Charisma Is Clearly This Troll’s Lowest Attribute
I’m an avid player of a particular MMORPG. It isn’t the most well-known one in the genre, which I’m fine with since a smaller community generally means fewer trolls and the like. They certainly still pop up every now and again, as this incident demonstrated. For context, the game has several races to choose from, only two of which are basically human in appearance, and characters can be customized a fair amount; I enjoy making characters and have quite a few, but the one I was playing on this day was a humanoid woman with very dark brown skin.
I left the character standing around in a city while I took my dog on a brief walk, and came back to a wall of private messages from someone that started off demanding to know why I’d made a [racial slur]. I’m not sure if this person either wasn’t planning to wait for a reply or simply didn’t realize I was away and got angry at apparently being ignored, but they went on and on about how I was a [slur]-lover, forcing diversity into a fantasy world, complicit in white genocide, etc., and topped it all off with calling me a [gay, transphobic slur] for playing a female character who “wasn’t even wearing anything sexy.”
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen the “logic” that the only reason a man would play a female character outside of eye candy is if he’s gay or transgender.
The player who’d sent these messages wasn’t around by the time I came back — given the volume of text, I think they’d been blocked by the in-game spam prevention — although I wasn’t planning to reply, anyway. I simply blocked and reported them and went on my way. However, I couldn’t help but laugh at a few of their incorrect assumptions. First of all, I’m not white — though I’m not black like my character appeared to be, either. Second of all, I am gay… but I’m a gay woman who just doesn’t think a lady needs to be wearing a chainmail bikini to be sexy.
For all their ranting about me “taking the fun out of the game,” I don’t think they’re enjoying themselves all that much if such a little thing sets them off like that.