Yeah, yeah, I know. The title’s a bit weird for Players Helping Players. But I really do feel like this is the best advice I can give any player.
Now, those of you who still live on the farm might know where I’m going with this, but let’s face it – most people don’t live on farms these days. They live around piles of people, and most times tend to get offended when someone SAYS something stupid.
If someone DOES something stupid, that’s one thing. DOING stupid things can produce a tangible negative effect on a person even if that person does not want said negative effect to happen to them. An example of this is drunk driving. Someone doing that stands a very real risk of adversely affecting another human being by running them down in the road, crashing into their car, or even plowing into a building. (All of these things have occurred in the history of the automobile as a result of drunk drivers.)
But what if someone SAYS something stupid? Odds are, they’re HOPING it will affect you – because you, gentle reader, are the one in control of your reactions to people saying stupid crap.
WORDS CANNOT AFFECT ANYONE WHO DOES NOT WANT TO BE AFFECTED BY THOSE WORDS. It’s a poorly-kept secret, but thanks to the human love of being offended, one that we simply give no credence. We LIKE being offended. We LIKE feeling self-righteous. We LIKE that image of us wearing shiny metal armor, wading into obvious trolling to “defend” an ideal or person or animal or whatever. We LIKE all that.
But because we feed into that need to be perceived as champions of truth, justice and the [insert country here] way, we keep giving power and control to the writers/speakers who “offended” us.
And that’s exactly what they want.
Writers and speakers alike KNOW they have no power over the audience. The audience is going to respond however they like. The only thing they can hope for is that someone out there in said audience doesn’t recognize they’re in charge. They’re hoping for someone to hand that power over to ’em.
How does one fight that? Simple. By not fighting it.
Some of you reading this now have likely formed a strong opinion on the subject. It’s either “zOMG this guy’s blaming the victims!” or “zOMG I’ve been telling people this for ages now but no one will listen”. Now, MOST writers/speakers would write/say stuff like this in hopes of eliciting that kind of response. For most doing this, it’s how they make money, but for many they enjoy the control that they’re being handed by the audience.
I’ve something different in mind. I want you, gentle reader, to simply not respond.
You don’t HAVE to put anything below this arguably long missive. You don’t. You don’t have to jump to the defense of the hypothetical audience, or even the hypothetical writers/speakers. You don’t have to respond. You don’t have to give up even a smidge of control by allowing yourself to be affected by these words.
The same is true with garbage spewed in-game, especially in PvP or in dungeon PUGs. Yes, we all know they sound like total toolbags. Yes, we all know their lives suck if they’re going to rage about getting capped or a player dragging through a dungeon because it’s their first effin’ time. But you know what? THEY WANT YOU TO REPLY!
Why give someone like that – someone like ME – that kind of power over you? Do I deserve it? HELL NO! Am I going to do anything with it but entertain myself? HELL NO!
So why effin’ bother? Why give people like me an opening when you’re in total control?
The tl;dr?
Don’t fight fire with fire. That just makes for a flame war. Fight fire, instead, with marshmallows. -Sid
(Oh right. The point about cows. Anyway, cows are better than people because you can sit there and say anything you like to a cow and they’re just gonna keep going on doing cow things. Cows don’t care if they’re called fat or ugly or smelly or what-have-you. So people should be more like cows in that regard. Yeah, I should have elucidated more on that in the body given the title, but you know how a rant can get.)
