![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradept...I can say that it was an interesting day for me today. And I didn't even leave the house. I'll forewarn you, there's probably going to be some cross words said and perhaps, even a swear word or two. It's going to be cut for the protection of those who don't want a worldview of me as an idealistic optimist (which I am!) shattered.
So I was playing Gunbound with El Shino today and some particularly cheeky child (and there's no doubt it was anything other than a child) took offense at my habit of using complete sentences, good grammar and decent spelling (hey, I get typos all the time) in the game. Apparently, I pissed him off pretty good by doing it. He started by calling me a n00b, I think, and then progressed onward to such useful designations as time-waster, bastard, douche bag, retard, and a host of others that I don't care to recall or can't remember at the moment.
And what's even better, he calls up one of his cronies to call me a retard using the person-to-person chat. (I suspect it may have been an alternate sign-in.) Shino was there for the original burst, he's welcome to add details to the situation if I'm misrepresenting them.
Now, I would normally have given him the flying boot (as I was in charge of the room), but Gunbound won't let you do it in the game. (probably for fear of abuse of that power) However, I do believe that my team 0wned him pretty good. Even if we didn't, I'm going to think we did.
The best part of this conversation is that he claims that my usage of sentence structure and grammar is going to get my account hacked. Why anyone would do something like that is beyond my capabilities to understand at the moment.
Finally getting to the part where I blast superheated steam, What The HELL is wrong with this kid? So what if a large part of the community there chooses to use chatspeak? If I want to be complete and coherent, that's my prerogative. I don't understand the "Yeah, I use complete sentences, but only in school." perspective. (The kid told me this much, basically.)
I'm sure I'm not supposed to get riled by this kid, that he was just trolling to see who gets a rise out of him, but he touched a sore spot. If you want to be "OMG Lolz!!!!one", fine, but Don't, EVER, tell me that my choice of communication is "retarded". To do that puts the title squarely on your own shoulders.
This is a frustration, because I feel that I have some justification in wanting to whack this kid with the Pointy Stick of Politeness, but I also think that I'm somehow wrong by getting aggravated by him. Game's over, sure, but this frustrates me because I see it as part of a larger social pattern.
----------------------------
That's incident number one. Incident number two comes from the latest forum that I've been hanging around, in a topic thread that I started. The setup is thus: I have used a slightly larger font-size in a part of my post to tell two squabblers to take it outside and stop cluttering my thread, since they're being off-topic. In addition, I've asked that the cut down the quotations to passages that are useful to the arguments at hand (one of them is a particularly egregious violator). And o what should appear, not from either of the combatants, but from another person:
Silveradept, shut up. Combatant W is using t3h sm@r73-n3ss, he uses quotes to back up his statements and that is better than some people in this discussion. SO SHUT UP!!! as i said Combatant W is t3h sm@r7sn3ss XD !!! *hands a medal to Combatant W* yay intelligence!
I'm not wholly sure whether or not he's serious. Too much l33t to be accidental, in my opinion. Still, this forum-goer has the audacity to tell me to be silent in a thread I've created. Lady Irony was probably standing behind him, hefting an iron bar and just waiting to smack him with it. Even if he's being somewhat facetious, he's not helping. I think that intelligence medal is a chocolate one.
So, right now I'm at the point where I want to break some bones. I'm sure that I shouldn't be letting this get to me, but at the same time, I feel like I have a justification to be a bit ticked over this sort of thing. Thus, I ask the question in the cut - If I use complete sentences in an on-line game, am I a "retard"? Should I even be annoyed at these people?
It's been a language sort of day. DRT provides a link on why schoolchildren should memorize. I happen to agree with the idea and a lot of the points presented there.
And the day started out pretty good. After all, I can't really resist the lure of the Pu. And there was a new one in
their journal today.
So I think I'll go home tonight so that I can help my grandparents (Ma's side) celebrate another anniversary of marriage tomorrow. I could probably use the break from the on-line world anyway. I'll be back, though. Training for Fall semester starts Monday.
So I was playing Gunbound with El Shino today and some particularly cheeky child (and there's no doubt it was anything other than a child) took offense at my habit of using complete sentences, good grammar and decent spelling (hey, I get typos all the time) in the game. Apparently, I pissed him off pretty good by doing it. He started by calling me a n00b, I think, and then progressed onward to such useful designations as time-waster, bastard, douche bag, retard, and a host of others that I don't care to recall or can't remember at the moment.
And what's even better, he calls up one of his cronies to call me a retard using the person-to-person chat. (I suspect it may have been an alternate sign-in.) Shino was there for the original burst, he's welcome to add details to the situation if I'm misrepresenting them.
Now, I would normally have given him the flying boot (as I was in charge of the room), but Gunbound won't let you do it in the game. (probably for fear of abuse of that power) However, I do believe that my team 0wned him pretty good. Even if we didn't, I'm going to think we did.
The best part of this conversation is that he claims that my usage of sentence structure and grammar is going to get my account hacked. Why anyone would do something like that is beyond my capabilities to understand at the moment.
