As a gay person who grew up on multiplayer video games, I wouldn't call this shocking. More like "as expected". Nevertheless it is refreshing to see some of these assholes feel some consequences...
As a gay person who grew up on multiplayer video games, I wouldn't call this shocking. More like "as expected". Nevertheless it is refreshing to see some of these assholes feel some consequences for their abhorrent behavior
The homophobia in player-to-player gaming commentary is about as commonplace as racism, misogyny, the list goes on. The willingness to actually do something substantive about it isn't. Fallout76...
The homophobia in player-to-player gaming commentary is about as commonplace as racism, misogyny, the list goes on. The willingness to actually do something substantive about it isn't. Fallout76 is not a well-received game, but this little piece of responsible moderation succeeded in turning my head. WTG Bethesda.
Fallout 76 is a shitshow, and the total lack of an in-game reporting system really demonstrates how unfinished this game is. Sadly, there are a lot of people trying to claim it was all a joke and...
Fallout 76 is a shitshow, and the total lack of an in-game reporting system really demonstrates how unfinished this game is. Sadly, there are a lot of people trying to claim it was all a joke and that this is the equivalent of a girl going to the police to file a false rape claim because they had some slight regret. They base this off of the video uploaded by NathanTheHicc (which is now inaccessible, I'm not sure if YouTube removed it or if NathanTheHicc deleted it), where originally the targeted players tried to shrug off the homophobia, not realizing these people would be persistent. To claim this proves it's a joke is terrible reasoning, as "consenting" to A to get something over with does not automatically imply consenting to B. NathanTheHicc claims in this article:
I don't hate gay people. It was just a late night of having fun and after the first encounter (seen on my channel) we felt it would be fun to offend them somehow.
I do not regret the incident. I will not apologise given the opportunity.
He may be a high school senior, so dumb decisions aren't uncommon, but typically they'll at least pretend to be remorseful when caught doing stuff like this, so doubling down is a bit worrying. (He at least doesn't claim implied consent to harass players after they tried to shrug off homophobia.)
For those not familiar, FO76's combat system is not like most PvP/PvE systems - when you attack, the other person has to fight back before it's a "real" fight - until they fight back, they will only take a small amount of damage, but after fighting back they can take full damage. However, you can still bully people by doing what these players did, slowly killing them and preventing them from enjoying the game.
I honestly believe we need to stop giving a free pass to high schoolers for poor behaviour - quite honestly it just encourages the behaviour and the thought that these kids can get away with it,...
Exemplary
I honestly believe we need to stop giving a free pass to high schoolers for poor behaviour - quite honestly it just encourages the behaviour and the thought that these kids can get away with it, which we really shouldn't be doing.
Not only that, but if all he did was use homophobic language then that would be bad enough. But the fact he continuously harassed the person eventually killed them on the server (especially in Fallout 76 where the damage retrieved is so low unless you fight back, which implies they were at it for a long time) is incredibly inexcusable.
Fun story - back when I was a teenager I posted some awful abortion joke image on a forum that I was a frequent member of. I was banned on that server pretty promptly. I used to go back and read the responses and my stupid brain couldn't understand why like 80% of the people in that forum absolutely hated me, but at that age I personally insisted that these people couldn't take a joke and that they were the ones that went too far, not me.
A few years later of being ostracised out of that forum for a "dumb" joke, and the penny starts to drop. I was being a massive horrendous dick and that "dumb" joke really wasn't funny at all. I start to slowly but surely change myself - the way I think, the way I behave, etc. 10+ years later I'm now a much better person and I feel 100% happier with who I am and the way I interact with people.
It's funny because at the time when an incredibly stupid moment happened in gaming in the summer of 2014 I couldn't even fathom what kind of people would behave in such an abhorrent way, and in a lot of cases not really understand what they are doing, but after a while I realised that I could've been that person had I not had that swift kick up the arse at the time. The problem is that a lot of these games have gameplay mechanisms into making players feeling powerful and/or making them feel as entitled to some in game world as much as possible to keep them playing the game. I feel like this is especially the case with multiplayer games, to the point where online reporting of poor behaviour is barely a thing.
I remember playing CS:GO and reporting so many bad interactions between players and I eventually stopped when I realised it was a placebo button. It's a real shame, because I genuinely believe if this was actually properly handled in multiplayer games, sure, the initial rate would be pretty high, but I think it would drop eventually to a certain low point when all the arseholes give up and move onto other games where they can grief people. If in the worst case the players are still griefing, then maybe it's time to address those gameplay mechanics that allow griefing to happen so easily.
