I Don't Want to Force this Down Your Throats....

[LightlyToasted]

SO I Looked around and didn't see any topics here about it.


The use of the words ****. I think most of the people on this side of the forums probably would not be the type to use "****" as a way to describe destroying someone in smash, but it is a common verb gamers use. Now while there is a dictionary definition of it being: "an act of plunder, violent seizure, or abuse; despoliation; violation" It is more often associated by most people, especially females with the definition implying sexual abuse, though especially when it comes to outsiders not associated with the gaming culture. I could get more into gamer gate and other things that could be considered misogynistic in the current game industry, but in the hope of keeping the Discussion scope on track, this seems like a valid issue to look at.

I am not trying to be a MONSTER OVERBEARING ON Our FIRST AMMENDMENT RIGHTS. I am only trying to point out that similar to not saying inappropriate things in a bad context like fire in an theatre or abortion at a baby shower, the widespread use of the word in many gaming groups only serves to make those already inside the group, or those looking in who might want to get involved, uncomfortable, whereas the use of the word does very little to enrich the feelings of 4 stock domination.

Anyone else encountered groups of gamers that use the word vehemently? Do you use it yourself and find it ok? Let us know why! And please keep it civil.(If there is a thread about this somewhere I am sorry, and mods feel free to delete this)

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

What are you really trying to extrapolate from this thread.

 

[LightlyToasted]

1. If people encounter this a great deal.
2. If the majority of players find it wrong, ok, or just don't care.

Guess I should have made a poll.

 

[Lichi]

I use the term myself and I don't see anything wrong with it. It is just slang and smacktalk and never meant to be harmful. It's the same with 'racist' jokes, that are not really racist but use stereotypes and such as a base for humour, and everyone and everything can and should be suspect of humour.
You just have to dodge the dicey occasions where you are actually dealing with someone who is connected to your 'offensive' manner of speaking. E.G. I would never use the term 'I ***** you' in Sm4sh when the one I'm playing with actually was once.

 

[LightlyToasted]

I would never use the term 'I ***** you' in Sm4sh when the one I'm playing with actually was once.

So the people you play with? You know every player's personal history and whether or not they had been sexually assaulted?

I mean obviously they can ask you to stop, but not without revealing the possibility of something having happened to themselves, meaning that you saying it made them reveal something about themselves that they really were not comfortable to discuss with someone they've just start smashing with.

My Only point is that "****" while apt in several situations, is unimaginative, and brings little to a victory celebration, or recap of what happened in a match. I would even go so far as to say F****d is more apt, and it better taste because it is just about as vulgar as *****, but doesn't carry nearly as bad of a connotation. Though both are lazy and uninspiring descriptors.

And I would counter that racist jokes ARE racist. That's not to say **** can't necessarily be used for humor, but it has to be tasteful or contextually sound. Racist jokes that create social awareness and commentary on cultural difference and point out irony in our society can create and promote a greater understanding. Another significant aspect is on who is making the joke, and who the punch line is. Male prison **** jokes seem super widespread, and seem ok for the majority of people, I guess cause criminals and they deserve it?

I forget which one it was, but there was part of the Smash Brothers Documentary they mention females on the scene, and how comment like "****" made them uncomfortable. I believe it was Part 5: A New Challenger.

What is it about "*****!" that there is something you think it brings to the smacktalk table? I mean obviously you can use it with your friends and no one will stop you, or care, unless your friends do. But if we want the smash community to grow even bigger and more popular, It's a good start to work on stop using a word that possibly isolates a great deal of the population.

 

[Lichi]

I certainly do not know everyone I play personally, but neither do I smacktalk everyone I play. The art of smacktalking is best used when confronted with people who show that they are likely not offended by it.
But if I know for certain that I would hit someone emotionally because of his past, of course I do avoid those. No 'your mom' jokes when people who just lost theirs are around. This is done easily when playing with friends, and when playing strangers, you should be decent and respectful (at first), and if you managed to get to know them, you can smack.

The vulgar and bad connotation of the word **** is wanted. The real thing is something noone should experience, because it is humiliating, devastating and most unpleasant (though these words don't even come close). But that's part of the metaphor. When you humiliated your opponent, and 'scarred him for life', you '*****' him. That's the point.
The word '****' in any variation has lost it's weight. It is used throughout the world in every possible and impossible way, and just does not spark the slightest feeling of shock in anyone anymore.
There may be more creative ways to express yourself, but we are where we are, and sexually influenced terminology seems to be the state of the art.