Finally getting to the part where I blast superheated steam, What The HELL is wrong with this kid? So what if a large part of the community there chooses to use chatspeak? If I want to be complete and coherent, that's my prerogative. I don't understand the "Yeah, I use complete sentences, but only in school." perspective. (The kid told me this much, basically.)
I'm sure I'm not supposed to get riled by this kid, that he was just trolling to see who gets a rise out of him, but he touched a sore spot. If you want to be "OMG Lolz!!!!one", fine, but Don't, EVER, tell me that my choice of communication is "retarded". To do that puts the title squarely on your own shoulders.
This is a frustration, because I feel that I have some justification in wanting to whack this kid with the Pointy Stick of Politeness, but I also think that I'm somehow wrong by getting aggravated by him. Game's over, sure, but this frustrates me because I see it as part of a larger social pattern.
----------------------------
That's incident number one. Incident number two comes from the latest forum that I've been hanging around, in a topic thread that I started. The setup is thus: I have used a slightly larger font-size in a part of my post to tell two squabblers to take it outside and stop cluttering my thread, since they're being off-topic. In addition, I've asked that the cut down the quotations to passages that are useful to the arguments at hand (one of them is a particularly egregious violator). And o what should appear, not from either of the combatants, but from another person:
Silveradept, shut up. Combatant W is using t3h sm@r73-n3ss, he uses quotes to back up his statements and that is better than some people in this discussion. SO SHUT UP!!! as i said Combatant W is t3h sm@r7sn3ss XD !!! *hands a medal to Combatant W* yay intelligence!
I'm not wholly sure whether or not he's serious. Too much l33t to be accidental, in my opinion. Still, this forum-goer has the audacity to tell me to be silent in a thread I've created. Lady Irony was probably standing behind him, hefting an iron bar and just waiting to smack him with it. Even if he's being somewhat facetious, he's not helping. I think that intelligence medal is a chocolate one.
So, right now I'm at the point where I want to break some bones. I'm sure that I shouldn't be letting this get to me, but at the same time, I feel like I have a justification to be a bit ticked over this sort of thing. Thus, I ask the question in the cut - If I use complete sentences in an on-line game, am I a "retard"? Should I even be annoyed at these people?
It's been a language sort of day. DRT provides a link on why schoolchildren should memorize. I happen to agree with the idea and a lot of the points presented there.
And the day started out pretty good. After all, I can't really resist the lure of the Pu. And there was a new one in
their journal today.So I think I'll go home tonight so that I can help my grandparents (Ma's side) celebrate another anniversary of marriage tomorrow. I could probably use the break from the on-line world anyway. I'll be back, though. Training for Fall semester starts Monday.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-08-22 10:23 am (UTC)That's a more complex question that you might realise. First the gut reaction response: hell no. If you can articulate yourself online correctly and properly in a game environment (I'm guessing gunbound is turn based? gunbound.net is a wealth of Engrish so I can't really tell) then I can hardly see how that qualifies as retarded given that it requires more ability than l33t crap.
But anthropologists would love this sort of situation. They use the corrupted form of communication as an indicator of their group, so your use of real english marks you as not One Of Them and the greater effort involved shows that you are more capable than them or more determined to resist the pressure they were subjected to to conform to the group mode of communication. These are all things that are likely to produce negative reactions from those who do it because they want to fit in (and you're doing what they don't have the guts to do) or those who really don't know any different and see you as a threat. Effectively its harking right back to tribalism. I know the kid is wrong, but I can see several reasons why he would behave like that, even if he would otherwise be intelligent.
As for attempting to hack you, that's an old one. Generally the ones that know how to never say so and the first thing you know of them trying anything is your firewall lighting up, the rest are just noisemakers who know nothing about attacking a secure system or script kiddies who stand no cance of getting into a decent setup.
Should I even be annoyed at these people?
Is it worth the effort? For example, over on TTLG komag and I have been attempting to prove to a new member that doom 3 really does have real dynamic lighting and shadows (!!) komag even went to the effort of recording videos from the game and real life to prove the point. The target still refuses to even consider his argument has been blown out of the water. If I wanted I could go right to the top to prove the point, I could pull his posts apart at the seams. but really I can't be bothered and it almost certainly wouldn't penetrate his brain anyway. Life is too short to spend it trying to clear up after the cross-eyed knucklescapers of the world. I can find much more worthy things to direct my ire at. Like the saying goes, " Never argue with an idiot. They'll bring you down to their level and beat you with experience."
Wow. Who knew there was so much information there?
Date: 2004-08-23 12:53 pm (UTC)And I never thought about the anthropology angle on it. I'll have to file that away for use later, probably when anothr of the knuckle-draggers enters my sphere of influence. The lure of "everyone's doing it" and "this is (game), not school" must be pretty powerful.
We Todd Ed?
Date: 2004-08-22 09:47 pm (UTC)As to the other issue, I would suggest pointing out to the genius that it's A)the thread you started and B)you weren't talking to him. But only if you feel it's worth the time and effort. Alternatively, you could just ignore him.