The Emo Kid, Troll, and Hacker in All of Us

The word "whore", in of itself, is not offensive. I believe this to be an inarguable fact. If you disagree, well then you must have a very different, warped definition of the word. Good article Tricky. Keep 'em coming.

Play for like 2 hours and this is really stupid and not even close to being clever.

no offense to Klepek, but Drach sounds totally full of shit. if ForumWarz is legitimate social commentary that holds a mirror to certain online behaviors merely by profitting off of them and enabling them to the Nth degree, then so is Farmville.

and as someone who has played through most of the story (before they started charging laughable amounts of money to continue it), I just have to say that "bad" ending might have been a little more convincing if every single plot point or character interaction wasn't dripping with that exact same nihilistic, exclusionary, heteronormative twang. I wonder if Drach would be willing to tell me what the "good" choice is when you have to attack the 2chin Fat Acceptance Forums in order to proceed -- immediately delete your account and pretend you never found the website?

and don't get me wrong, i have few problems with people who make money off of this kind of antisocial dreck (sup Hollywood!), but the ol' "no, it's a CRITIQUE, because I just used that word to describe it" excuse is getting really, really exhausting.

if you need to pay a premium price to actually get to the moral center of your story, then I fail to see how it succeeds by any stretch of the imagination as a respectable critique. you're just upcharging people for sanctimony.

Forumwarz? Oh I get it, because stereotypes are funny when they aren't racist!

edit: so does this mean that Patrick has turned into the biggest troll on GB? His articles always spark controversy. lol

@Animasta said:

so you said Somethingawful was good, but have you checked their GB thread? so much tricky hate :(

All pretty much justified. I'm sure he's used to it by now.

What happened to Camwhore in the title?

I can't believe Patrick said whore!

Cool story, but the message the developer was going for didn't seem to be a very strong critique at all.

@Luthorcrow: "(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous." -George Orwell (Politics and the English Language, 1946)

By all means, troll as much as you want, but please leave Orwell out of it. He deserves far better than misrepresentation for the sake of bland, ineffectual snark.

@Bocam said:

Yo, Adachi what do think about all this?

I love that this is filed under "Troll"

It eventually comes down to everyone (in totality) treating the internet as if it's no different than the average model life in reality. That "finding out what works" just really means ebbing in flowing through different social events, trends, norms -- until finally we accept and move past the realization that yes we're (partly) anonymous and that this tool we have to interact should really evolve past it's technical quirks where it just breaks down to just an ultimate form of communication.

Then everyone can try their best at being just like they are in real life, minus the role play and acknowledgment of the 'anonymous ego and self'.

@DukeT said:

The word "whore", in of itself, is not offensive. I believe this to be an inarguable fact. If you disagree, well then you must have a very different, warped definition of the word. Good article Tricky. Keep 'em coming.

Please explain how the word is not offensive.

I first heard about this game on the Kingdom of Loathing podcast a few years ago. If you've ever hung around the more terrible corners of the internet then some of the parody of 4channers and the like is pretty funny.

It's worth noting here that the character class with the name causing such a kerfuffle here is, like all the other characters, a troll. It's not just a girl taking sexy pics, its a person posting them in completely innappropriate and unasked for places. Like forums for grandparents and car repair FAQ's. The same as the emo kid posting his awful poetry in those same places.

Whether we like it or not that's a very common term for that type of trolling, and the official name for the character class in the game.

Moving on, I feel like forumwarz really nailed the look feel and humor they were going for. Mechanics are pretty dull but it's worth looking at for a bit at least.

I don't think they snapped a picture of anything but very obvious cycles of life. The young immature audience will act out in immature ways on the internet. They made a site where you either get the same sort of young person acting as they always do - or you get adults who know better but roleplay that youthful persona for fun or just to vent. This isn't some revolutionary social commentary. It's just human nature.