Racist jokes are not racist, they are jokes. And if you intend to let them reflect your real opinion on something, then you are racist yourself, not the joke. If you always want to understand these jokes as reflections of someones true meaning, then you do not understand humour. As I said, everything and everyone can and should be considerable for use in humour. Excluding things from humour shows that you cannot cope with these exact things appropriatly. Ofc there's time when you have to be mature and serious about stuff, but there should also be room for humour.
You do not have to be socio-critical with your jokes to have them be 'legit humour'. It's all about what makes someone laugh, and what does so, is ok. But the world is full of people walking around with sticks in their arses and double moraling the **** out of everything who want to taboo parts of your humour. But if you can take it as what it is, jokes and fun, there's no need to feel offended or anything. If you'd start to ban specific topics from comical treatment, where would you draw the line? You'd start with races and countries, but that would not be enough. Other people might be offended by jokes about looks, jobs, free time occupations, religion, deseases and what not. In the end, you'd find someone being offended for everything that exists, and you are left with nothing at all to like.
The only rule here is, that while you make racist jokes about anything, you should not exclude yourself from being targeted. That's major bull****.
And btw, who the F' thinks "yeah that's funny because they deserve it" when hearing a joke about prisoners dropping the soap? What about those who don't deserve it? Do they deserve it at all? I thought the punishment for my crimes was being lifted of my freedom, why do I have to get ****ed for this? What if I am in jail though I did not deserve this and now get *****? Now this is funny or what because prisoners getting a **** shoved up their bum against their will is socially acceptable?
That's the product of a very twisted mind. But yeah, double standards.

Yeah, the **** commenting gets female players uncomfortable. How about they just deal with it. I bet the actual '****-comment to actually ****** fellow players' ratio in smash is pretty much favoring the comment side. See it as a comment and nothing more, there's no need to see cruel intentions, harmful personalities or anything in that.
I also get uncomfortable sitting next to people all the time. I do not like their abuse of language, how they look, smell and behave. But that is not a problem I can relocate to others, it is one of my personal preferences. So if I really get offended by stuff others do that was meant to be non-offensive and simply part of typical smack talking, I do not have to make a fuzz about it.

I do not think that we are isolating a big chunk of possible players by using ****-terminology. We just got rid of a bunch of sissies that feel entitled to get an 'Extra-Wurst' ( receive special treatment ) because of the chromosomes that determined the way you were born and possibly some white knights (whom the world does not need anyway). Again, this is about having an even ground for everyone, and if we ban **** from our language as gamers, why don't we do the same with the word 'd ick'? It is at least just as common, and I can think of dozens of reasons why someone could feel uneasy hearing something related.

 

[LightlyToasted]

For the prison example, that's why I said deserve it? with a question mark as in hands in the air I don't know its ****ed up sort of way.

And I am not banning anything from comic treatment. I am only saying that if we want this community to grow and want people to feel welcome at events, moving the culture to a more accepting and listening one rather than saying "that's the way we are deal with it."

Sexually influenced terminology is fine, it is a sign of where we are. But there is an issue in normalizing something as traumatic as **** and comparing it to a video game. The fact that **** threats are among the idiotic things people do to harass females is awful. Clearly smashers and the majority or trolls using the word **** will likely never **** a woman. It also carries a heavier weight than murder, because murder is more universal. YES **** CAN happen to anyone, but historically, women have had the greatest number of victims AND have a history of discrimination. You(God forbid and I am assuming not) would not follow up a 4 stock of an African American Smasher and say "LYNCHED!" Even if you know that person hasn't been affected personally by lynching, there's a big history of it in it in America and would probably be one of the worst things you could say to them. Trash talking can be fun, if both player know each others limits, but in a community where we are trying to grow, choosing words more carefully, especially when curious outsiders are looking in, can make a big difference.

The vulgar and bad connotation of the word **** is wanted. The real thing is something noone should experience, because it is humiliating, devastating and most unpleasant (though these words don't even come close). But that's part of the metaphor. When you humiliated your opponent, and 'scarred him for life', you '*****' him. That's the point.
The word '****' in any variation has lost it's weight. It is used throughout the world in every possible and impossible way, and just does not spark the slightest feeling of shock in anyone anymore.

If it has lost its weight then why bother using it? If it's lost it's weight then wouldn't there be very little point to using it in trash talk?

 

[Lichi]

. You(God forbid and I am assuming not) would not follow up a 4 stock of an African American Smasher and say "LYNCHED!" Even if you know that person hasn't been affected personally by lynching, there's a big history of it in it in America and would probably be one of the worst things you could say to them.

Yes I would. As I've stated, I think smacktalking should be done with people you know are OK with smacktalking, even in it's most bitter form. Ofc I would not randomly smack the **** out of anyone I see, but my black (yes I call them black and not african american or african german as I would have to here; they also call me white and not caucasian) friends (and ofc others with other cultural backgrounds) jokingly include such things in our smacktalking. I talk **** about cotton picking, slavery and watermelons while they call me Hitler, the Holocaust and addicted to Sauerkraut, and we all laugh. We are able to do so because we know that we have opinions that strongly differ from what you might want to read into our smack talk.
Talking about a big history in countries and things that are 'taboo' - I quite know the experience and I can see the difference between an insult and smack talk. You can either be a díck about stuff or actually try to let humour be humour.

Call me an insensitive human being (and being contraproductive to the growth of the scene if you like) because I can deal with the past and move on. It's not like everyone has to talk smack on that level or even at all, but those who do should be allowed to.

