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On the Internet, April Fool's Day is usually an opportunity to make bad jokes about impossible projects, or an excuse to joke everyone with something that should exist. But moderators of r / Games, a subgroup with more than 1.7 million subscribers, have decided to take a different approach this year. According to the people who oversee the community, it's time to talk about an ubiquitous debate on the Internet in general: comments. The subaccount was closed for April fish to draw attention to the issue.
In recent years, the video game community has been stigmatized by the contempt of marginalized communities, with discussions on topics such as race, gender and social class unjustly dismissed as "social justice warriors" Who, apparently, only want to destroy the hobby. "Politics" has become a dirty word in the space. Either people do not want to talk about real problems in video games, or they can not talk about it civilly without fearing doxxing, swatting and harassing campaigns. Video games have for some time been an angry and intolerant space, especially against vulnerable fans.
This largely reflects the general state of the Internet as a whole: everything has become a source of discord, or obviously hostile to marginalized communities, wherever you are. While this is not a Reddit-centric issue, the social media site has become the face of this change in video games thanks to communities like r / KotakuInAction, where hateful moves like Gamergate are flourishing. This is a problem that has spread to Reddit, where many communities of players meet and discuss their interests. It's where r / Games comes in.
"In recent times, we have learned that what was supposed to be a forum for the potential dissemination of knowledge and participation in video games had become a battleground of conflicting ideas," moderators said in an announcement. posted pinned at the top of the forum. As supervisors of the community, the moderators noticed that many discussions with the outsiders intensified until there was no room for de-escalation. And today, subreddit leaders are putting their community to the test.
"At the r / Games, our community is increasingly responsible for the perpetuation of a considerable number of schools of thought … combative and pejorative," say the moderators. "We suppress these comments, we ban the authors, but the problem persists at a fundamental level: the notion that it is acceptable or acceptable to ridicule and demonize members traditionally deprived of rights and marginalized in the gaming community".
The dilemma is not only that the discussion seems impossible under a cloud of toxicity, it is that the community of players on Reddit has become too insular and closed.
"In this, we lose the opportunity to show not only compassion to these people, but also to develop our own community and diversify the demographics of those who participate," reads the message. "Whether misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, racism or a host of other discriminatory practices, the time has come to thwart the flow of regressive ideas and to prevent them from ever becoming Standard."
The moderators add that the problems of marginalized communities are often minimized by the Redditors, or transformed into tasteless jokes, some of which have been compiled in an album by the leaders of the Games to show how the problem manifests itself under Reddit.
Admitting that places like Reddit can engender harmful attitudes, the guardians of subreddit hope to be able to cultivate a "healthier and more tolerant community" that gathers around video games, rather than using the hobby as a Absolute zero for hateful ideologies. The message ends with a list of charities to which readers can donate, but more importantly, with a powerful message on the next step of r / Games. The announcement shares such an honest and responsible idea that despite its existence on April Fool's Day, it's all worth it.
"Preventing the culture of bigotry means not giving it motive, and leaving as a whole a space for those who would like to participate respectfully," says the post office. "We need to look closely at our own communities, with the goal of encouraging acceptance and inclusion, to create a healthy community in which we value empathy and respect."
The r / Games moderators declined to comment, but told Polygon that they would further discuss the topic in a "meta" thread on the message that should be released later in the day.
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