I really don't see why anyone would play the game when they can just do it on any real forums with real reactions. Heck, a good enough troll on popular enough forums can even attain meme fame while trolling in forum warz isn't going to get you e-famous like so many trolls seem to desire.

All this arguing over Klepek's diction has to be some crazy meta joke right? Like everyone posting is emulating typical posts that would appear on the the ForumWarz site, right? Right!?!? The video comments were getting bad but I didn't think their ilk made it to the written portion of of the site yet.

intriguing

@LifeasClarity said:

@Luthorcrow: "(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous." -George Orwell (Politics and the English Language, 1946)

By all means, troll as much as you want, but please leave Orwell out of it. He deserves far better than misrepresentation for the sake of bland, ineffectual snark.

You do realize calling me a troll on discussion of Forumwarez, is well, a bit ironic, don't you?

I noticed a few people asking, "So what?" Well, it's true that we're all familiar with these issues, but does that mean they aren't worth exploring? Even if the problems are obvious, they are problems that need fixing. I don't believe anything can be improved by ignoring it.

As for trolling, what bothers me is how it fosters this attitude that either everyone agrees or someone is just trying to be disruptive. People start dismissing legitimate concerns and prevent any kind of meaningful dialogue. Other times someone will respond to a troll with a good point, one worth considering, but nobody will respond to that person because they assume that person is a fool for being "trolled."

Yeah, the internet is full of stupid shit, and often in good fun. That doesn't mean there's no room for an intelligent discussion. Honestly, I think that's the appeal of Something Awful. There's layers upon layers of stupid shit and in-jokes there, but the forums also have some of the most constructive and insightful threads on the internet.

@Make_Me_Mad: On those grounds then yes I can agree.

Hey, Patrick. Dunno if you'll see this, but I like where this kind of stuff is going. I do agree with a few people here that this article felt a little incomplete. If you were looking to do a cultural profile on Forumwarz and its creator, it would have been nice to see the game from the community perspective. When Drach said that the same handful of people kept showing up on the forums, that popped up as a potential source in my mind. We have Drach's opinion, which is great, but it seems to me that, being a game about community interaction, the article calls for more than just his perspective.

It's not my place to tell you how to write your articles, obviously. Just thought I would offer my constructive criticism. Keep up the good work!

@sephirm87 said:

@Make_Me_Mad:

In a way, you're right, but the anonymity of the internet allows people to see how shitty people really are at their core. It is more honest, but it is also more shitty, which says very bad things about our culture.

What "culture" exactly? I don't get how some people still think the "internet" is some kind of other world or dimension.

By now nearly everybody in the civilized world and large parts of the third world use the internet on a nearly daily basis, if there is an opinion of something out there you probably gonna find it on the internet.

And as such the internet is not an separate "culture", it's an mirror of our real physical world and it's inhabitants. Complete with their stupid and artificial opinions and annoying behavional paterns. Because most of us still use the internet only to support our jaded view of the world instead of using it to communicate or discover new things.

And as such, there are no "shitty people", only misunderstandings and different state of minds ;)

Btw: I like those guys, their new game "iCapitalism" seems like an solid sale and like an pretty good parody on the current "gaming culture"

Would have loved for Apple to approve that thing just to follow how much cash they could rake in. Imho it's also an pretty great social parody, maybe even better then forumwarz.

@Butler said:

All this arguing over Klepek's diction has to be some crazy meta joke right? Like everyone posting is emulating typical posts that would appear on the the ForumWarz site, right? Right!?!? The video comments were getting bad but I didn't think their ilk made it to the written portion of of the site yet.

yes, people are purposefully trolling here for the irony.

@Levio said:

@Butler said:

All this arguing over Klepek's diction has to be some crazy meta joke right? Like everyone posting is emulating typical posts that would appear on the the ForumWarz site, right? Right!?!? The video comments were getting bad but I didn't think their ilk made it to the written portion of of the site yet.

yes, people are purposefully trolling here for the irony.

