a game", or "it doesn't matter what they say they don't mean it" or "just mute them lmao how tf is this a problem" or "this guy's just some liberal ass head that wants pc culture everywhere and 20 different gender types" after reading this, then don't worry about this this isn't for you. But for everyone else who at the very least sees the problem at hand and agrees that this left to it's own device will only get worse so we should do something, lets do that something. I honestly don't know what this "something" is, and definitely don't think that this there's a single, simple solution, or that this problem can even be fully addressed; I know for a fact that toxicity and the bullshit trolls spout is impossible to eliminate completely anywhere. But as a starting point, I think we should recognize that this isn't a normal thing to happen, and it's not natural or ok for a video game or any community for that matter. The toxicity and god awful things spoken in League has become just a part of the package, when I play Overwatch on their free weeks and someone starts flaming, someone always says "Oh it's a league player". We are so accustomed to this that we don't even flinch when someone makes a marvelous sentence like "kys you %%%got useless zac i hope your mom dies of cancer and it spreads to the rest of your family and then you get ass cancer but die in a mass shooting before the cancer gets to you and that im the one doing the shooting", in fact honestly if I saw that in a game I would applaud him for his creativity, and yes, that's fucking awful and I am most definitely part of this problem. For the average casual player, I only ask that you de-normalize the horrid things that are spoken on a daily, hourly, minute(ly?) basis, and for anyone who has a lot of power/influence (pros, streamers, rioters), honestly I don't know what more you can do I'm not in a position like that in league or anywhere in my life, but I'm sure you can think of something, anything. And I think that last sentence summarized this whole mile long post best: We need to do something, anything.
I know my ID name thing (yuNNg pANDA) makes it really hard to take me seriously, but I figured it'd be best to use my smurf to post this so I can still play this game in half assed peace. Also it's a pun because all the capitalized letters spell DAN who's my realest homie rip his account.
