WishINever

@wheatbiscuit My apologies for the delay, I am just seeing your response now. Thanks for keeping the discourse up! To answer your questions: 1 - I think it definitely does! Part of trolling is to adopt an always calm always witty persona. You typically need to act like you are better than people. You start to justify things to yourself the way you did and you stew in these thoughts and emotions until you feel like you are truly special and on a mission to rid the internet of filth. In the trolling culture this effect compounds. Many communities become like an online pissing contest of who is the coolest kid in school. You will meet people who are totally cool by themselves but become bullies to keep up airs with their bully friends. You probably know some people like this IRL - people who are only real with you until it means losing social points with the "cooler" kids. Griefers think they are the realest ones but most are phonies if not outright toxic pieces of shit. NEETdom is very common even though it is something that trolls are supposed to make fun of. To this day many of the people I knew in that scene are fixated only on gaming and living an internet life rather than doing anything with themselves. It's sad. 2 - I think we could all work on mindfulness. The bad thoughts and impulses will always be there but someone once said it like this: the less you scratch the less it itches. You can train yourself to choose which thoughts and impulses that you want to entertain and act upon. Don't be an NPC. With that said, don't find yourself in paralysis by analysis either. 3 - I think it is both! Online communications offer anonymity which can bring out the best or the worst in people. For some, that just means being able to throw rocks at anyone virtually without getting your teeth punched out. You can spew all sorts of vileness at whomever and that is the beauty of free speech. Online interaction also offers some people a way to be their true selves in a judgment free space or at least with fewer consequences. Conversely, the anonymity gives people a chance to create that griefer persona for themselves that I was talking about. When you let it take you over you will find yourself doing things a sober you wouldn't - all in the name of getting some lulz. It is easy to cross the line into bullying when you have entered this state, especially when you feel your grief target is your true enemy.

Yeah I guess everyone is a troll or a groomer in some capacity. The problem with modern business is that profit has taken a priority over solving problems and most places in corporate America are governed by mediocracy not meritocracy. Are you familiar with the term quiet quitting - when people give up on making an effort in their job roles and just do the bare minimum and play the games to get by? Can you blame anyone for that? There's this misconception in America that people don't want to work anymore. There are plenty of people who want to work but they're doing it on their own. It makes more sense to become an entrepreneur or a gig worker or even a day trader than it does to work a full time job for garbage pay and no benefits, which is what most jobs are offering now. America is a nation without jobs, not without workers.