I'm just getting old I guess. This irony seems wasted and not even worth it. I guess I should get off the internet and tell those kids to get off my lawn.

@Nethlem said:

@sephirm87 said:

@Make_Me_Mad:

In a way, you're right, but the anonymity of the internet allows people to see how shitty people really are at their core. It is more honest, but it is also more shitty, which says very bad things about our culture.

What "culture" exactly? I don't get how some people still think the "internet" is some kind of other world or dimension.

You clearly don't understand the concept of "our internet" and the "other internet".

Go to 4chan and tell me that isn't another fucking dimension.

@Nettacki said:

@Nethlem: iCapitalism actually seems like a crappy app simply because it's also a crappy parody. At least, going by most of the comments.

It's funny how you equal my statement of "just to see how cash they can rake in" with "it's an great game!"

How about you read up on the game instead of judging on comments? It's not an complicated game at all, you pay money and jump up on a leaderboard, top guy gets to set a message that every player can read.

Bam, it's stupid and useless on the most basic level, but if the thing would get approved i'm sure they would get an playerbase going.

Watching that would have been awesomely funny as an "proof of concept" as to how simple minded people are.

@Octaslash: There is no "our internet", there simply is "the internet". How you interpret what you see/do there is up to you and not somebody else. There are "worse" sites out there then 4chan and even the content on 4chan is only "human created" and can never be as bad as some of the real "bad" things happening on this planet that have nothing at all to do with the internet. Before 4chan there had been b0g.org or rotten.com and dozens of others. The "worst" of them are usually not even that popular/known.

I'm pretty sure there are some hefty russian/chinese/indian/arabic writing internet communities out there too.

But even all this combined doesn't equal even remotley the pain, suffering, horror and despair that dominates most parts of the real world.

The internet is just as localized as the real world, depending on location you can and will end up in an different "culture" with an different context and different "rules".

And as such it's more like an "open thought space" where convential rules in terms of "morals", "ethics" are can't be universaly accepted in the same way by everybody. Because they are simply not as "universal" and "easy" as some people like to think.

I played ForumWarz quite a bit, it's really quite amazing. After you play that game for a while, and then go to real forums, you come to a conclusion.

The forums in that game aren't exaggerated. No internet, you are the forumwarz.

Also, lol @ the camwhore thing. This is exactly what I meant. It's almost too perfect.

@R3DT1D3 said:

I really don't see why anyone would play the game when they can just do it on any real forums with real reactions. Heck, a good enough troll on popular enough forums can even attain meme fame while trolling in forum warz isn't going to get you e-famous like so many trolls seem to desire.

Because you're missing the point. The point isn't "LOL IM TROLLING FAKE FORUMS SO FUNNI".

Just try the game. It's good.

I am thoroughly enjoying this, uh, game.

It's ill and real, catch my drift?

I am occasionally ashamed of unabashed gamerism!!!

I may be the only one feeling this way, although that would be odd... People who troll on the internet are also assholes in real life, at least most of the time. The troll-scare these days seem to suggest that people are more civilized out in the physical world. Are they? Really? I'm not so sure.. Take teens, as an example; When I grew up back in the 80s and 90s, bullies and assholes were not uncommon. Out of a class of 30, at least 3 of the boys were complete asshats, and that seems to be a way higher percentage than what we see on the internet. If we expect civilized behaviour equal to what we see in our everyday lives (by that I mean the fictitious asshole-free reality people seem to live in) we will either need to ban everyone below the age of 24'ish (most the people under 24 are just fine, but the vast majority of trolls are in that age group as well, you kinda lose the need for attention as you grow up) or we need to accept that playing with kids means someone will call you by your childhood name, "Fucking Nerd Fuckhead!"

The most important thing regarding trolls is to just ignore them. As has been said forever: Don't feed the trolls.

The responsibility lies on non-trolls to class up the interwebs. We can never change other people. Least of all assholes.