Originial Post from an old series of mine way back when. So while this is indeed a re-post, I am doubtful anyone here saw it all those months ago and I wanted to get some frash eyes and opinions on the matter. Especially with Zwill's post here stirring up what can be done o better help the Boards community as a whole. Enjoy.

Defining “Role Model”

a person whose behavior, example, or success is or can be emulated by others, especially by younger people.

Dictionary.com

Under the above definition, what I mean is good role models having a supreme lack of presence within the League community. While there are good people here that can and should be role models, I believe they are not given enough regard or the tools needed to make why they should be looked up to apparent and accessible.

Technically you can argue that Rioters are good Role Models within League. And some of them really are, unfortunately they also have a genuine interest in acting like that. Even if all the Rioters I’ve talked to are actually as friendly as one would believe, they still have that unavoidable incentive. As well suffering from the stigma of Dev vs. Player that always crops up within a video game community, but that’s a topic for another time. So, within the realms of this discussion I’m not going to consider Rioters as appropriate Role Models, I’m sticking with us, the players.

Who is a Role Model?

Short answer: Everyone

Long answer: Anyone that has an extended and/or potent reason to be emulated. This can be a higher rank, a fun personality or some minor claim to fame like a semi-popular stream or a gameplay guide. Hell, it could even be a show of more confidence in your actions than someone else. Knowing this, the real question is: Who is a major role model? Who has a noticeable impact in the League community with their actions? (Again, not counting Rioters)

Current Major Role Models in League

While I am making an argument that there is a serious lack of Role Models within League, I am not saying there are none. Here are some examples.

• Any Professional Player
• SkyWilliams - Youtuber
• SivHD - Youtuber

The Idolization Factor and Ranked

The Idolization Factor is a paraphrased title for the correlation between impact in a certain area (in this case, skill in the game) and the innate respect given by the average person. Professionals especially stand a such better chance of being idolized by other League players due to their current position as a pinnacle of skill.

How many high rank players do you know that are good sports? How many go out of their way to help someone who’s obviously struggling out in a game? How many are good role models for in-game behaviour? There are a few!

However, there are (in my experience) infinitely more bad role models. Ones who flame for the slightest mistake, ones who will look down on lower ranks and assume a lost game on first blood, that whole song and dance.

There are many factors for this, but I’ll look primarily at an effect with Ranked play itself. (I’ve fallen victim to this myself actually.) The higher rank, and higher effort, you put into ranked the harder it is to comprehend innocent mistakes. i.e., an inexperienced player facechecks a bush that, obviously to you, had an enemy assassin in it. You may have even pinged it. However, the player still walks in and dies. To a higher ranked player this behavior is obviously intentional feeding, even when the offending player in question simply didn’t pay attention.

So what do you think happens when a higher ranked player proceeds to flame and harass lower ranked players for their mistakes? Especially if they’re connecting to even more people through other mediums like youtube and Twitch. To the higher ranked player, it can easily seem justified. And by extension, a similar situation cropping up for someone who was watching the aforementioned higher ranked player, harassment can seem easily (or at least easier) justifiable as well.

Setting an Example

The primary effect a role model has on his/her surrounding community is the example they set. For an older audience, this does very very little as they are, by default, much less impressionable than comparatively younger minds. However, that’s the thing about an incredibly age diverse playerbase. There are a lot of younger players in the League playerbase and we will always be getting more.

What example are we, as a whole, setting for new players? What effort have you as an individual made to be a good role model towards a younger audience?

My personal answer? We as a community are, to be blunt, utter shit. There are plenty of great people here, don’t get me wrong; but as far as the average voice within League goes…..not so much. There are plenty of factors leading to this that have been debated time and again, but I want to focus on one key relationship: emulation and seeding.

By Emulation I mean our natural human tendancy to copy those around us when we are in an unfamiliar situation. When in Rome do as the Romans. If we are the Romans, do you expect new/young players to act in a better or worse mindset?