Your situation is understandable. You said something offensive and experienced backlash. While initially not understanding the issue you eventually developed a healthy perspective. This is not an...
I used to go back and read the responses and my stupid brain couldn't understand why like 80% of the people in that forum absolutely hated me.
Your situation is understandable. You said something offensive and experienced backlash. While initially not understanding the issue you eventually developed a healthy perspective.
This is not an excuse for your behavior. It's an accurate characterization of the common experience of learning how to be a good person.
I honestly think that if there is no backlash, people don't learn and improve. That's why social development depends so much on face to face interaction in a peer group. Eventually, you make the...
I honestly think that if there is no backlash, people don't learn and improve. That's why social development depends so much on face to face interaction in a peer group. Eventually, you make the stupid joke, and someone punches you for being a jackass - negative reinforcement.
I think this story just underscores how poorly designed and thought out Fallout 76 is. They want to have their cake and eat it too, but didn't bother to plan out basic social structures in a game...
I think this story just underscores how poorly designed and thought out Fallout 76 is. They want to have their cake and eat it too, but didn't bother to plan out basic social structures in a game environment that encourages people to be dicks to one another for any arbitrary reason whatsoever (especially one's own survival). They can even directly interact with each other in voice chat? Great, so another avenue for misuse.
It isn't especially shocking that people would be assholes in that context or really any context online. DotA, League of Legends, World of Warcraft, literally every online multiplayer game ever, Twitter, any social platform ever, they all have to deal with toxic assholes on a regular basis, and none of those stories make a blip of impact. Why did this one? I mean, the EUW server for League of Legends is notoriously crazy toxic in comparison to the NA server. This isn't a matter of it being Europe as opposed to America. Something else is going on.
I strongly suspect that something else is that this looked like a hate crime instead of just being another banal act of online hate-fueled abuse. And if that is the reason, the journalist would be so much better served pointing that out directly. Yet even that makes this article completely devoid of the larger context of online gaming generally that this interaction happened within. It is disgusting, but it is also ridiculously common. Everywhere. And shame on this journalist for failing to put his article into that broader context.
Lots of games have a toxic culture, but typically it's indiscriminately toxic - everyone hates everyone and isn't afraid to use insults regardless of how accurate they are. If a slur actually...
Lots of games have a toxic culture, but typically it's indiscriminately toxic - everyone hates everyone and isn't afraid to use insults regardless of how accurate they are. If a slur actually applies to a person (e.g. calling a gay person a fag), that's more of a coincidence than actual targetting, and usually it's just one of many insults, rather than consistently making fun of an attribute about a person.
In this case, NathanTheHicc specifically targeted these players because they were gay. He wasn't harassing them until he thought they were gay. He wasn't trying to annoy any person he came across, he specifically went after them for their sexuality.
Targeted hate often does happen, even and especially in circumstances where there is more indiscriminate hate going down. Some people take it as a point of pride to announce the reasons other...
Targeted hate often does happen, even and especially in circumstances where there is more indiscriminate hate going down. Some people take it as a point of pride to announce the reasons other people have expressed hatred toward them, and that can serve as a magnet for hate as both trolls and genuinely hateful people pile on with hate of their own. In other circumstances, you can tell through a voice chat what gender or sexual orientation someone has. This does also lead, in cases where you can't "pass" easily, to targeted hate.
NathanTheHicc is by far not the only case, nor is Fallout 76 at all unique in this type of targeted online hate. There are only two aspects that are unique: (1) the narrative about the game is already overwhelmingly negative, creating an appetite for more negative stories about the game and a feedback loop; and (2) some feature of Fallout 76 (I'm guessing voice chat since they talk about how they were talking to each other directly) enabled the abuser to have the information to know the sexual orientation of the person he planned on abusing.
It is disgusting journalism that the information that demonstrates the uniqueness of this story, or where this story fits into the broader context, are missing entirely from the story. I don't blame you for posting it. The topic invites a great slew of possible discussion points. I do blame this journalist for doing a shitty job.
This was a hate crime (albeit committed in a virtual environment), and the journalist did point that out. What else does "homophobic attack" mean, if not an anti-gay hate crime? I don't understand...
I strongly suspect that something else is that this looked like a hate crime instead of just being another banal act of online hate-fueled abuse. And if that is the reason, the journalist would be so much better served pointing that out directly.
This was a hate crime (albeit committed in a virtual environment), and the journalist did point that out. What else does "homophobic attack" mean, if not an anti-gay hate crime?
