Boards›Player Behavior

Words only hurt you because you allow them to hurt you.

Warlord Rhinark·5/7/2018, 10:09:47 AM·11 votes·4,208 views

This is just a friendly reminder before you report anyone for being racist, sexist, homophobic, or just a general nuisance.

Just remember what these people are doing.

They're not threatening you in anyway. They're not menacing you with a knife or holding you at gunpoint.

No.

All these people are doing is just pressing their fingers on a keyboard.

Your only reason to be offended by what they type is because you want to be offended by what they type.

I genuinely believe that the problem of toxicity lies not in the people saying bad words, but in the people taking offense to those same words.

But this is all just my opinion though. Feel free to post your own thoughts about what you get offended by and why you think you get offended by them.

(Also, just to clarify, this is not a "Support toxicity" post. I too believe the game would be better off without it. I just think people are taking these allegedly "toxic people" a bit extremely.)

95 Comments

Chermorg5/7/2018, 10:48:45 AM13 votes

People play League to have fun, not to have insults thrown at them. Insults are not insulting because the recipient sees them that way - something is either insulting or not.

Arisha the Dark5/7/2018, 10:18:40 AM10 votes

Disagree. Just because words don't hurt you, doesn't mean you should be allowed to harass people all you want. I don't know where you from, but where I from if you are in a train and you start telling random people that they are idiots, you will be escorted out of that train and probably entire metro station.

It's called rules of proper behaviour. And yes, if you keep harassing people in that same metro, you will get arrested and won't be allowed to go into that metro. In this game it's getting banned.

Gabresol5/7/2018, 10:52:36 AM7 votes

You literally sign a agreement with riot when creating your account stating that your behavoir follow the summoner code.

This is like gettinf fired for stealing from your office and then go to yourt saying "The company is too big to get hurt by my stealing toilet paper, pens, printing cartridges, keyboards and so on."

When you break your side of the agreement, players are supposed to inform riot, because they are then allowed to revoke their side of the agreement of letting you play their game!

deathgod55/7/2018, 10:34:00 AM7 votes

The problem is we don't really decide what offends us in many situations.

For example:

If you are black and grew up next to a house of kkk members, the N word will most likely offend you. If you were sexually assaulted and somebody insists to tell you all the rape jokes he knows, it will offend you and maybe remind you of a trauma. If you were thrown out of your house because your parents didn't want to live with a gay person; people using the f*g word will most likely offend you.

Please note while this doesn't have to be true, but if things like this recently happened, people will often get mad by these words.

There was a post on these boards a year or so ago where a person wanted his account unbanned because he snapped in a game. He snapped because somebody made fun of his mother, she just happened to have died that day and he snapped because of this. Insults of this level can just offend people.

Insults on that level can actually trigger people(not the version that many people of the internet claim, the actual PTSD flashbacks).

As for lower level insults:" you suck, you are terrible, you are noob, etc". I agree with you here, people get mad too easily. Just mute and move on and if you think they are genuinely not trying anymore because of the type wars, I report them. I only report those if I feel that they stop other people from playing by getting them into typing wars.

Edit : the answer I agree with part of this post is not between these answers, so I can't vote for that one, sorry.

La Belle Sauvage5/8/2018, 2:35:14 PM6 votes

I'm an adult who hold a excellent job and I've been married to the love of my life going on 20 years. By no means should anything typed in chat or posted here should bother me. Mostly because all of you are faceless strangers on the internet.

And sure a majority of the time nothing much bothers me since I'm secure in who I am and because I'm in a loving relationship.

Yet, sometimes I do get mad. Because, I'm human and every now and then words, from anyone who directs them at me, can offend me.

That's how the human race works on a super simplified scale. We exchange ideas and thoughts and the further away those words, ideas, thoughts are from our morals, cultural norms, and expectations of what is considered proper behavior, is what drives most of us to offense.