Confessions of a griefer I'm going to throw in a summary of how I got into all of this. I'm going to try to be as brief as possible but it may answer some of the questions you might have. But the purpose of this thread is for me to come clean and to present this as an AMA. One time I was drinking with some dudes in college and I mentioned how hilarious it is to teamkill on Halo. One of the guys laughed but then said something to the effect that he wanted to punch guys like me in the face. I thought that was funny as fuck. Why do people take games so seriously? Even I have raged at games before. Why? What good does it do? But when you make it your mission to hold up a mirror to the world, you are also ruining yourself. It is a dark path. It changes you - you become more cynical and you surround yourself with toxic individuals. That betrayal sound still cracks me up, even though I haven't touched a Halo game in ages. How did this happen? I always had a troll streak in me. When I was a little kid I used to bother people on forums and chats and RPGs and I even had an alt account on Newgrounds where I would play a mentally deficient character and upload really bad flash. But I didn't see myself as a troll. The term hadn't even been invented yet. I never heard it until someone described me as the "best troll ever" while I was in a TF2 match doing one of my funny voices. Somewhere along the line it became more fun for me to try to break the game than to play according to the real objectives. This was around the time things really started to escalate, in the 2010s. I think the seed was planted when my friend introduced me to myg0t rages when they were first becoming well known. This was a LONG time ago - maybe 2000 or 01... the original myg0t not these slobs that carry the name today. At this time I was still somewhat innocent and I hated cheaters in games but for some reason learning about myg0t didn't make me want to punch anyone like getting teamkilled in halo does to my college friend. Let's fast-forward to the late 00's. I'd say around 2008 was when I really started to get into it. The griefing "scene" was going through something of a golden age and this was when goroncity and other groups were producing popular content. YouTube videos from these people really inspired me to not only chase lulz but to eventually go on to create some of my own content. Team Roomba's TF2 griefing sesisons were also a major influence even though a lot of that was staged (fun fact: some years later I joined their server and talked shit and got banned). I remember being really high with my friend watching their videos and chuckling the entire time and we were convinced that this was our calling. I saw it as a way to commemorate the good times with friends. Of course, when you grow the fuck up you don't remember these times quite as well and most of the "friends" you had during them fade into history. Things started to change as I started to consider myself a 'griefer'. It became something I did with online friends rather than IRL friends more and more over time. I started firing up a game with the intention of griefing it, eventually more often than just playing it. It is definitely one of the factors in why my enjoyment of gaming waned. When you pick something apart that much, you kill some of the joy in it. All that said, I've had some pretty fun times with all of this. I've met both z0mby and CPF and I'm glad to see their battle on TFC is still enjoyed by the kids today. I've gotten to talk to and even collaborate with popular internet personalities. My griefing network kinda blended in with my regular social network with both positive and negative consequences. It did lead to some serious acting work more than once. There was never a specific method and there's a lot more to it than cyberbullying people (though during the 2014 dox wars that coincided with GamerGate it really did start to devolve into that). The greatest will call cyberbullying a cheap shot at best and it's generally frowned upon, but of course the greatest rarely become the most popular. I like to play as different characters each with their own annoying quirks. I like to find new ways to derail the game and sometimes all this takes is to get a few other players to go along with whatever stupid shit you are doing. You can put on your game tester hat and look for exploits. You can try to turn the war simulator into a soccer simulator. The only limit is your own creativity and free time. There are three kinds of griefers from what I can see. There is the opportunist - that is the nerdy gamer who indulges in lulz when the lulz present themselves but does not actively seek them. There is the sociopath - a person who is a bully on and offline and just enjoys making others suffer. Then, there is the contrarian fedora tipper like me who gets enjoyment from doing things unconventionally and seeing how many ways rules can be broken and games can be played in ways not originally intended. Some of these people consider what they do to be a revolutionary act. It cleanses their online spaces of people they deem "cringe". It challenges the conventions of an industry gone foul, and as mentioned above, it holds a mirror to all of the nerdy gamers who need a reality check. But this is just pretentious self-justification. Griefers tend to have a lousy long-term life outcome. Many have already died young, mostly due to drugs or stupid things done while on drugs. Some have gotten themselves involved in serious offline criminal activity, as we see with nuisance and harassment streamers such as Frank Hassle. There are many exceptions to this: those who go on to apply their creative energy to something useful and those who outgrow it and move on altogether. A lot of that has to do with the personality types as described. Some griefers are just amoral and hedonistic people and others are bored and mischievous. I'm not doing a great job of explaining any of this but I want to keep it short. There really could be a book about the griefing world with or without my autobiographical part. But I am here to answer any questions you may have about this topic. I would also consider this thread a form of apology to anyone I may have hurt over the years with my behavior, including myself. Have at it - this could be fun.

So many lives have been wasted on that grind.

Sometimes the relapses will remind you of why you started quitting in the first place.

It's amazing how virtual tasks can replace tasks that we can actually do ourselves with an actual IRL payout like having a nice garden. I'm reminded of the metaverse concept and people living in VR pods or whatever dystopian outcome you can think of.

Welcome to the board - You can always come here if you need something to take your mind off the urges or if you just have questions.

Well of all the things to be addicted to, reading is definitely preferable to most! Is this something that replaced gaming for you? I've never heard of a reading addiction but maybe you can find some resources about this. Now that I think of it, this might be one of the oldest addictions/escapisms of all time.

