chronically cute

Example: I downloaded Friday the 13th because it’s free on psn. I dunno how to play, so I just enter quick play and I’m matched with 3-4 kids on mic. Immediately on mic they’re shitty and disparaging to each other. They laugh at each others deaths, they actively work against team mates and self sabotage, they call each other “fags”, etc. From the sounds of the voices they cannot be older than 13-14.

I put on my mic and just decide I ain’t havin it. I am nice. I thank them for barricading doors or leaving me items. When they break free from Jason’s grasp I say “good job!” or I try to help them. One kid survived for most of the match by himself. When he dies, I tell him he did a fantastic job.

The mood shift is practically INSTANT. These kids almost immediately stop being dick heads. They start encouraging each other and being kind. After the match all of them try to friend request me. Which should tell you a couple of things:

A) kids want to be kind, and they want to have a nice time playing games. But encounters with adults like me or so rare that they’ve trained themselves to instantly put on a toxic, shitty, defensive veneer when encountering any new person online. It’s literally just THAT EASY to not groom a horrible gaming community, it’s just that NO ONE does it.

B) the speed of which they all tried to friend me was cute, but paints for me such a sad picture? Like these kids are SO desperate to find people to play with who aren’t crappy jerks. They played with me for 10 minutes TOPS and all instantly tried to reach out to me.

The way OP abstracted it makes it sound weird, but this is the normal, expected behavior.

Think about it: if you have a friend with photosensitive epilepsy or migraines, you generally warn them about flashing lights. Same goes for your friend in recovery with alcohol. Same goes for your friend with sensory processing issues with loudness. (In some of these cases it would happen as part of the planning process, not when you're about to walk through the door.)

"Bunch of us are going to Sammy's this weekend, do you want to come? Just so you know, people will be drinking."

This is not weird.

"It's going to be loud in here, you might want to put in your ear plugs"

This is not weird.

I just hate the insinuations that:

“people with empathy are good people” (not always true)

“people without empathy are bad people” (not inherently true)

“if you have empathy, you automatically have perfect morals” (not true at all)

“the political compass is one dimensional and is directly proportional to amounts of empathy and care” (this is wrong. for many reasons.)

“all people on the left-wing are inherently good people who care about everyone in the world” (uh. no. people are leftists for many different reasons. there are bigots on the left. and some of those bigots claim to be empaths.)