Yet even that makes this article completely devoid of the larger context of online gaming generally that this interaction happened within. It is disgusting, but it is also ridiculously common. Everywhere. And shame on this journalist for failing to put his article into that broader context.
I don't understand your complaint. Some dickhead in a game did a dickish thing. He and his associates got banned for their behaviour. The journalist reported events and the ban, and even provided context about the homophobic motives. But you seem to want some all-inclusive analysis of the worldwide gaming culture across all platforms. Why can't someone just report a bad thing?
"I do not regret the incident. I will not apologise given the opportunity. I don't plan on doing anything like this in the future but to be fair I didn't plan the initial incident, I just found...
"I do not regret the incident. I will not apologise given the opportunity. I don't plan on doing anything like this in the future but to be fair I didn't plan the initial incident, I just found them and decided to go through with it."
Sociopath and Psychopath all wrapped into one.
Based on his after-comments, he's gotten away with these types of things before and learned that he suffers no consequences to himself. You can bet he will do similar and worse later.
I don't think we should be using these terms outside a clinical context. They could be taken to imply that because NathanTheHicc is a mental defective, he bears no responsibility for his choice to...
Sociopath and Psychopath all wrapped into one.
I don't think we should be using these terms outside a clinical context. They could be taken to imply that because NathanTheHicc is a mental defective, he bears no responsibility for his choice to be an asshole and go out of his way to spoil other people's fun.
Especially since everyone starts life as a sociopath. That's the default, normal infant mental state, or so I was taught in Psych 101 anyway. Most of us move beyond that, but for some people it...
Especially since everyone starts life as a sociopath. That's the default, normal infant mental state, or so I was taught in Psych 101 anyway. Most of us move beyond that, but for some people it can take a long time. ;)
Young people tend towards antagonism and stupidity. Everyone starts out life stupid, too. Getting past all of these early handicaps is part of growing up, and it depends greatly on real world in-person socialization within a peer group.
A high school senior was being inappropriate in a video game with friends? Unforgivable and inconceivable. Justice won't truly be done until this criminal is banned from every game from hop scotch...
A high school senior was being inappropriate in a video game with friends?
Unforgivable and inconceivable.
Justice won't truly be done until this criminal is banned from every game from hop scotch to monopoly.
Okay, the behavior is wrong and a ban is appropriate; I mostly agree. It's more the presentation of this annoys me. "Shocking homophobia" By whose standard? Because from my perspective, this was...
Okay, the behavior is wrong and a ban is appropriate; I mostly agree.
It's more the presentation of this annoys me. "Shocking homophobia" By whose standard? Because from my perspective, this was mild to moderate.
Seems like an expected case of someone young doing something shitty and not being able to own up to it right away....
Edit: I'm gay and have been harassed for it online in the past.
I guess this is where we disagree. He is a homophobic jerk that is using the "we were just having fun" nonsense as an excuse. He's a jerk and probably has never had to face any consequences to his...
I guess this is where we disagree. He is a homophobic jerk that is using the "we were just having fun" nonsense as an excuse. He's a jerk and probably has never had to face any consequences to his actions.
Fair enough, maybe he is. But... I have played on a certain game server for years as a player and then admin. I've seen many edgy and offensive young adult players turn into relatively normal...
Fair enough, maybe he is. But...
I have played on a certain game server for years as a player and then admin. I've seen many edgy and offensive young adult players turn into relatively normal people who act appropriately within a short time frame.
If this guy was 50 years old I would agree with you more, but still, we're working on pretty limited information here.
On the other hand, getting perma-banned from Fallout 76 might be the boot in the ass NathanTheHicc needs to realize he's not in kindergarten any longer, that he doesn't get to bully other...
On the other hand, getting perma-banned from Fallout 76 might be the boot in the ass NathanTheHicc needs to realize he's not in kindergarten any longer, that he doesn't get to bully other impunity, and that it's time for him to grow up.
Definitely, it is deserved and a good lesson. That was kind of my point too, the normal process is: Someone does something offensive and others hold them accountable for it to an appropriate...
Definitely, it is deserved and a good lesson. That was kind of my point too, the normal process is: Someone does something offensive and others hold them accountable for it to an appropriate extent.
There is no need to present this as some deep tragedy or crime against humanity. The people who do that are working against their cause. (I don't see you as doing that or anything wrong in your comment. Just making a point on the context of this discussion)
Remember that the article comes from Eurogamer. As far as they're concerned, maybe this is an atrocity, whereas in the US this is just stupid teenagers being stupid, AKA business as usual.