School must be awful in your country. Are you trying to go into law or STEM? Either way most of this shit won't matter in a few years but it's good that you start developing better habits now. The more you reinforce gaming and other bad habits the harder it will be to walk away later on down the line. Progress isn't linear. Your relapses will remind you to stay the course and be even stronger next time so long as you don't give up.

I know a few people who played this extensively and they described it as exactly this. They dread the grind but they love the control and escapism and the cute characters.

I have friends who still play but for the most part I just let them do their thing. They respect that I've got other priorities like working and taking care of my family and touching the grass as the kids say these days. I also think it's okay for most of them to be playing but I know a few who have no work ethic and it's a problem for them. If you have a friend who comes home and gets right on Steam (or whatever the preferred platform is), they may have a problem with compulsive gaming. You'll know the difference once you start stepping away and observing. I think eventually you'll be so busy with other tuff that ads for games won't bother you. I still have FOMO about some of the games I won't be playing, especially the ones I was looking forward to before life got too busy, but my other priorities are more important. Maybe I'll play all those games when I'm retired. By then I'll be too old and disconnected to figure out or care about the new games anyway.

I'm glad I never got into that, sounds dreadful. The goal is the only payoff but grinding towards the goal becomes the addiction. Seems really cool on the outside but once you get into it, it sucks your soul away. Besides, aren't the top speedrunners all cheaters anyway? Seems like just another form of "competitive" gaming that is all BS. I briefly got into watching doom speedruns bc i was interested in the game mechanics. Doom is alive and well.

Glad to hear it!

I was wrestling with some of these questions in my mind today as I began using this forum. Film is an art form. But there are millions of people who do nothing with their lives but binge watch Netflix after they've put in their 8 hours - or no hours! Video games are an art form. But there are millions of people who do nothing but binge game after they've put in their 8 hours - or no hours! To what extent is it okay to appreciate games as a medium that ties in multiple art forms? Is it okay to admire video game art, storytelling, and music? To what extent is it okay to participate in fandom? Does participating in fandom as a non-gamer make you a poser? As I write this, I have a song from the Deltarune soundtrack stuck in my head. Toby Fox is an awesome composer, there is no doubt about that. But I've seen most of the fanbase as cringelords and I definitely don't want to be like them. Perhaps anything can become a vice, and we are all prone to some form of addiction or another. Therefore, maybe it is up to the individual to decide for themselves what is appropriate? I do believe that it is okay to enjoy games socially or as a casual pastime - but clearly this isn't good for some people! To a degree I think it comes down to having other things going on in your life to occupy your time: family/relationship, career, other hobbies, etc. My work and my social obligations take precedence over gaming, so I don't game. If you give serious consideration to what is more important, gaming will rarely win out. Even though I'm a boring old man who doesn't game much anymore, I still have a soft spot for certain things in gaming. I will continue to listen to my favorite OSTs and stuff like that. Some of my favorite game lore will always be with me and I don't see that as a bad thing. Remember when Assassins Creed was good? I even have a few Touhou fumos, though I mostly keep my gaming merch ironically and laugh about it with friends. I bought them kinda as a joke and as something I might be able to flip some day. That's another question - is it healthy to revel in such things "ironically"? I really don't care at this point if I never play again, but I will always be curious about the stories of certain games old and new. Maybe I'll watch someone else play them.... but that is also a vice! It amazes me that there are people who will watch others play and live, even donating to do so, while sitting on their asses doing nothing with themselves. I never got much into the whole streaming thing but now that I don't play myself, I am seeing some value in it from an informational perspective. Am I a hypocrite? Is there already a thread for this?

Do you have anything in common with these friends besides gaming? Do you feel like they would truly have your back and you theirs in a bad situation? Sometimes you have to accept letting go of people. When life gets bad, you'll know who your true friends are and who turns tail. This also applies to friends who no longer get anything out of you. You make better friendships when you are involved in meaningful activities - they will have values like yours and they won't just be friendships of convenience. I no longer talk to most of the friends of convenience from my past. We went to the same school. We worked the same job. We drank at the same bar... or whatever - but beyond that there was little we had in common and in the end most of them proved to be toxic people.