By Seeding I mean the constant lowering of the bar with each new player. Here’s the rundown:

New player starts League, starts a game gets/sees flaming time and again emulation begins Another new player joins, gets affected by above player emulation begins even sooner in the game progression

We are seriously at the point where completely newer players get flamed for not knowing subtle nuances of the game like lane pushing and dragon control. Even back in Season 2! I, as a level 10-some, got flamed constantly for missing last hits when I tried ADC. I would like to think that I successfully pulled through without bringing that behaviour with me, but if that’s the ‘norm’ for new players how long before more impressionable people (i.e. younger kids) start emulating this behaviour?

Current Obstacles to Good Role Models

=========== Exhibit A) The Current Community Stigma, i.e.“White Knighting”

I’m not going to lie, this label both scares me and pisses me off immensely (so, by the way, extreme bias warning). The current league community is approaching a major stigma against positive actions, almost exclusively by overuse of labels such as this.

But that’s reserved for people who are an oppressive goody-two-shoes and/or can’t take a joke!

Yes I realize this, and that’s the intended use. But this is why this label scares me: It’s WAY too easy for this to turn into a general stigma. Imagine anytime someone saying “gl hf” someone else replies with “Super Sport over here guys, omg GG lol” and that’s the norm? It’s a joke, sure, hardy har har. But even an “innocent” joke like this, while pure in intent, puts a slight negative connotation to a display of good sportmanship.

Now imagine a good role model in today’s community. I think we can all agree they’ll be going against the grain. How many times do you think someone who’s vocally a good sport and actively helpful will be called out for “White Knighting”? The very fact that this label EXISTS goes to show where the community is at right now. (instead of, for example, just asking someone to tone it down we actually have a freaking title for it.)

=========== Exhibit B) Lack of Voice

Not everyone is going to, or able to, start a stream or youtube channel. There are plenty of people who are good sports and are generally awesome people, but there’s very little along the ways of highlighting their behaviour. Other sports go out of their way to shove pro athletes helping kids and charities in your face. Meanwhile we have relatively isolated moments such as SivHD’s Charity Event. And on that note, there’s no system to help out new players besides knowing them already. There’s no way to elevate examples of exemplary behaviour and show them to the entire playerbase.

But wait, honor….

Honor, as it stands remains too difficult to maintain with the current community participation of the system itself. Very, very few people can retain a ribbon primarily playing PvP modes.

=========== Exhibit C) Lack of Foresight

To summarize: Who should care? EVERYONE SHOULD CARE!

Our actions today affect the players of tomorrow, and if you love League as a game then you need to do what you can to make it an inviting and open experience. I’m not asking you to become a saint, but right now there just aren’t enough people speaking out for good sportsmanship and cooperation to combat the toxicity of today. We need role models that can produce an infectious good mood just as easily as a ridiculously toxic player can spread a bad one. We need a new plague.

Because everyone here contributes to this whether you want to or not. Every action you take affects nine others. Who then affect, at most eighty-one other people. Who in turn affect, at most, 729 PLAYERS IN JUST ABOUT AN HOUR AFTER YOUR GAME.

Your actions as an individual are NOT inconsequential. You ruin one person’s day, you can easily ruin 729 others within two hours if the salt is held onto. And while this is not actively going against good role models within League, it’s a reason why new ones aren’t cropping up as fast as they could be.

The Question(s)

You are, of course, not limited to these questions but are welcome to also use them as a guideline if you’re having trouble thinking of how to approach the discussion.

• What example are we, as a whole, setting for new players? What effort have you as an individual made to be a good role model towards a younger audience?
• What other societal factors can impact the new player experience? (i.e. expectation inflation via smurfing)
• Have you recently seen evidence of emulation and/or seeding of behaviour within League?
• Knowing how the community is now, do you still suggest League to your friends?
• What can you and others do to more positively affect those around you?
• What, to you, makes a good role model within League?
• What can we do to be better role models? What can Riot do to artificially encourage good role models? (i.e. refine the honor system)

Addendum

As always, you are welcome to disagree with me at any point. Especially when I do not have sources to cite. I do not claim to be 100% accurate and I will completely admit to giving opinionated statements and biased views.

gl hf