 

[LightlyToasted]

I only use the term African american and not black because it refers specifically to those who surprise surprise, were raised in america and have had to grow up with the history of slavery and the civil rights movement.

I would prefer to put it all behind as well, but its hard because these racial tensions actually exist, whether you acknowledge them or not. The Ferguson case in America is a most recent example of that. And is seems like Germany has it's own issues with racism in the police force as well.


This article demonstrates how particularly east Germany has it bad, though it is related to class issues as well.

Regardless of what you do with friends behind closed doors, and regardless of how you try to ignore things in the past, other people won't ignore history and it matters. I did not mean to go too far off on this tangent, but it racism draws many parallels to feminism.

I did use to snarf at the term "**** culture," until I did some research on cases and found how ****ed and difficult it is for a guilty or lasting verdict because of arguments that(in the US, I don't see much German news) they argue the women was wearing something provocative, or doing something seductively.

Then there are those who argue women are taking men to trial and accusing men of **** because they feel guilty of a drunken one night stand they had. Because that makes sense. If you regret sleeping with someone, you are going to take it to the public and let the world know you slept with that man? You know who does that? Sociopaths, does it happen? Probably a bit. But I am sure the number of sociopathic women taking men to trial for ***** that didn't happen are far fewer than the ones with legitimate complaints.

As citizens of the world who think we know better we have a responsibility to be examples of how other people should be treated and at least try to fight these stigmas that are too easy to ignore. The word **** may not seem like a big deal, but it plays a role in **** culture.(referring to the story played by both sides here).

Remember the majority of **** cases are from someone the victim knows.

Anyway I am going to wait till we get another response from others of this forum, since I think we need some more varied opinions here.

 

[Lichi]

Making this short and simple:
- As you stated yourself, we were talking about people who were not connected to lynching/slavery themselves. Therefore african american / european / whateverean does not matter.

- Dealing with the past and moving on does not mean ignoring history.

- Again, as I acknowledge what **** is, using the term under different circumstances in a joking manner does no harm. I don't know what all that **** about police, lasting verdicts, offenders being part of your inner circle, etc contributes to the actual discussion.

 

[Sucumbio]

This thread is so not ****.

Wait why the censor, you can't say **** on here?

But anyway, eh, whatever. I come from a history of FGC that had some serious trash talk (Tekken), Smash is kinda bland in comparison. The hype, tho... the hype can get pretty real, especially if someone is "hated" and winning, then the crowd goes way outta their way to distract and trash talk them, which I personally find ****ty, but it's whatever, the TO could ban that kinda thing, but then, they -are- paying to be there, so maybe they're entitled... I would NEVER expect to hear a commentator say that, just like you wouldn't expect an NBC sports correspondent to say "The Miami Heat just totally ***** Indiana" I mean, it kinda goes without saying. But between "fans" it's a bit different decorum-wise.

But the question is self explanatory. Using the word **** is inappropriate. It's like calling a black gamer a cotton-pickin' ******. You just wouldn't do that, lol. Well... you may, but you'd best be ready to catch a beat-down, lol. Dems fightin' words. And so too if you call out "get *****, son!" and the dude turns around and beats your ass, well... you had it coming.

 

[Jiggsbomb]

I don't use the term, because I don't like it if people say it me, so I'm not gonna say it to other people.

 

[Claire Diviner]

I'm pretty sure I know what word is being discussed, even with the censors.

I can understand victims of **** (I really don't know why that word is censored, given that it isn't vulgar) being uncomfortable with the term. On the flip side, there are victims who really can care less because they know the context isn't being used to mean sexual violation.

All in all, in the end, it's just another issue where everyone wants to be politically correct out of fear that they might offend a few people, whether we like it or not; whether we agree with it or not. While I personally don't care how it's used (so long as it isn't used as a threat), I get it, and it's for that reason I don't use the term myself as a slang, but that's just me.

 

[Ningildo]

The title of the thread and the discussion topic work together shockingly well...

Generally, I don't use this word in general unless the person I'm saying it to is someone I know well enough and knows me well to know I'm just screwing around. Hell, I've joked about giving a watermelon to my black friend for his birthday and he laughed. The problem doesn't arise with saying this (and similar words/slang/ w/e), it arises when a. The person you're telling it too doesn't know you well to know your intent and thinks you're trying to insult him/her or b. You're actually trying to insult someone with saying it. It's all in the intention of saying it and if said intention is detected, at least imo.

You should see the amount of smack talk going around a tourney between friends, it's a great amount, but all meant in good spirit. Unless you're that one **** that talks smack to literally everyone you meet about how much you're going to **** them. Or just make racist jokes against a person who you met a minute ago. That usually ends horribly. There IS a time and place for everything, after all.

 

[FirestormNeos]

I personally prefer using REKT as I feel it has more emphasis on the skill dissonance rather then just raising further questions.

"Hosed" and "Screwed" also work for me when the person is not from the internet.

The title of the thread and the discussion topic work together shockingly well...

Oh my, I didn't even notice that pun until you brought it up.