7 hours later…
07:23
@PillipFWhat You say that it is "harmless fun" to single out an inferior player and curb-stomp them. What is your reasoning that concluded that this is "fun"? And for who is this "fun"? Certainly not for your co-worker considering how angry they got. So apparently you(!) think it is "fun" to pick on people that are severely disadvantaged compared to you in a game.
@PillipF So when it comes to someone showing their "true colours"... I think the iron pot just called the copper kettle "black". And this is most certainly not something you want to be telling HR about. Because if we can figure this out, so can they. Do you really want HR to know that you are the kind of person that finds unfair steam-rolling to be "fun"? Who is being "unprofessional" here?
Granted the kettle certainly has a fair bit of soot on them, because sexist comments and profanity is not permitted by any game's code of conduct. But that is something you report to the game service, not to work.
@PillipF I think your best options would be 1) Drop it... drop it like sack of bricks and never pick it up again. 2) Talk to your co-worker. Say "Look... about that curb-stomping the other day: I am sorry that... I was being a jerk. My bad, really. I did not mean anything bad about it, it just turned out wrong. Aaand... you might want to moderate your language a bit. People will get upset at that... just sayin'".
5 hours later…
12:46
I can be very nasty in games myself, sometimes over the top. However, I am also the kind of person who will accept it when said person curses me out in whatever words they like, or even find friends to gang up on me so I can't even leave the spawn area without dying. In general, while I can be a dick online, I need to accept that the victim can, and will, be a dick back. But you are not doing that. You are ruining their fun and, when they say something you don't like, trying to ruin their life.
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16:29
@mathreadler It's always possible that instead of the most obvious explanation for events the truth is really a baroque conspiracy. There's no way to run the scheme you suggest without identifying another coworker as the one using the unacceptable language, and this seems like a longshot Rube Goldberg approach-- conceiving and executing this plan is *at least* as foolish as the case in which the OP is who he or she claims to be and events unfolded as he or she described.
Your contention that this can't be what it appears because that would require the OP to be unrealistically foolish, and …
Your contention that this can't be what it appears because that would require the OP to be unrealistically foolish, and …
16:40
My understanding is that "stream sniping" isn't just trying to join a streamer's game, but specifically using what you see in someone's livestream (on a second monitor or second computer) to get an in-game advantage (seeing where they are on the map, etc). I couldn't tell from this situation whether that was what was going on, or whether the OP simply was truly better at the game.
I'm not sure whether that changes the overall advice (of not reporting to HR or bringing it up at work), but I think it is relevant to the amount of hate OP is getting
Also, I'm a bit surprised by the amount of "its totally your fault he went on a hate-filled sexist and racist rant" in these comments and answers which.... is never an appropriate response, no matter how bad you're doing in-game.
17:27
@BradC No. They saw someone streaming, but they hunted them down in game after they saw them streaming. The first part is not cyberstalking. That's not what we're saying. The second part is. Usually no one considers merely joining a game to be predatory in nature, but it was predatory. It's similar to when people capture IP addresses from a game in order to DoS someone's server.
"Cyberstalking is the use of the Internet or other electronic means to stalk or harass an individual, group, or organization." Not cyberstalking: Joining a server to play with someone in good spirit, especially on invitation, or adding someone on Facebook to be their friend. Cyberstalking: Joining a server uninvited to harass someone and then troll them repeatedly in spite of their wishes, or creating accounts on Facebook to add someone once they've deleted you or wished you to leave them alone.
And no, it's not necessarily right to go on an angry rant, but there's in-game tools for that. But let's be real. If I get in your face and poke you in your face over and over, should I cry victim the moment you decide to shove me? In many online sites, that's called instigation and would actually result in the original person's punishment. In the real world, it's called fighting words and incitement.
18:06
@TheAnathema I understand both parts of the story, and I'm not defending OP joining up with the streamer's game, I just think that using the term "cyberstalking" is insanely hyperbolic and overblown, despite your nice dictionary quote.
ALL popular streamers have to take care to either conceal what server they're on, or their in-game location, or play with a sufficient delay so that people can't "catch up" to them. Trolls joining their game has to be (I'd imagine) really f-ing annoying, and (as many have mentioned) is likely against either game or Twitch policies
So I'm not defending it. I just think that the term "cyberstalking" is both inflammatory and inaccurate in this case.
Also, we have other terms that I think are more accurate in this case (trolls, or griefers, or stream crashers). Probably depends somewhat on what game and/or game community we are talking about
To be more specific, we'd probably have to get into individual game details; Let's say I build a base on a publicly available Minecraft server, and I stream a tour of my base to show it off, and then then next day when I log in, my chests have been raided and my base has been destroyed.
I'm likely to be pretty upset with whoever found my base by watching my stream, and I might rant about griefers, and I might take better care to conceal my location, or I might join or start a completely private Minecraft server.
18:29
@BradC I was more so addressing your statement "more like 'I saw someone streaming that turned out to be someone I knew.'" That was the first half of the story. The second half, the one I called cyberstalking, takes place after that event.
