Video Game Pimp/Cyberbullying #2

A "real world" example that comes to mind is something like fraternity hazing. Of course they only haze you for a period of time and then you're a brother or w/e. Guilds in WoW to some degree operate like that. Especially higher level ones, the best on the server. There's a certain elitism in WoW. I no longer play the game but I used to quite seriously and heavily before the release of SC2. It's a little bit different than SC2 because of the aspect of smaller servers. To use another analogy, for me WoW was a lot like cyber high school. It can be very clique-ee and people around you tend to act as if because they are somebody in that small world they are somebody out in the big world. Anyway these are all secondary points. What I'm saying is a lot of people that play WoW may conceivably play it to be a part of something bigger than themselves. Sometimes the leaders that hold command over that something(raids/PvP/etc) are douche bags with all sorts of insecurities and complexes to themselves. I'm speaking hypothetically here of course, I'm sure there are plenty of nice considerate guild leaders. But just like in the real world, some people are just ignorant to how their behaviors can effect other people.

Why's all this relevant? Because "bullying" or being "used", "trolled" can only happen when you let it get to you. Of course there are extreme examples to this idea. In real life notably the lines are much more vague. But I feel like a lot of being bullied or picked on is a part of growing up. I wasn't a tremendously sociable kid in high school. in fact I mostly played WoW and socialized there. I wasn't really a staple on the bully/shit list, but on occasion I was talked down to and marginalized. Always over trivial things like gaming mostly. And sometimes it bothered me. But after awhile I guess I learned that what people say about you, or anybody else, says much more about who they are. A linch pin in the abuse of a human being like the OP described requires that the bullied allows the bully to box them in, control their behavior etc. I got the bulk of this lesson in my first year at college just from observing how people act and treat eachother. I'm not saying your friend enjoyed being bossed around or forced to farm gold, but he let it happen.

So what I want people to consider or take away from what I am saying here, are purely the implications for your own life and interactions with people. Don't let people put you into a box of conformity. They need your permission to do it. Whether its because you're a gamer, non-white, mentally/physically handicapped, LGBT, overweight, ginger, or just plain different. Exercise your will power as a person. Use your voice, and choose your own actions. People like to dump their own negative emotions on other people. It's one thing to help a friend or someone you know through a hard time in their life. But dont let them make you the hard time. A lot of people conform or passively accept being controlled and pushed around as unavoidable sad truths in their lives.That's a case of the bully winning the war. "Oh well I guess I HAVE to stay up all night and farm this gold otherwise I wont have friends or people to raid with". To your friend, this thought probably rang out in his mind as absolute truth. But really its just all a ruse. In reality an easier and less emotionally and physically draining option would be to simply find a different guild. Preferably one that didn't use him. Anyway sorry OP, for making an example of your friend but I felt the need to flesh out these points.

I've been playing more team games than I used to. A bunch of 2v2-4v4's and a fair amount of LoL. Here it's usually pretty evident when someone is pushing their negative thoughts and emotions onto other people, usually their teammate. It's almost comical to see how quickly people start to play the blame game so they're not seen as the "scrub" on the team. I personally do not care. It all comes down to MMR and luck of the draw anyway. Sometimes I'm the best on the team and we win, sometimes i'm the worst and we win, sometimes I try a new strategy and we lose(or win), pretty much anything could happen. Point being there's no reason to talk shit because it's actually irrelevant to winning. It's in a way sad, or it used to make me sad because I think everybody should just play the game out to the best of their ability. This relates to the OP because in a way when people argue, they're simply bullying one another because they're frustrated. The mor people can forgive one another for their perceived shortcomings/failures/"bad" qualities/etc, The easier working together becomes.

The initial reason or thought that spurred me to respond here was a memory of playing WoW back in highschool. Like the OP's friend I was grinding out gold on my freshly level 60 hunter. I was a bit behind the hardcore crowd at that point cause I got the game for christmas a few months after release, had school in the day yaddya yaddya. So the first thing I did was begin farming gold from NPCs so I could get my epic mount. So I heard about how the Chinese farmers made all their money farming in Tyr's hand in Eastern Plaguelands. I went there and it was all alliance members. Later one of my favorite things to do was go there and gank them as they farmed. Just now thinking about this, is this considered cyber bullying? I didn't think of it as such at the time, a good example of being ignorant to how your actions effect people. Anyway somehow I ended up in Hearthglen in WPL. There were usually three horde there, two mages AoE farming and a rogue. Over the course of about two weeks I hungout in Hearthglen with Chinese people farming virtual currency so they could eat food in real life. What ended up happening is the mages hated me because I would pull mobs into their blizzard spell after I tagged them. I'd use my volley shot too. Me and the rogue worked as a collaborative team though. Eventually we started attempting to communicate. His english was AWFUL, like passed google translator awful. But eventually we became what i'd call "friends" regardless of lack of fluent communication. Fast forward a month or so we had an open spot in our Molten Core run so I convinced my guild leader to let em come for the bosses we had on farm. He got some nightslayer armor from it. Whch was great to see cause anyone familiar with WoW gold farmers know they had basically the worst gear. It was just good enough to do their job. I dont think i'm a saint or anything for getting a Chinese kid some gear or anything, But at the end of the day I guess it felt good to pay him back for all the time I sat in his group and more than likely limited his profits to some extent.