Remember that the article comes from Eurogamer. As far as they're concerned, maybe this is an atrocity, whereas in the US this is just stupid teenagers being stupid, AKA business as usual.
Both of these hypothetical perspectives are a polarized version of reasonable reaction to this. It is not just "teenagers being stupid" and is not just an "atrocity" There is miles of space...
Both of these hypothetical perspectives are a polarized version of reasonable reaction to this.
It is not just "teenagers being stupid" and is not just an "atrocity"
There is miles of space between these two perspectives.
By my standard, as a formerly bullied gay teenager. I was bullied for years because people assumed I was gay. Sure, each individual name-calling of "poofter" and each accidental shove in the...
"Shocking homophobia" By whose standard? Because from my perspective, this was mild to moderate.
By my standard, as a formerly bullied gay teenager. I was bullied for years because people assumed I was gay. Sure, each individual name-calling of "poofter" and each accidental shove in the school corridor isn't major - but they add up. They can add up to a young gay boy who wants to kill himself just to escape the continual, day-in-day-out, torture of life (why do you think LGBTI teenagers have a significantly higher rate of suicide than their cisgender heterosexual peers?). As one of the victims says in the article "These guys were running around targeting people and what if they targeted a kid playing that was struggling with their identity? What if they said all those things to someone that was playing solo and didn't have anyone to talk to? That can really mess someone up."
Don't be so cavalier about someone else's experiences of bullying. These things hurt. Sometimes, they kill.
As you've said, minor instances of bullying can easily compound into a horrible experience. I can choose not to sensationalize this and maintain an appropriate standard for this behavior. However,...
As you've said, minor instances of bullying can easily compound into a horrible experience.
I can choose not to sensationalize this and maintain an appropriate standard for this behavior.
However, the tone of my initial comment here was cavalier and I apologize for that. While I can personally identify with being bullied for being gay it doesn't give me a license to not treat the issue with respect. I could be taking my situation for granted. Thank you for pointing that out.
As a gay person who grew up on multiplayer video games, I wouldn't call this shocking. More like "as expected". Nevertheless it is refreshing to see some of these assholes feel some consequences for their abhorrent behavior
The homophobia in player-to-player gaming commentary is about as commonplace as racism, misogyny, the list goes on. The willingness to actually do something substantive about it isn't. Fallout76 is not a well-received game, but this little piece of responsible moderation succeeded in turning my head. WTG Bethesda.
Fallout 76 is a shitshow, and the total lack of an in-game reporting system really demonstrates how unfinished this game is. Sadly, there are a lot of people trying to claim it was all a joke and that this is the equivalent of a girl going to the police to file a false rape claim because they had some slight regret. They base this off of the video uploaded by NathanTheHicc (which is now inaccessible, I'm not sure if YouTube removed it or if NathanTheHicc deleted it), where originally the targeted players tried to shrug off the homophobia, not realizing these people would be persistent. To claim this proves it's a joke is terrible reasoning, as "consenting" to A to get something over with does not automatically imply consenting to B. NathanTheHicc claims in this article:
He may be a high school senior, so dumb decisions aren't uncommon, but typically they'll at least pretend to be remorseful when caught doing stuff like this, so doubling down is a bit worrying. (He at least doesn't claim implied consent to harass players after they tried to shrug off homophobia.)
For those not familiar, FO76's combat system is not like most PvP/PvE systems - when you attack, the other person has to fight back before it's a "real" fight - until they fight back, they will only take a small amount of damage, but after fighting back they can take full damage. However, you can still bully people by doing what these players did, slowly killing them and preventing them from enjoying the game.
I honestly believe we need to stop giving a free pass to high schoolers for poor behaviour - quite honestly it just encourages the behaviour and the thought that these kids can get away with it, which we really shouldn't be doing.
Not only that, but if all he did was use homophobic language then that would be bad enough. But the fact he continuously harassed the person eventually killed them on the server (especially in Fallout 76 where the damage retrieved is so low unless you fight back, which implies they were at it for a long time) is incredibly inexcusable.
Fun story - back when I was a teenager I posted some awful abortion joke image on a forum that I was a frequent member of. I was banned on that server pretty promptly. I used to go back and read the responses and my stupid brain couldn't understand why like 80% of the people in that forum absolutely hated me, but at that age I personally insisted that these people couldn't take a joke and that they were the ones that went too far, not me.