"I then proceed to single him out and destroy him in the game since I am a lot better than he is. Each time, he gets more visibly mad, which causes me to continue."
This statement is not considered griefing. It's considered toxic harassment. Single him out. He gets more visibly mad, which causes me to continue.
He took the real life identity of a colleague as a prompt to harass him in a game. He then took the backlash of that harassment to try to ruin this guy's life and ability to pay the bills back in the real world. This to me rivals antisocial behaviour like doxxing or swatting. It's the interplay between the real world and the game world, and the desire to actively cause someone emotional and financial distress.
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@TheAnathema Horrible in-game behavior, for sure. Perhaps even bannable (by the game and/or Twitch). But "cyber stalking" is a crime described in detail by state and federal law, and I can't way to view this situation as rising to the high level of that term.
I think people should behave online in the same way they would offline - with kindness and respect. He gets more visibly mad, which causes me to continue to me is the key here. This was a sustained duration of harassment of which the colleague could not get away from. He could walk away, and lose possible stream revenue or followership. I want to personally fancy myself a calm and levelheaded person, but working all day and wanting to enjoy something nice and having it ruined by someone...
A sustained attack by someone who saw someone get upset and think "You know what? That makes me want to continue." The other answer to the question outlines it quite well - it was sustained, and the colleague was cornered. OP has also nonchalantly expressed a desire to lie about his role, which is deception.
A person who has no qualms about deception and is quite happy to continue harassment if he sees that the other person is emotionally distressed is not a person that's easy to deal with, and so what would a person logically do if they were cornered? Probably say whatever they could to get under their skin.
18:45
So you team vote to kick the perp. Or you bail and join a different match. Or you take a stream break and run around the block. Or change games and do some casual Minecraft builds in creative mode.
I'm not defending the OP, I just know enough to know that some percentage of your audience is going to be jerks
Even if you're literally in the top ranks of any game, you're still going to run into opponents that are better than you, and you can't let it get the best of you.
Let's turn this question around: Streamer posts a question: "I got fired because someone sent my manager a recording of a stream where I got frustrated and went off. Yes, I may have used some racial slurs and sexist terms, but I WAS SO MAD"
I personally question the honesty of OP as they have clearly demonstrated a tendency towards deception already. A "sexist, racist tirade" doesn't even sound quite right. It hits all the 2018 hot button topics so I halfway expect OP to edit "And he claimed to be a member of the Third Reich" into there somewhere. That's neither here nor there, though, as I wasn't there. However, deception and antisocial behaviour is the cause to this effect here, and such behaviour should result in being fired.
19:01
It seems unlikely that you would get the full narrative we have here. OP would likely say "I was watching this stream and saw this". Anyway, that's a hypothetical black hole.
The "sexist, racist tirade" doesn't really sound that far fetched to me. A few popular streamers have gotten in trouble for similar situations
Let me be clear: I'm absolutely in favor of games/streaming platforms/online communities/social media companies having high community standards, well-designed reporting/blocking/anti-harassment features, and experienced and empathetic admins that take reports of harassment seriously, and have the tools and mechanisms to take swift and decisive action when necessary.
I think "don't feed the trolls" was bad advice when it first appeared in the 90's, and is worse advice today.
19:55
@BradC I think your Minecraft example is more benign that what this is. Most games don't have public servers like that, they use a random matchmaking service. When you join a new game, they create a new room (or add you to an existing one), wait until the room is full, then start the game with those people. There's a rough queueing aspect, so if you try to join a new game at the exact same time as someone else, you've got a better chance of joining the same new room.
What OP did is literally stare at their coworker, watching and listening until they click to join a new game, then clicked to join a new game as well; manipulating the matchmaking system. Since it's still difficult to join the same game when you do this, there's a good chance they tried it multiple times. This means OP watched their coworker, observed what they were doing, then took real world actions to harass them. If this had happened at a Starbucks, for example, you might call it stalking.
@LordFarquaad It's pretty hard to comment further without knowing more about which game it is and what queuing/matching system they use. Most that I'm familiar with it would be extremely hard/impossible to successfully play together round-to-round unless you form an in-game team. If its time based, then a very short stream buffer could avoid that issue.
20:31
@BradC That's a perfectly fair opinion to have, just thought I'd shed some light in case you weren't familiar with some matchmaking systems (although it sounds like you are). I agree that "it would be extremely hard/impossible" to deliberately match with a specific person without an invite, but that's also why I think it's so creepy. To me that necessitates a ton of work to specifically target one person.
1 hour later…
21:46
“Stream sniping” arguments aside, I’m not sure video game grief-ing translates into real world harassment, and even if it did does not justify sexist & racist insults. This is not a case of equal wrongdoing on both sides. — DoritoStyle 11 mins ago
I also agree with Tim, the amount of users minimizing racist and sexist put downs ina public venue with your fave in full view and being recorded are Problematic to say the least.
2 hours later…
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