A Report on Swearing in Online Games

A Next Generation article references an informal study done on the frequency of swearing on Xbox Live. From the study: "When you logon to Xbox live more often then not you will be greeted by a 14 year old that learned a new word on the playground that day, or maybe it's the drunken 24 year old who hates black people, gays and anyone who isn't in his frat. No matter who you are if you have played on live you have run into cursing and lewdness. If you look at the rating for the game you can see that it is intended for ages 17+ but parents don't care/understand/listen so lots of underage kids have [Halo 2]." Warning: links contain profanity.

Comments

I know the summary sounds biased

[Aqws]

But here is an intresting link, that i'm sure people who looked google video know of: Here is a kid who plays the X-box I know he is only one person, and lots of other people on the x-box are more normalish.

Re:Gamesmanship

[xenocide2]

I've never met a micspammer who was any good at a game. The fact that they never shut up appears to distract them from actually winning.

Re:Swearing online

[Trick]

I live in a multilingual household myself (one of them French), and you're right. There's absolutely nothing like French for truly inspirational cursing. It's perfect when you really want to make someone feel like dirt (which maybe isn't surprising, considering the source).

On the other hand, for flat-out obscene, French doesn't work very well. It just seems too damned refined.

Piss off a southeast Asian, like someone Vietnamese or Laotian, if you ever want to hear stuff that puts English, or even French, cursing to shame. They won't think twice about tossing in bestiality, violence, and incest, often all at the same time. Really disgusting stuff. You gotta love it.

Re:Swearing online

[jlarocco]

<p> : This is a paragraph tag. You can use it to break your post up into logical, coherent groups of sentences.

There are several uses for the paragraph tag, including:

• Making posts easier to read.
• Making your post look like you actually have thought out, coherent ideas about something
• Making you not look like a fucking moron.

The standing theory.

[eonlabs]

The standing theory on this topic is referred to as John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. For those interested, you may see it here.
Please note, this was discovered by one of the authors of the penny arcade comic circa March, 2004.

Re:Swearing online

[Fulcrum of Evil]

You can be insulting in any language.

• He has all of the virtues I despise and none of the vices I admire.
• Your taste is all in your mouth.
• I keep thinking you've said the dumbest thing possible, but then you keep talking.
• People like you make me look forward to death.
• Bite me.