What is Toxicity?

SymbolicFear··3 votes·469 views

I have been playing League of Legends for a few years now, and one thing I see more than a player getting angry is other players throwing the phrase "He's just toxic" at every opportunity presented. And so I would like to discuss why this is often times not the case.

Now then, when someone says "(Player) is toxic" most people think they are just people calling their teammates bad and generally getting upset and this shouldn't be the case. League of Legends is a competitive multiplayer online game. It can and will frustrate anyone and everyone at multiple points of their time playing. So those players aren't toxic, they are frustrated, there is a very large difference. Only in extreme cases of this such as telling other players they should "kys" should this kind of chat behavior be really put into view. But telling their teammates they aren't playing right, that they suck and etc. Maybe give them a chat restriction if they go too far more than a few times every 20 games or so, cause we as players are never gonna go a month of play without getting angry at least once, but we as a majority dont flame every single game.

The truly toxic players are the ones who use homophobic, racist, and violent comments in chat directed at anyone, as well as griefing, spamming players they dont like, and intentionally feeding. These are the true toxic players. These players are not as common as the frustrated players but are not too uncommon. These kinds of players deserve instant bans or other punishments to get them to reign in their behavior at least to the minute degree.

So, moral of the story, trash talking is commonplace in a video game and it should be, but verbal harassment and threats as well as griefing are what is truly toxic.

10 Comments

0O0O0O0O00O0O0OO2 votes

'Toxicity' is just a coined buzzword that's taken foot in league. You can be banned for "toxicity" for calling somebody simply an idiot or arguing without using insulting language, so most players understand that going to the highest level of insult will result in the same punishment as that based on how the punishing system works

No other professional/popular video game has this system (csgo, hots, dota, starcraft, overwatch, ect. The most will be a mute or a few games in low prio for dota for instance, because it's a videogame. Talking trash is to videogames as to jelly is to peanut butter.

However, Riot makes a ton of money on people buying exp/ip boosts to relevel in order to play ranked and play at an equal level as other people with multiple rune pages/every champ. (None of these other games have this system either to play the ranked system) which ties in to the insane frequency of bans for trivial reasons in my theory.

Toxicity is ruining a game or trolling, not a meany word that can be stopped with a single mute button.

(all IMO of course)

HalcyonDweller1 votes

The line between trash talk and verbal harassment is thinner than you might think. It's important to be careful not to cross that line while playing the game.

SymbolicFear2 votes

Oh no, I know how thin it is. As you can see in an above reply I stated as much to a guy who is basically complaining about how he doesn't deserve a suspension on his account for being "frustrated" yet with the words he used its obvious he was excessive and was deserving.

Walkievili1 votes

Exactly oh my god a normal person, i just said that 2 days ago to riot because i got my first suspension for being really frustrated in a game. I am not a toxic player like you point here. In the game i was pointing out mistakes from my allies and telling they suck major dick and that they should improve, they really made me frustrated. Do you agree with me that i should have not been suspended for that one game? Because i agree 100% with you

SymbolicFear3 votes

I am unable to agree with you here, as I cannot see the chat logs. But I get frustrated from time to time and I haven't been banned since season 4. You had to have went too far with the "frustration" it can be understood, but doesn't require repetitive reminders, when I get frustrated these days, I say this person is not helping and is being a problem for the rest of us, then the rest of the game I point out things for that person to take into consideration. I do not tell them "you suck major dick" as to me, thats a bit excessive and does lean more towards toxic flaming than frustration.

The Whamboozler1 votes

I fail to see how the exact definition of the word toxic really matters dude. The community is kinda awful all-around no matter what label or buzzword we hang on it. That is the real problem.

SymbolicFear1 votes

It doesn't matter in a lot of cases, I am just tired of people doing the general thing as stated above with the word toxic and even others like racist. Someone made a comment about EUW always flamed them and that they specifically annoyed him, so a random person began having a full scale arguement over it. I just posted this here to give a general thing about using correct terms when you label people. "Toxic" is just the most common word in this community and seemed to serve the best example.

The Whamboozler1 votes

Well I would agree... to a point. But the common way the word is used tends to kinda define it more than it's technical definition. In this case, people aren't really mis-using the word... it's been used for what you're talking about a million times over. They're more watering down it's meaning into nothing more than another toothless, unfounded accusation to throw at each other.

It might have meant something more specific once, but by this point toxic basically means "Someone who did something I didn't like".

Sardaukar1231 votes

it varies from one person to another. so you should get the answer from the owners of the game really. cause only their opinion matters in this case.

SymbolicFear1 votes

In all honesty, nobody's opinion matters in this case. Doesn't mean we don't have the right to give it.

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