Journey Past the Tilted Mountains / How I Learned to Deal With Toxicity

Little Bit of backstory; I had quit League altogether some time ago, and was honestly never planning on coming back, when an old friend I hadn't had any contact with in a while called me up and asked me if I wanted to play (They hadn't seen me since back when I was an active player, and don't typically hit the boards, so they didn't know). After hearing about a bunch of changes to champions, and declining several requests to play, my curiosity got the better of me, and I reinstalled and queued up for some normal games, which went pretty well overall. Then I was abruptly reminded of one of the main reasons I left when some disgruntled malcontent started raging like we'd just shot their mother, over some random thing or other too petty to remember a week later. Flashbacks ensued, and my mood was ruined.

I hit the boards wondering whatever happened to my old farewell post. Sure enough it'd been commented on by well-wishers and riddance-sayers alike. I tried posting an update, hoping I could startup a discussion and maybe get either some tips for dealing with toxins (short for toxic players), or maybe even convincing some more problematic individuals to smarten up. Honestly I never got any tips I was willing to use, and if any toxins were moved, they sure didn't say it. I was seriously considering quitting all over again within a week. I decided to take a look at the rest of the boards and get a "feel" for how the community is these days, and sure enough, core issues still remain. Anything posted about issues like toxicity immediately turns into a vote-war and a back-and-forth of replies between people supporting the same old arguments, or new, equally biased opinions backed by the "well it works for me so f you" mentality (when it doesn't basically get swept under the rug, so to speak), and nothing ultimately gets done. It even got to the point I was starting to feel rather heated myself while posting, and then a saying from an old friend hit me;

"You're not interacting with PEOPLE online; you're interacting with whatever they're choosing to emulate at that moment."

Then it clicked; most of the more toxic individuals I run into usually fired off the same core set of overused, copied from elsewhere insults. Things like "trash", "uninstall", etc. The more creative toxins were usually just trying to be funny while disrespectful (probably so they could post their "wit" on youtube or something), or flexing their "Skills" in the wrong mode (don't ask, I don't know why they'd treat unranked like it was ranked either), and the over-the top outliers were just chain-spamming whatever horrible things they could think to say in their mentally reduced state (let's face it, that's usually all rage is), treating things like outright racism and threats like score multipliers for some game only they were playing.

So today I took an approach I thought I'd never take; I treated everyone like THINGS, instead of PEOPLE. I'm actually kind of sad how WELL THIS WORKED. By mentally taking a moment to mark everyone else's opinions, comments, feelings, etc. as worthless, or invalid, I actually enjoyed the game quite a bit more. I've spent my whole life up to now trying to be things like upfront, empathetic, etc. and I tried to carry that over to my online interactions. Sure I paid for it time to time, but I was never outright battered as a result of it like what tends to happen when actively playing League. I've given up trying to understand why it happens like that here, or what logic might be driving it, because even when I do, there's no "solution"; toxic people just refuse to be anything else.

Now a lot of that unused advice suddenly makes sense; just in a different light than I originally interpreted. You don't have to refuse to value the person, as an individual. You don't have to treat them like non-existent hallucinations that can be seen but aren't real. You just need to understand that no, they're not acting the same as they would if they were sitting next to you, and no, they don't care about you either way, good or bad, because they're not all there, only whatever they're emulating, be it a stereotype, an image they want to portray, or a collection of memes they're fond of. They're operating at reduced/restricted empathy because they're behind a monitor. It makes no sense to me, but that's just how folks are.

That really made it easier to "not take things personally", and increased my enjoyment of these last few games (yes, there were toxins in a number of them that got reported) exponentially. Instead of detailing the offenses in excruciating detail, hoping for the incredibly rare instant feedback message, to show you that RIOT might ACTUALLY be listening, and being disappointed when it doesn't show up, just check the correct boxes and off it goes. After all, the fact I haven't been permabanned, deemed Hitler II, fined for "wasting people's time" (always thought that one was ironic, being that they're playing a game when their time was "wasted" XD), etc. kinda proves that RIOT's paying enough attention to know toxins reporting me for all of the above during their meltdowns are full of it, now doesn't it?

Hope this helps folks having issues with toxins like I did, and gl all.

P.S. No, I didn't start "inting" or doing stupid, trolly things because "I don't care lulz", I just stopped caring when other people do.