Fighting "Toxicity" One DM At A Time

A lot of you know John and I are currently addicted to Overwatch, the online mutliplayer battle game. Since I first wrote about it in June we've both gotten quite a bit better, learning, leveling up, watching tips videos, and generally falling headfirst into the fandom.

There's a problem with Overwatch, though, particularly as you reach the higher levels. Something gamers calls "toxicity." We'd read about it, of course, but since neither John nor I use voice chat in the game, we figured we were immune from the nastiness and bullying you hear about in discussion boards and comment sections.

John's more of risk-taker than I am, so after a few months he jumped into the harder aspects of the game: 3 on 3 battles, and even the officially ranked Competitive Play. These are where the serious players come out, and it made John feel good to hold his own with increasingly skilled teammates.

This is more John's story than mine, so I'm going to let him tell you what happened next:

"A couple weeks into playing, I was doing pretty poorly and we lost. All of a sudden, a little icon popped up on the bottom of my screen, showing I had a message from one of my teammates. That never happens. Surprised, I opened it and read, “Why don’t you learn how to aim. You suck.”

Ouch. I did my best, the other team was better, no big deal, right? But here was this random person telling me I sucked.

I'll be honest, I didn’t want to play anymore after that. I moped around, I thought about responding with something snide or mean. What, like this guy never had a bad game before? 

A day or two later I shook it off and started playing again, but sure enough, there were more angry messages. Teammates blaming me for our losses, even when I did well, or angry because of the character I chose. (The perils of being a Symmetra main.)

That's when I had a sinking thought: what if ALL private messages in Overwatch are like that? Mean, critical, lashing out? So I did a little Googling, and yeah, they are. That's pretty much all the players use the messaging feature FOR. I guess that’s what they mean when they say a game is toxic.

I decided then and there to be different. I decided that every chance I got, I would send notes of encouragement and praise to fellow players, whether they were on my team or playing against me. 

“You're a great Hanzo.”

“You killed me SO MUCH. Awesome!”

“That was unbelievable. You are so, so good.”

Just short little things, since I'm typing with a controller. A lot of times it's just an "awesome Reaper" - or whatever character they played.

The reactions were amazing, once people got past their suspicion. Everything from a simple "thanks" to returned compliments to friend requests. So many friend requests. Because NOBODY DOES THIS. When you see that message icon pop up, it’s always somebody being mean to you. That’s just the way it is. But because this small touch of kindness was so unexpected, it was so much more powerful."

Jen, jumping back in here.

John and I talked about this over lunch back at Dragon Con, about how sending a positive message in Overwatch was completely subverting everyone's expectations, and whether that was even a good thing.

"You realize just by messaging people you're making them think something bad is coming, right?" I asked. "I mean, that little ding from a DM is awful; it scares the crap out of me."

"Yes," John said, "But people only expect the message to be bad because they've only gotten bad messages, or read that they're all bad. What if they started getting good ones? What if they got so many good ones they stopped expecting DMs to be mean?"

I sat there and thought about all the times I'd already watched John lose a game in Overwatch, all angry and frustrated, then immediately message the person on the opposite team who'd killed him the most times - and tell them what a great player they were. I thought about the day I found him looking blankly at his laptop, game system off, because the first of several strangers had told him he was terrible at doing something he loved.

I sat there in that noisy food court, looking at this guy who'd made the impossibly hard choice to repay evil with good, and marveled. Sure, it's only a game. But it's more than that. It's a tidal wave of angry people lashing out in frustration, ruining people's days, hurting feelings, ostracizing and excluding behind a veil of online anonymity -  and here's my hubby, pushing back, one DM at a time.

I know most of you don't play Overwatch, but you do interact with people online. So I'm issuing a little John Challenge today, to you and to myself: Put more positive than negative into your fandoms, your tribes. Stop yourself the next time you feel like lashing out online, and instead find someone to praise. Give a little unexpected kindness. That's the best kind.

And if you do play Overwatch, let me challenge you to send out a compliment in-game this week. Bonus points if it's to someone you just lost to. (This challenge is also for me, since I've never messaged anyone before!) Let's make it a habit to send out at least one nice note every time we play. Maybe make that your signing off routine, after your last game.

It's not much, I know. It's just a drop against a tidal wave of toxicity. But drops have a way of running together, growing stronger, and forming a flood.

So pass it on.



PS. I found these memes while I was looking for a good Overwatch screenshot, and they made me LOL:

(For you non-players: Anna has healing darts in-game; she has to shoot you to heal you. :D) 

***

Now let's announce this month's art winners!

My wild card winner is: Max Martin
The winner of the Marvel Roundup print is: Wordwitch
And the winner of the Sailor Moon print is LizSie

Congrats, you three, and please e-mail me your mailing addresses!