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

I made the mistake of looking at Reddit's reaction to this panel after it was mentioned on Bombin'. My braĩn hurts now.

Good to see some good discussion here, even if I'm guessing that some of the 28 deleted messages were pretty toxic.

Great job Patrick.

@ravelle: should've threw a fit and showed Patrick,he would've let you in on the panel.

I only occasionally read comments and rarely post, and I don't do social media at all, so I know the hate is out there, but the depth of it is always astounding when I do hear/see it.

What a great talk! Both Zoe and Patrick brought up really interesting points and were very pleasant to listen to. Such an important topic as well. The internet might be the most important thing humanity has ever invented and it is crucial we make it the best it can be!

BTW: I've seen it happen quite a few times on YouTube that someone acting like an asshole completely turned around after the person being harassed showed he was a human being instead of just responding aggressively. As someone who sometimes loses hope for humanity it's quite a nice thing to see.

Really enjoyed the talk. I think I need to write some emails and apologize for the shit I said years ago.

Excellent panel.

This was a really great talk.
Good job.

Simply put, this was fantastic.

I feel that my generation is in large part responsible for a lot of the most hateful stuff on the internet today, and that behind the worst comments you'll probably find a dude in his 30s who definitely should know better.

Back when the internet was just a bunch of ostracized nerds, it was like there was a competition on who could be the biggest ironic asshole on the internet. Everybody wanted to be the detached, "cool" nerd who picked apart everything and looked down on everyone else.

The result was that you got this insanely toxic environment where nobody could be genuine about anything. There were witch hunts on every other sub-culture who were active on the internet at the time, and people casually used homophobic and racial slurs all the time under the guise of irony.

Some of those kinds of comments are obviously written by clueless teenagers, but I believe a lot of the bile is from people who refuse to acknowledge that we're no longer living in the mid '00s and times have changed.

Great panel btw.

Yeah that's fine, I wasn't really looking for proof or anything. Just in my head when you paraphrased that tweet in that way I imagined some Ukranian kid trying to ask you a sincere question then just coming across as a huge asshole.

Whaaaaat! Just... no, dude. I can state with some certainty as a human with a brain that it is fallacy to abdicate responsibility for the human brain. On either side of this issue. Those who exploit the underprivileged make a conscious decision to do so, to have flown in the face of nearly every moral teacher available to them. Those who receive threats and insult and abuse in silence have weighed the psychological relief of sharing their insecurities with an empathetic audience against the potential for people who think like you to shame them for their honesty.

The fact that you believe the line past which it's acceptable to produce an emotional response is when the people you care for most in this world are being actively threatened just confirms to me that you're not willing to account for the realities of our social condition. You can choose to not leave others to suffer because you know how painful suffering can be. You can choose to not suffer in silence because you understand there are people in the world willing and able to help you. But that's not immediately clear to everyone! Which is why talks like these, which encourage both parties to exhibit their bravery through the reiteration that they are not alone in a void, will always be relevant.

While I'm not going to dig through tweets from years ago, I can assure you this was not the case.

That was a great panel. Thanks Patrick and Zoe (Drew and Vinny too)

@white: Your claim would hold a lot more water if altruism wasn't a thing.

I'm sure Patrick has reasons to think the flappy bird guy was sincere, but from the excerpts he presented it sure sounded like he was just trolling really hard.

Great job Zoe and Patrick

I haven't played it either. I bought DS2 that month. But Patrick has talk around it before. My guess is he opinion of the story is so low. He doesn't think it could or should hold any value for others. But what is done is done.

This is highly relevant to my interests. In the future when some jerk screams about us mods violating their "right to free speech" or "censorship", I think I'm just going to reply with this new XKCD comic:

@eulogize_my_baked_goods: YES YES YES!!! Good comment! Excellent!

Yes, you are not alone.

It's not nihilism when it's reality. We all prey upon those weaker and less privileged than us. Don't let yourself be the prey. Let these people talk mess all they want - their threats are empty. Only when they start sending you video or images of your loved ones in captivity or in any form of physical discomfort would you then need to take action.

You claim that it's easy to be an alright person and I agree. But don't go in with the expectation that other people will do the same.

Life's tough. As far as I know, no one has survived it yet.

A very interesting watch and I'm glad to see it posted to the site. The central tenet of "take responsibility for your own actions and hope to influence other by those actions" is an old argument but a goodie, and on the internet - which in so many ways is and will be for some time yet, the Wild West - is emphasised more than ever.

Obviously many of our existing institutions move much slower then the web but I do wonder (as other have mentioned) if we should be taking 'net education' much more seriously and including net etiquette as an important addition to the classroom. Taking a child and putting them online for the first time is akin to placing them alone in the middle of Piccadilly Circus and hoping that they don't get abused or learn to abuse before someone has a chance to tell them how this new world actually works. This is how bad habits are formed and how trolling/bullying becomes seen as the acceptable, and indeed as the 'expected' way to engage online.

Of course this is a massive subject with no clear cut answers but I do think that instead of having our legislators cutting back on net freedoms they should be looking more seriously at why people see it as acceptable to abuse these freedoms and looking to curtail that behaviour through education rather than cutting the nets nose off to spite its face, so to speak.

For me, I have never been a jerk in the internet before. I mean, what's the use of being a jerk online? It serves no purpose whatsoever. In fact, it makes you a nasty and pathetic person.

You still have an identity on the internet and it may haunt you in the near future as the world go more digital. Just imagine someone interviewing you for a job referring you not from just your resume and the information you give them but referring you from the internet. That will not be great. This will be plausible some day in the near future.

Perhaps I was born from an era where the internet does not exist at all and I have to meet people every day to go through my daily routine. I will and cannot be a jerk on the internet. Even though you can't see them, you are still talking to a person on the internet.

Be smart. Don't be naive.

Man, Patrick can look scary sometimes.

That was a really interesting panel. I like things that make me think in a different way and reassess my actions, and Zoe was successful in that regarding labelling people good or bad. I fall into the trap of holding a grudge and judging someone based on one bad thing forever.

@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.

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

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

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!

@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.

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'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 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!

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.

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

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.

I just want to play fun video games

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.

@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.

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