PAX East 2014: Why Internet Jerks Aren’t Going to Win, And You Can Help

@scaramoosh: Dude, not cool.

Great talk, with some interesting findings from each. Especially the depersonification comments from Zoe.

My only caveat is that I've always interpreted the Don'tReadComments twitter account and PopSci's ban of comments to not be just because of asshole trolls, but because comments are filled with the least interesting and most extreme opinions, provoking pointless argument between committed poles instead of interesting discussion. I don't think all those people yelling about Obama the traitor on any tangentially political article are trolls trying to rile people up for their own entertainment. They're deadly serious, which is sad for different reasons.

Extremes dominating any large comment section and turning it into a flame war is bad on its own, but it's a separate problem from the harassment that you're usually talking about.

Really great panel. I especially enjoyed Zoe's portion.

"Asshole Ouroboros" is not the same as a human centipede. Still scary, but not the same thing. At all. Trust me.

Also, this was rad and I dig it. I have lifelong friends that have always been amazing people to me and others in real life but have become complete pieces of shit to other people on the internet. Imma show them this and hope they get it.

@fallen189: I think about this and forgiveness a lot. It's easy to make dumb choices and to be compelled by emotions so strong that you can't resist. If everyone was in complete objective control of themselves 100% of the time with perfect information about the world there would be no such thing as regret in hindsight and we would all make good decisions. I think about hypocrisy a lot too. If a person addicted to cigarettes tells you not to start not to be heeded because it's hipocritical or does that person just have the hindsight that yes nicotine addiction is serious and real and lung cancer is no joke. What's important is that Patrick acknowledged his mistake corrected himself which is difficult. A lot if times the chemicals in our brains make us rationalize bad choices in the moment but questioning those choices is important and Patrick did that. Nobody is perfect and everybody makes mistakes and everyone is damned forever if that isn't acknowledged. The point of human growth and development is working to correct these mistakes and it's slow. You might say that Patrick as a public figure should be held to a higher standard but I disagree. We should all show our weaknesses because having weaknesses is human nature and so much of media is a manufactured perfection that has no basis in reality. A lot of what giant bomb is is about the 'realness' of everyone at it. Vinny and Jeff and brad and Patrick and Ryan and rorie and drew are all real people that express thier own personalities and there's nothing more 'real' than showing yourself at your weK moments and acknowledging them afterwards. I meant this to not have an aggressive tone so sorry if it sounded agressive. Thanks for asking your question because I've been thinking about these things a lot lately

This was a good listen.

@patrickklepek:

Well good enough place to start, Patrick I don't read many of the news articles posted on this site but of the ones I do read, yours have been very well written, and usually very interesting. I ended up watching bananasaurusrex's entire 8 hour spelunky run, I don't even really like spelunky.. No idea why. I appreciate what your doing, along with everyone else on the Giant Bomb crew. Keep doing what your doing.

The internet seems like nothing, but a hopeless vacuum of negativity nowadays, but meaningful discussions like this make me feel hopeful. Great panel Patrick and Zoey.

Great job, I'm someone who never comments on things and it got me thinking I should start pushing a bit more positivity out into the comments world

Here, here Patrick. That was inspired. People need to be less insecure about themselves, and not troll anonymously behind a veil to vent their opinions so they can feel a slight bit of happiness. Relax people. And to all the 13 year olds who most likely post offensive comments. Grow up. Or wait until you've matured before using the internet.

Absolutely loved this talk and I'm sharing it wherever I can. Thanks for posting this Patrick. Oh, and for the talk too. You and Zoe killed it.

Great job! You both made fantastic points and I hope that it helps make an impact.

I don't recall ever being too big of a jerk on the internet....but I am definitely an asshole in real life.

The internet to me seems decent enough and understanding that shitty part of it helps. I mean when we say "12 year old on the internet" / "trolls" we are actually secretly hoping that is truly the real case right?

On the other hand real life is full of real shittiness and true ugliness (not everything of course!) that lashing out seem...I hesitate to say it, but more of an appropriate response?

I like how a year or two ago literally nobody knew who Zoe Quinn was and now she's everywhere with one fairly notable text-adventure thing under her belt. She seems insightful and cool, so I'm totally fine with it...just seems like her reputation as a game designer may be a little premature or overblown so it makes her perspective on those design-related things a little...odd. But for community/internet etiquette topics like this, I guess she's a perfect fit so that's great.

Dear Zoe Quinn,

Watching this video, I think you dyed your hair since you were on that Giant Bomb GDC panel recently. Right? I say this because I'm now positive I saw you in line to pick up your badge on Friday at PAX East, but I was too unsure it was you to come up and say hi. Truly, you are a chameleon.

Sincerely,

BisonHero

@mormonwarrior: Depression Quest isn't the only thing she's made, it just blew up and got her well known. She's made a ton of games.

@fallen189: They mention this in the talk at the end

@dark_lord_spam said:

No. I used "we" because clearly nothing catastrophic happened when there were dicks using the internet in the early 2000s. Society hasn't devolved into anarchic chaos. Our economy, social structure, military and every facet of humanity continues to function with or without jerks, both online and off.

