I Want to Thank Torchbearer Server

[ChefJackButler]

I told my kids that this game was great, and the community was safe, friendly, and welcoming.  I convinced them to give it a try, and up until tonight, all of them were grooving on it.

And then tonight, my daughter Karen was playing.  Someone in-game was making "Karen" jokes.  You've seen the memes, so you know the jokes.  She asked, politely and without giving anything away about herself, if the guy could stop.  He not only didn't, he doubled down, actually *calling* my daughter Karen a "Karen." and insulting her.

She told him that her name actually was Karen, and that she would appreciate it if he could cut the insults and the humor.

Suddenly it was like a pack of sharks and blood was in the water.  My daughter was dog-piled by bullies.  Suddenly brand new characters popped up named things like "Linda von Karen" and "Karen the Destroyer" and "Go Home Karen" and "Karen Suxx".  And of course, the joking got worse.

My daughter came to me, crying and in tears, complaining about all the cyber-bullying.  I got on and asked around about what happened, and yes, I got angry over the mistreatment of my daughter.  And I was told that my daughter being upset was her own fault because she needed to "toughen up."  I was told that it was my fault for naming her Karen in the first place.  I was told that she had no business playing the game at all if she couldn't take a little "hazing."  I was told that I was in the wrong for not warning her about bullies.

Well, I did warn her.  I just didn't expect to find them in such large numbers in CoH.  And I certainly didn't expect to have them dog-pile my daughter.

Congratulations, you bullied a brand new player out of the game.  She never wants to play again, and the rest of my kids are expressing doubts, too.  Good job, you successfully made a teenager feel horrible about herself because of her name.

I bet your momma's are all very, very proud of you now.

[Greycat]

I think all the time we *haven't* had this game has caused issues with the community.

 

We used to be *much* better than this. Geez.

 

If you have the time, approximately? Bring it up to the GMs attention. This sort of thing should NOT be tolerated here, period, and yes, people doubling down after being asked to stop? Suspension for a few days, at least. Preferrably more. I don't care if it's because you're black, LBGTQ, or just named Karen (or anything else,) it's not funny and not cool at all.

 

Edit: No, I don't play on Torchbearer.

Edited June 15, 2020 by Greycat

[Frostbiter]

Ugh, that's terrible. People are gonna people so its probably best to turn all the chat channels off for kids. Sorry, I know that's less than helpful atm. 😞

[Apparition]

2 minutes ago, Greycat said:

I think all the time we *haven't* had this game has caused issues with the community.

 

We used to be *much* better than this. Geez.

 

That, and the lack of any kind of paywall now, so there's little to lose.  Get banned?  No problem.  Just use a different e-mail address and make a new account!

[Greycat]

2 minutes ago, Apparition said:

 

That, and the lack of any kind of paywall now, so there's little to lose.  Get banned?  No problem.  Just use a different e-mail address and make a new account!

Ehhhhhh... yes and no. I mean, when we went F2P on live it didn't turn into a cesspool - we had people who had been playing for *years* after all, the community was less tolerant of this sort of thing - we had a reputation of being a great, inclusive community (who also looked incredible.)

 

As a *community,* we need to fight for that reputation, bring it back and enforce it - just stand up and say "No, this is not acceptable."

[Primantis]

That's just horrible!

 

The kind of stuff I'd expect more in certain other MMO's, but certainly not CoH.

 

I second the notion that you might consider bringing it up with a GM.

 

Part of me also wonders if it was all the same guy who just had a butt load of alt accounts. That would explain why this whole posse suddenly jumped your poor daughter.

Also just out of curiosity, was this in team chat? Or was it General? I've noticed General can get quite toxic or political very often, I opt to just turn it off on all of my toons.

Edited June 15, 2020 by Primantis

[Oubliette_Red]

22 minutes ago, ChefJackButler said:

I told my kids that this game was great, and the community was safe, friendly, and welcoming.  I convinced them to give it a try, and up until tonight, all of them were grooving on it.

And then tonight, my daughter Karen was playing.  Someone in-game was making "Karen" jokes.  You've seen the memes, so you know the jokes.  She asked, politely and without giving anything away about herself, if the guy could stop.  He not only didn't, he doubled down, actually *calling* my daughter Karen a "Karen." and insulting her.

She told him that her name actually was Karen, and that she would appreciate it if he could cut the insults and the humor.

Suddenly it was like a pack of sharks and blood was in the water.  My daughter was dog-piled by bullies.  Suddenly brand new characters popped up named things like "Linda von Karen" and "Karen the Destroyer" and "Go Home Karen" and "Karen Suxx".  And of course, the joking got worse.

