Is it okay that the Smash community refers to new players as "randoms?"

[Host Change]

I don't find the term to be offensive, but I fully understand that others do so I try not to use it. I usually find myself saying "new player". In a way though, if you think about it, almost all of us can be considered randoms if we play at a tournament in another region than our own. The exception of course is top level players or people that go to a lot of nationals, but its really just a term for somebody you can't remember. I fully accept that people would use the term talking about me if I decided to attend a Michigan tournament for example (have family up there) since I've never competed in anything outside of the Atlantic South. It can also be used in a derogatory way, but it usually only gets used like that by somebody who is salty about losing a game to their opponent or is self conceited in general.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Randoms have nothing to do with being new. As stated previously, there are randoms that have stayed randoms for a long time because they aren't all that memorable.

I'd honestly be more offended at being called new after having played a game for five years.

(I still wouldn't be offended)

 

[Deleted member 189823]

I don't call new people to the Smash community 'randoms', however, we do tend to call casuals that. And casuals are everywhere in tournaments.
Personally, I call them 'generics', lol.

 

[TheDemiGod]

Actually, as a new member, I don't care. If it pleases you to do so, then why not?

 

[SoulPech]

If it's someone not w/ the scene or new to the scene, then yes...they're "technicaly" random. They're not well known, they came out of the blue... it's *ahem* random. If no one knows who a specific person is then they're random.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

It'd be nice if people didn't get offended, there really is no point to it. You're just being a martyr and fishing for pity if you ***** about someone calling you a random.

And I'd argue it's never really a pejorative anyway; 99% of the time when it is used, the player in question is actually a "random" relative to the "known" player talking about them - if someone asks M2K who he beat in pools and he says "Grim Tuesday", the response will be "Who?" - what is M2K going to say then? "Some Puff player"? "Some Australian?" At the end of the day, I am a random. It's not insulting or lazy, it's accurate.

And that other 1% of the time it's used? Trash-talk.