Everyone wants to have their cake and eat it too. Well, guess what? The world doesn't work like that. You choose to engage in social media with your real identities, be it to make a living or to enhance your quality of life, and yet you do so with the expectation of protection. You're asking for too much here. Everyone needs to learn that the world is never kind. Humanity is here because we are the dominant predators; we take advantage of any form of weakness. The moment you display this weakness, which in today's context is unnecessary information, is the moment you're allowing yourself to be preyed upon.

I love the calm way that this panel was done. I cannot imagine any other way that it would have happened since it was with Patrick and Zoe. It was not inflammatory and simply called out a way for people to make the internet a better place. I have been lucky for the most part on YouTube and maybe that is because I follow people who have small audiences.

It seems to me that until a certain point the internet is like going to see a local band. The only people that show up are people who love the band. It is a lot harder to be the one person shouting "boo" in a crowd of 20 people. I would be fascinated to see if there is a tipping point where the hateful comments start showing up.

Thats a great presentation Patrick. I saw you do the TedX version, but it had no less and possibly more impact this second time i experienced it. The humility shown in admitting the mistakes you've made during your own internet discourse gives you an extra level of credibility that makes the presentation more powerful. You arent just preaching, you are expounding wisdom from experience. That is the difference between telling, and teaching. A distinction that is founded on intent and comprehensible by all who were open to your message.

This is what i title your talk in my memory castle.

"Haters gonna hate.....dont be a hater" - by Patrick Klepek

Pass along my cheers and a big fuzzy "great job" to Zoe if you read this. Im always rooting for her.

It is a pretty significant one, but damn the story in that "game" (hate doing that since it's fun for what it is and I'm a big MGS fan but GZ is pretty rough) is so bad, in hindsight it doesn't feel so bad. Like when I realized it I was just like ".......fucking Kojima. ugh." and just disgusted how stupid it was and how much of it shit show that became because of it.

Great talk!

From what I understand, having not played it, it isn't even the placement of the device that's the problem; it's just a fucking pure unrefined deus-ex machina. It's just a spoiler for probably the worst-written moment in the whole game.

Maybe kids should learn at school how to communicate on the internet just like people have to learn how to use other forms of communication (business letters and phone calls for example). You know, become aware of consequences.

But I do stand my ground, it is an impulsive form of communication so no amount of law or consequence is going to change its nature. These things will exist en masse and we'll have to look at it for what it is, the unfiltered thoughts of a person that you would normally, probably, not hear in a real life conversation.

The very best we could wish for is for acting dumb, sarcasm and being overly mean to go out of fashion. And that will happen. So in that sense, better times await us. And the novelty of being able to say a lot of things on the internet that you cannot say someplace else will wear thin. In that sense I do expect a part of the internet to 'grow up'.

Well done Patrick and Zoe. I think it was a good idea focusing on making the internet a more positive place rather than just finger-wagging.

I used to think of Patrick as someone who I couldn't stand. I recall there being so much hate for him, and I agreed with it. He just wasn't someone who I wanted in my already accepted group of "these guys I love to listen to every week."

That lasted for a while. And it may have taken Ryan's passing for it to become apparent to me but..

I have really come to respect his opinion, but the way he words it. I love the passion that he has for his message, and I love that he has that message to begin with. I used to think he was "preaching" and now he seems to be the only one talking about these topics.

I appreciate him as part of the team very much. I regret having ever doubted him.

P.S.

This goes for Drew as well.

P.P.S
Zoey did extremely well. It was a tough act to follow and I am thoroughly impressed.
Thumbs up!

Whatevs. Just gonna ignore this nonsense. May it one day end.

Sometimes "Ignore the Trolls" is really as simple as "Ignore the Trolls".

@leejunfan83: Please don't feed the trolls.

Sorry if it's not clear but that person has about 15 other accounts with multiple offenses and is not welcome on this website. Even if he does have a point to make, the constant spam and account duplication is unacceptable.

He has been given the correct email to use if he wishes to take this issue further but as a general PSA: anytime anyone sees Fanboy_SlayerXX just flag and move on. Ta.

I really enjoyed this. The whole "turn vile comments funny" way of dealing with stuff like that has probably made the internet a much better place for me.

I just want to play fun video games

Awesome talk Patrick! What I like about you is that you can see both sides of the coin and even call yourself out when you have made mistakes. It's true, we're all human.

And Zoe, I have been a fan since I saw you on the couch talk at GiantBomb. You seem so lovely, thoughtful and a genuine person. I wish you all the luck in the future as a games developer :)

Thankyou both :) Great talk.

@monkeystick: Except it doesn't help one bit in the long run, it just shifts their trolling on something or someone else.

Good talk.

Sometimes I feel like this stuff gets blown out of proportion because I see little of it myself, but they I read a thread on Reddit like, "Females of Reddit, what's the creepiest message you've received," and I realize just how awful and obliviously ignorant a significant portion of the internet can be.