My daughter came to me, crying and in tears, complaining about all the cyber-bullying.  I got on and asked around about what happened, and yes, I got angry over the mistreatment of my daughter.  And I was told that my daughter being upset was her own fault because she needed to "toughen up."  I was told that it was my fault for naming her Karen in the first place.  I was told that she had no business playing the game at all if she couldn't take a little "hazing."  I was told that I was in the wrong for not warning her about bullies.

Well, I did warn her.  I just didn't expect to find them in such large numbers in CoH.  And I certainly didn't expect to have them dog-pile my daughter.

Congratulations, you bullied a brand new player out of the game.  She never wants to play again, and the rest of my kids are expressing doubts, too.  Good job, you successfully made a teenager feel horrible about herself because of her name.

I bet your momma's are all very, very proud of you now.

 

I'm sorry to hear that your daughter had such a bad experience. It used to be that these types were much more rare and that the community would rally around them rather than a bunch of posterior head-adornments ganging up on another player. I'd happily join her on any of my characters or roll up a fresh one, on Torch or any other server. I'm pretty sure that others would be more than willing to do the same. Though I can understand if she never wanted to return to the game. It would be our loss.

 

If you have chat-logging I would highly recommend reporting every single player that bullied your daughter.

 

[cranebump]

That’s a terrible experience. I have 2 daughters and 2 granddaughters. I know how I would feel if that happened to any of them. Unfortunately, we can’t reach through the screen and teach people some manners. It’s the unfortunate by-product of our online interactions. The good news is that stupid meme will go away. That said, I am hoping your daughter doesn’t give those bullies the satisfaction of quitting.

 

In the meantime—and I’m sure you thought of this already—maybe try one of the other servers? Better yet, if you need a wingman posse for some backup if that stuff starts again, I’d be happy to serve as one of your recruits. We can’t really kick a**, but we can certainly take names and report these idiots. My globals are @cranebump and @cranebump2. Let me know if I can help in any way. And tell Karen to hang in there. She’s got supporters she hasn’t met yet.

 

(P.S. I run on excelsior and everlasting, but if Team Karen is forming on Torch, signal me, and i’ll Be there. For now, best wishes, and, on behalf of the overwhelming majority of good people in the CoH community, know that we stand with you.)

Edited June 15, 2020 by cranebump

[Dazl]

That's a shame, guess the community is not what it used to be. Sadly with most bullies if you show any signs of weakens they will ponce. General chat can be a sewer just like twitter. I ignore all chat channels except the SG or LFG channels.

[roleki]

While General gets a little crazy at times, I've not seen similar toxic behavior on Indom; maybe move a character or two over and see if it's better?

[Strawberry]

You really just never ever want to engage a chat channel troll on an MMO. I don't think this is exclusive to CoH. In fact, I think Homecoming probably still has one of the better general/broadcast/LFG chats I've seen despite what happened to your daughter. If I may offer some advice, maybe consider muting general/broadcast chat for your children. If they play solo or duo with each other, maybe even mute LFG.

 

I still think what happened is unfortunate, but tbh, most players experience a certain degree of toxicity in every online game. It really just can't be helped because no one has full control over the community. It's best to ignore it or move on immediately.

Edit - Also, I've heard very good things about Everlasting. I personally play on Excelsior because I like the larger population size, but whenever someone is looking for a nice community, I usually hear Everlasting mentioned.

Edited June 15, 2020 by Strawberry

[Troo]

@ChefJackButler Thank  you for saying something.

The described behavior is not tolerated.

A quick note to a GM at the time would result in action. To reach GMs use Menu > Support

 

2 hours ago, Apparition said:

That, and the lack of any kind of paywall now, so there's little to lose.  Get banned?  No problem.  Just use a different e-mail address and make a new account!

IP addresses aren't difficult to track.

[Robotech_Master]

For what it's worth, "Karen the Destroyer" isn't a "brand new character"; they're a level 50, and they were in the Hamidon Raid with me at the time. This character wasn't created to poke fun at your daughter, it was created some long time ago to (I assume) poke fun at the Karen meme in general, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was true for some of the others, too.

 

It's unfortunate that there are some people out there who will respond to being asked to stop by doubling down, but that kind of person is all over the Internet, not just in CoH. It would be more effective to use /ignore than to try to get them to stop.