A few years later of being ostracised out of that forum for a "dumb" joke, and the penny starts to drop. I was being a massive horrendous dick and that "dumb" joke really wasn't funny at all. I start to slowly but surely change myself - the way I think, the way I behave, etc. 10+ years later I'm now a much better person and I feel 100% happier with who I am and the way I interact with people.
It's funny because at the time when an incredibly stupid moment happened in gaming in the summer of 2014 I couldn't even fathom what kind of people would behave in such an abhorrent way, and in a lot of cases not really understand what they are doing, but after a while I realised that I could've been that person had I not had that swift kick up the arse at the time. The problem is that a lot of these games have gameplay mechanisms into making players feeling powerful and/or making them feel as entitled to some in game world as much as possible to keep them playing the game. I feel like this is especially the case with multiplayer games, to the point where online reporting of poor behaviour is barely a thing.
I remember playing CS:GO and reporting so many bad interactions between players and I eventually stopped when I realised it was a placebo button. It's a real shame, because I genuinely believe if this was actually properly handled in multiplayer games, sure, the initial rate would be pretty high, but I think it would drop eventually to a certain low point when all the arseholes give up and move onto other games where they can grief people. If in the worst case the players are still griefing, then maybe it's time to address those gameplay mechanics that allow griefing to happen so easily.
Your situation is understandable. You said something offensive and experienced backlash. While initially not understanding the issue you eventually developed a healthy perspective.
This is not an excuse for your behavior. It's an accurate characterization of the common experience of learning how to be a good person.
I honestly think that if there is no backlash, people don't learn and improve. That's why social development depends so much on face to face interaction in a peer group. Eventually, you make the stupid joke, and someone punches you for being a jackass - negative reinforcement.
There's also the nigga moment. It might be mankind's worst universal affliction.
That seems like a truly idiotic game mechanic. Anyone who's ever played an MMO knows that was going to turn into a mess.
I think this story just underscores how poorly designed and thought out Fallout 76 is. They want to have their cake and eat it too, but didn't bother to plan out basic social structures in a game environment that encourages people to be dicks to one another for any arbitrary reason whatsoever (especially one's own survival). They can even directly interact with each other in voice chat? Great, so another avenue for misuse.
It isn't especially shocking that people would be assholes in that context or really any context online. DotA, League of Legends, World of Warcraft, literally every online multiplayer game ever, Twitter, any social platform ever, they all have to deal with toxic assholes on a regular basis, and none of those stories make a blip of impact. Why did this one? I mean, the EUW server for League of Legends is notoriously crazy toxic in comparison to the NA server. This isn't a matter of it being Europe as opposed to America. Something else is going on.
I strongly suspect that something else is that this looked like a hate crime instead of just being another banal act of online hate-fueled abuse. And if that is the reason, the journalist would be so much better served pointing that out directly. Yet even that makes this article completely devoid of the larger context of online gaming generally that this interaction happened within. It is disgusting, but it is also ridiculously common. Everywhere. And shame on this journalist for failing to put his article into that broader context.
Lots of games have a toxic culture, but typically it's indiscriminately toxic - everyone hates everyone and isn't afraid to use insults regardless of how accurate they are. If a slur actually applies to a person (e.g. calling a gay person a fag), that's more of a coincidence than actual targetting, and usually it's just one of many insults, rather than consistently making fun of an attribute about a person.
In this case, NathanTheHicc specifically targeted these players because they were gay. He wasn't harassing them until he thought they were gay. He wasn't trying to annoy any person he came across, he specifically went after them for their sexuality.
Targeted hate often does happen, even and especially in circumstances where there is more indiscriminate hate going down. Some people take it as a point of pride to announce the reasons other people have expressed hatred toward them, and that can serve as a magnet for hate as both trolls and genuinely hateful people pile on with hate of their own. In other circumstances, you can tell through a voice chat what gender or sexual orientation someone has. This does also lead, in cases where you can't "pass" easily, to targeted hate.
NathanTheHicc is by far not the only case, nor is Fallout 76 at all unique in this type of targeted online hate. There are only two aspects that are unique: (1) the narrative about the game is already overwhelmingly negative, creating an appetite for more negative stories about the game and a feedback loop; and (2) some feature of Fallout 76 (I'm guessing voice chat since they talk about how they were talking to each other directly) enabled the abuser to have the information to know the sexual orientation of the person he planned on abusing.
