Most people familiar with playing their shooters online are also accustomed to extreme anger. I am not talking about the rage that you feel when your hot pocket didn’t cook all the way through the first time; I’m talking about pure carnal rage towards another person for besting you in a competition. Online shooters are a competition. They pit folks against each other to see who is better, and which team wins. Some people deal with their own egos with wild boasting that borders on narcissistic. They don’t even have to be doing well with a particular game, or even in a match within that game to have that “in your !$#@% face” mentality. It just takes one kill. Then you spiral out of control with the taunting and someone retaliates with a hurt sense of pride.
I can tell you about one 13 year old who will not be trash talking any longer. That is because a man, through the dead of night, came crashing through his door due to a bout of name calling. Okay, so maybe I doctored that up to make it sound cooler. In reality though, a 13 year old was playing Call of Duty: Black Ops with a man online (presumably someone he knew in person), Mark Bradford, a 46 year old man-child from England, came storming over to the teen’s house and grabbed his throat in a move that can only described as “Simpson-esque.” The mother of the boy had to drag the rabid adult off of the child who suffered no more that a few scratches.
“It wasn’t malice. I just grabbed him. I’ve seen him since and apologized. The injuries weren’t that bad but I do regret it,” Bradford told the court Thursday.
I trash talk when necessary. As a girl gamer, I do not usually have my voice out there on the internet for all the creepers of the world to hear. Occasionally, when playing alone, I will lash out at someone who trash talks..really only when they are losing but say I am terrible since I am assuming they did not think that girls could play video games. I do not agree with unfair advantages. I think that this 46 year old man-boy had a huge advantage knowing where his competitor lived. Intimidation. He tricked him with that whole ‘friendly adult’ ruse and then BAM – he did not know what hit him.
This teaches a true lesson to a little of every bit of our audiences. Children: adults are a lot more hardcore than you give them credit for, and they will kick your ass without fear of imprisonment. Adults: perhaps strangers are not whom you should be keeping your children from, or maybe just stop letting them make friends with adults.