When any of us say we are not offended publicly on a board or in a chat all we are really saying is "I'm not getting into it with you here".

That's why the report system is in place and is a good idea.

And by the way words and phrases like Kill yourself, %%%%%%, slut, whore, Bitch, %%%%, and dick, and so on, are meant to be offensive, independent of the person.

If I write "fuck you", I mean it to be offensive. It's obvious I mean it that way too.

Your premise is a large rationalization that the problem is with the person on the receiving end of an offensive word or phrase. Which I disagree with.

Worst you seem to say that only physical threats are valid. That's laughable too. "They're not threatening you in anyway. They're not menacing you with a knife or holding you at gunpoint."

Show me a person who truly is unaffected by words all the time, "✓who has a disregard for and violation of the rights of others" (like your premise) and I'll show you you a person who loosely exhibits some of the aspects of a sociopath.

✓ paraphrased and taken out of context from: "https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/conditions/antisocial-personality-disorder"

Kei1435/7/2018, 2:07:30 PM5 votes

Sometimes I report not because i am offended, but more of the act of defending others and wanting to clean up the community as i know what is said can be highly offensive to others.

Arammus5/7/2018, 3:30:48 PM3 votes

im from austria. the amount of times ppl call me nazi is unbelievable. i dont care at all i laugh about it... i still report it. because IF they get a ban, i laugh even harder :D

SkaiBlade5/8/2018, 4:01:12 AM3 votes

It's not about whether it hurts, it's the intention to hurt that I report. "The attempt is punishable".

breakordoom4445/8/2018, 11:26:53 PM2 votes

You can't force people to take things less seriously or encourage them, people have the right to be offended.

let's say you are black, will you be happy if i call you a N***er offensively? let's say you are part of the LGBT community, will you be happy if I called you a "gay whore"? and a couple of things that keep on going.

I agree with your title, words only hurt if you want them to. even if flaming wasn't bannable, it only makes your team mad at you and could potentially lose you the game.

Pika Fox5/7/2018, 3:37:30 PM2 votes

While it is true that these words and actions only have power if you let them and theres something to be said for constanly overreacting against pure words to give them more strength and power, it doesnt make it acceptable behavior. You can nullify the persons power and make their efforts worthless by not responding to them, but they still dont deserve to play LoL.

This Is Your Dad5/8/2018, 8:55:52 AM2 votes

Can I turn it back on you and ask, "If I'm not supposed to get offended by these comments, why are you making them?" Calling me a racial slur and telling me to drink bleach serves no purpose outside of trying to upset me. So we hit a wall: "How dare you get offended by the words I am attempting to offend you with!"

Sir Prepuzius5/8/2018, 3:09:17 PM2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Warlord Rhinark,realm=EUW,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=urmNwZf0,comment-id=,timestamp=2018-05-07T10:09:47.122+0000)

Your only reason to be offended by what they type is because you want to be offended by what they type.

what?

I genuinely believe that the problem of toxicity lies not in the people saying bad words, but in the people taking offense to those same words.

uh?

when i play and i'm focused and i wanna win, the last thing i need is my own teammate putting me down/harassing/flaming/insulting/ whatever

i just don't want any shit from someone i don't even know, when i'm trying my best at having fun.

i don't need a 14 yo telling me i'm noob or i have to kill myself, am i at fault because that annoyes me? really?

HalcyonDweller5/8/2018, 7:51:42 PM2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Warlord Rhinark,realm=EUW,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=urmNwZf0,comment-id=,timestamp=2018-05-07T10:09:47.122+0000)

I genuinely believe that the problem of toxicity lies not in the people saying bad words, but in the people taking offense to those same words.

I think that both of these are wrong actually. It comes down to the intent of the people saying the things. You could call me a cuddlypuff cutie or something horrendously offensive. Neither will offend me if I know you're joking. Meanwhile both would offend me if I knew your only intent in saying them was to ruin my day or make me feel crappy.