It is disgusting journalism that the information that demonstrates the uniqueness of this story, or where this story fits into the broader context, are missing entirely from the story. I don't blame you for posting it. The topic invites a great slew of possible discussion points. I do blame this journalist for doing a shitty job.
This was a hate crime (albeit committed in a virtual environment), and the journalist did point that out. What else does "homophobic attack" mean, if not an anti-gay hate crime?
I don't understand your complaint. Some dickhead in a game did a dickish thing. He and his associates got banned for their behaviour. The journalist reported events and the ban, and even provided context about the homophobic motives. But you seem to want some all-inclusive analysis of the worldwide gaming culture across all platforms. Why can't someone just report a bad thing?
"I do not regret the incident. I will not apologise given the opportunity. I don't plan on doing anything like this in the future but to be fair I didn't plan the initial incident, I just found them and decided to go through with it."
Sociopath and Psychopath all wrapped into one.
Based on his after-comments, he's gotten away with these types of things before and learned that he suffers no consequences to himself. You can bet he will do similar and worse later.
I don't think we should be using these terms outside a clinical context. They could be taken to imply that because NathanTheHicc is a mental defective, he bears no responsibility for his choice to be an asshole and go out of his way to spoil other people's fun.
Especially since everyone starts life as a sociopath. That's the default, normal infant mental state, or so I was taught in Psych 101 anyway. Most of us move beyond that, but for some people it can take a long time. ;)
Young people tend towards antagonism and stupidity. Everyone starts out life stupid, too. Getting past all of these early handicaps is part of growing up, and it depends greatly on real world in-person socialization within a peer group.
A high school senior was being inappropriate in a video game with friends?
Unforgivable and inconceivable.
Justice won't truly be done until this criminal is banned from every game from hop scotch to monopoly.
Griefers like this should be banned. He had no remorse and is a cunt. Fuck that guy.
Okay, the behavior is wrong and a ban is appropriate; I mostly agree.
It's more the presentation of this annoys me. "Shocking homophobia" By whose standard? Because from my perspective, this was mild to moderate.
Seems like an expected case of someone young doing something shitty and not being able to own up to it right away....
Edit: I'm gay and have been harassed for it online in the past.
I guess this is where we disagree. He is a homophobic jerk that is using the "we were just having fun" nonsense as an excuse. He's a jerk and probably has never had to face any consequences to his actions.
Fair enough, maybe he is. But...
I have played on a certain game server for years as a player and then admin. I've seen many edgy and offensive young adult players turn into relatively normal people who act appropriately within a short time frame.
If this guy was 50 years old I would agree with you more, but still, we're working on pretty limited information here.
On the other hand, getting perma-banned from Fallout 76 might be the boot in the ass NathanTheHicc needs to realize he's not in kindergarten any longer, that he doesn't get to bully other impunity, and that it's time for him to grow up.
Definitely, it is deserved and a good lesson. That was kind of my point too, the normal process is: Someone does something offensive and others hold them accountable for it to an appropriate extent.
There is no need to present this as some deep tragedy or crime against humanity. The people who do that are working against their cause. (I don't see you as doing that or anything wrong in your comment. Just making a point on the context of this discussion)
Remember that the article comes from Eurogamer. As far as they're concerned, maybe this is an atrocity, whereas in the US this is just stupid teenagers being stupid, AKA business as usual.
Both of these hypothetical perspectives are a polarized version of reasonable reaction to this.
It is not just "teenagers being stupid" and is not just an "atrocity"
There is miles of space between these two perspectives.
By my standard, as a formerly bullied gay teenager. I was bullied for years because people assumed I was gay. Sure, each individual name-calling of "poofter" and each accidental shove in the school corridor isn't major - but they add up. They can add up to a young gay boy who wants to kill himself just to escape the continual, day-in-day-out, torture of life (why do you think LGBTI teenagers have a significantly higher rate of suicide than their cisgender heterosexual peers?). As one of the victims says in the article "These guys were running around targeting people and what if they targeted a kid playing that was struggling with their identity? What if they said all those things to someone that was playing solo and didn't have anyone to talk to? That can really mess someone up."
Don't be so cavalier about someone else's experiences of bullying. These things hurt. Sometimes, they kill.
As you've said, minor instances of bullying can easily compound into a horrible experience.
I can choose not to sensationalize this and maintain an appropriate standard for this behavior.
However, the tone of my initial comment here was cavalier and I apologize for that. While I can personally identify with being bullied for being gay it doesn't give me a license to not treat the issue with respect. I could be taking my situation for granted. Thank you for pointing that out.
Thank you.