[Stygus]

I would like to second, third or probaly twelfth the idea of getting her back with people who know how to behave. I run on Everlasting and Reunion, but I'd move an alt over to be on Team Karen, my global is @Stygus

It is part of the responsibility of a community member to remind other players what is and is not tolerated by this community, and hopefully that can be shown,

And vis-vis the behaviour of the trolls, if they can be reported, i.e. you have chat logs or screenshots I would ask you to do so, not only for the sake of your daughter but for everyone who wants to enjoy this game,

Finally, if the OP is reading this please convey my apologies for this obnoxious behaviour, it should not have gotten to where it did, and it is a darn shame that it did

[JnEricsonx]

People's inner A-hole comes out a lot more these days.   I roll on Excelsior, and we have our share of "Oh dear God I'm turning off General Chat for a hour" days.

[Heraclea]

I have played with 'Karen the Destroyer'.  I don't know when all this went down, but I do know that 'Karen the Destroyer' is a fully thought out character, with a bio and costume appropriate to the theme, battle cries that speak of 'speaking to the manager' and so forth.   Everything about her refers to the current 'Karen' meme, which does not suggest that this character was made to mock your daughter.  She does not appear to be created to harass your daughter; the character is level 50 and has veteran levels.  I've referred to the same body of folklore in my Heaven and Hell AE mission, embodied in a mob named 'Customer from Hell'. 

 

It's a meme.  Give it three months and something else will be trending.  I am sorry to hear of her bad experience, but the 'Karen' meme is definitely out there. 

 

She didn't by any chance use her real name as a global handle or character name, or did she? 

Edited June 15, 2020 by Heraclea

[Outrider_01]

Just tell the kiddo not to play with the children, its going to appear on the internet because of anonymity and people never group up.  Quit group, find another that is hopefully not lollipop-ing the community drinking fountain (lead facet 😉) with a stereotype meme of crap that has been in the movies since the 80s.

 

If anything, perhaps she should mention those idiots sound like the sea gulls in Little Nemo

 

Mine! Mine! Mine!

Karen! Karen! Karen!

 

Bunch of mindless birds spouting an unoriginal one liner.

[Sovera]

I'm not going to join the crowd and for that I apologize since you are seeking confirmation.

 

Your daughter *should* grow thicker skin. I don't get upset at the endless flood of mocking at how the french only know how to surrender and how their flag is the white one out from people who never opened an history book in their life.

 

People *will* be pigs over the internet. It's the well known anonymity factor that dehumanizes persons and reduces them to words on the screen. The same persons who would be upset at seeing a young girl insulted in RL may very well join in an internet bashing.

 

What I mean by this is that it was a good harmless bashing. Wait until the truly terrible things come of asking to show her tits or to go back to the kitchen because her opinion has no value. This is harmless enough if upsetting since she is a normal human person who was confronted by dumbies who were requested to stop and did not. Used to RL and our society's rules yes, I imagine it was a shock and an upsetting one.

 

Now is the moment to tell her about all of this and how normal people who behave normally in RL are turned into parodies of themselves (I once met someone whose argument was that he was an alpha and he was entitled to things, and everyone else was a beta to him. I cringe thinking of him saying these things in RL, but he won't, no one would, but over the internet it's acceptable). Introduce her to the ignore button. Introduce her to the concept of 'don't feed the troll'. Ask someone to stop bad behavior once. They don't? Put them on ignore. They will not change their behavior by being argued with. In fact, the whole incident escalated once she started arguing back and this is my own experience at seeing it (not something I've been a target of myself).

 

Arguing against someone who is saying or doing trollish things (the act of saying or doing upsetting for the sake of causing a reaction) does *not* work no matter what anecdotal examples are brought forth. Subjecting ourselves to the trollish acts as a form of moral high ground... well, okay, people do what people want to do. If they feel superior for it then it's fine for me. Me, I just put people on ignore.

 

Anyone who does that sort of thing is not someone I care to interact with.

 

 

P.S. Please stop selling communities as 'safe' and 'everyone is super nice'. Please, god. Nostalgia is fine and good but CoH live or HC is not an utopia. If 5% of 3000 are bottom feeders that's still 150 persons roaming around. All it takes is one or two in a team.

[GM Miss]

We do still have an amazing community - thousands of people enjoying the game, playing with their friends, and minding their own business in game. Sometimes there are people who take it too far and cross the line. For those people, we suggest /ignore (do not engage) and report them. When you get down in the dirt with them - you often come up just as dirty. Please use our ticket function to report behavior not conducive to the Code of Conduct. 

 

I am sorry this happened to your daughter, please submit a ticket and I can look into it personally. @ChefJackButler