Patrick's right, it's not about sanitizing the entire internet or even removing anonymity, but realizing that it is is a problem and trying to do your own little part to clean up your own neighborhood.

I love how thoughtful everyone was in this panel! It's very refreshing to see something like this once in a while in this site filled with chaotic storm of awesome-nonsense.

Over the past decade I've grown from a child who'd yell at the screen and occasionally blurt offensive remarks because it's (somewhat) cathartic, to someone who's mindful of what he saying because he, along with everyone in his peers (hopefully everyone!), has grown up to empathise with the whole world.

Thank you both for this. The human species has a LOT of growing up to do, and you guys are aiding that cause!

I'm so sorry, Mr. De Sade, I didn't realize it was you. Huge fan of your absurdities.

Really, though, I can never make myself take seriously a claim which relies so heavily on the supposition that humankind always refuses to rise above the drive of basic instinct. "We're all just lizard brains under the facade, mang, you gotta look out for you," just strikes me as trying too hard to consolidate nihilism with the reality of the world that surrounds us. That reality being that it's pretty fucking easy to be an alright person if you're willing to take others into account - even slightly.

I remember playing Awesomenauts for the first time when it was just released, I had no idea how it worked and was just trying to figure things out. When the match ended I received a message in my inbox from a player saying:

I couldn't help myself but laugh at this and share this hilarity with my friends.

@ravelle said:

I remember playing Awesomenauts for the first time when it was just released, I had no idea how it worked and was just trying to figure things out. When the match ended I received a message in my inbox from a player saying:

I couldn't help myself but laugh at this and share this hilarity with my friends.

I played Dark Souls a few days ago and got a similar message from an invader. I was surprised that this happened in the largely un-communicative Dark Souls.

As someone that has spent a long time on the internet, I don't always "get it" when it comes to these things. I don't get bothered by what people say and I know I have the ability to block communications with someone or even quit going to a specific website. I guess I sort of see myself as a veteran with battle scars that finds the new generation weak and lacking bullet proof wests.

But that's not really the case. And my logic can't really apply to public figures like Patrick and Zoe due to the volume being much bigger. And I question myself further since my logic still basically boils down to "deal with it", and why should someone have to even do it once?

I suppose part of it for me boils down to being bullied and getting over that even before I was on the internet. Here, things are merely words. Pixels arranged in some arbitrary fashion to get a point across. It's easy for me to rationalize it away. But I don't think most people should need to go through my early school years to handle the internet.

So I've realized I am too much of an outlier case to design by.

Another aspect of this issue is the idea of collective narrative. Anytime you speak up and let your voice be heard, in text or otherwise, you add to that narrative. I could be wrong, but I believe it was Marc Maron's interview with Todd Glass on his podcast that really crystalized this notion for me and actually made me alter my behavior accordingly. I don't have his exact words off the top of my head, but basically his point (taken out of the context of being about jokes) was that things you say might affect a third party not involved in your conversation to whom it may have dire consequences. His example was even if you sit with your friends and pull out a gay joke, even if you are all decent people someone might hear it (and him especially talking about young gay kids) and add to the noise ratio for that kid and his ability to feel good about who he is and the world he lives in. (I hope all that makes sense)

That made me reevaluate how I communicate, and to some degree even how I joke with friends (even in private). Because it's easy to just sit in front of a keyboard or over a cup of coffee and argue "my right to speak" and completely forget that everything I add to the conversation builds a certain narrative for everyone involved. And I think a lot of people online don't see the affects of their words because they don't realize they're not the only one adding to the noise. And, perhaps like me at the top, they don't take the words as seriously as someone else might. And that slight chance that someone might, is enough to consider not doing it.

I agree that we can turn the negative volume down by being more positive, and I believe we should add to the narrative and stand up against certain voices (and certain types of group-think, and internet is becoming big on that, but that's another discussion) instead of just ignoring the issue and letting the overall tone of the internet be awful.

Edit to add: I forgot to say I thought the panel was great and very insightful. And props to Patrick for engaging with the questions regarding some of his Twitter actions in a thoughtful and well reasoned way. I could easily see how someone with a more fragile ego probably would try and rationalize that away. Again, great panel Patrick and Zoe!

@pezen: Well, this is what I have to say. I SALUTE YOU!!!

@sethphotopoulos: Well, my advice to you is to press the reply button politely and return the favour. Enjoy playing your games! I will too!

@sethphotopoulos said:

@ravelle said:

I remember playing Awesomenauts for the first time when it was just released, I had no idea how it worked and was just trying to figure things out. When the match ended I received a message in my inbox from a player saying:

I couldn't help myself but laugh at this and share this hilarity with my friends.

I played Dark Souls a few days ago and got a similar message from an invader. I was surprised that this happened in the largely un-communicative Dark Souls.

Invading is part of the game, there's no need to be a dick about it too. Luckily I've only came across friendly players in Dark Souls, summoned a fair amount of folks who were more than happy to help a fellow player out. I even encountered friendly invaders, players who bow before attacking and then bow again when they won. The assholes dance and taunt when they kill you.