A couple of years ago, my 
friends decided to start getting 
into “League of Legends.” If that 
doesn’t make you throw up in 
your mouth a little bit, it should. 
I held out for about a month, 
refusing to join them. Eventually, 
the frustration of being excluded 
from conversations because of 
game 
communications 
taking 
priority over everything else got 
to me. I became the worst possible 
thing you could ever live to see 
yourself becoming: a “League” 
player. On top of having no 
experience with the MOBA game 
genre and my friends’ lacking 
attempts to explain the game to 
me, the most frustrating part of 
the experience was dealing with 
the game’s toxic community. 
Having played my fair share of 
online multiplayer games, I was 
no stranger to toxicity in video 
games by this point in time, but 
there’s a reason “League” has a 
reputation for it. I had a fantastic 
time getting spam-pinged and 
flamed 
by 
random, 
seething 
teammates 
for 
every 
single 
decision I made that went wrong, 
while the enemy team gloated 
about their victory like they were 
the hottest thing since sliced 
bread. The one thing they could 
come together to agree on by the 
end of each game, however, was 
that I was absolute trash — the 
gum on the bottom of their shoe. 
To be honest, it was a beautiful 
kind of truce to see in such a 
demoralizing moment. And it’s 
not like they were wrong. I’m 
Iron — the lowest-ranked group 
in the game — so they might just 
be on to something.
So, what’s up? Did I write this 
article solely to rant about how 
I got my feelings hurt on the 
internet? That would be pretty 
funny, but no. I wanted to figure 
out just what it is exactly that 
makes online gaming such a toxic 
environment. I mean seriously, 
there are plenty of clips on the 
web of sweat-encrusted men 
with anger issues smashing their 
keyboards to dust, but when 
you’re playing Uno with friends, 
they’re not tearing the deck to 
shreds because you hit them with 
a Draw 4. It’s a combination of 
game 
mechanics, 
competitive 
environments 
and 
beginner-
unfriendly learning curves that 
cultivate 
a 
specific 
“gamer” 
identity. In a way, frustration and 
rage serve as an embarrassing 
gateway to gaming.
So, 
is 
it 
competition? 
I 
was never really much of the 
competitive type — never got 
good enough at anything to be. 
Trust me, the most competition 
you would find on my junior 
varsity soccer bench was who 
could annoy the coach the most. 
But when I would watch or hear 
stories from my friends in higher 
levels of sports, it was entirely 

different. 
Audience 
members 
whipped up into a school-spirit 
frenzy would shout insults and 
taunts from the crowd, equally 
as anonymous as if they were 
concealed behind a username 
and a screen. Seeing brief fights 
erupt among opponents, pushing, 
shoving and throwing sloppy 
punches would always activate 
the 
neurons 
in 
my 
stupid, 
caveman brain. All that was 
missing was someone shouting, 
“Worldstar!” As adrenaline is 
coursing through players’ veins 
during the fast-paced, back-and-
forth games, you can feel the 
testosterone emanating from the 
field. Video games, in contrast, 
are 
less 
physically 
intense. 
When you’re sitting in a chair, 
actions are simulated with the 
press of a button, yet you’re still 
feeling the blood pumping after 
clutching up a round — it creates 
a weird emotional and physical 
dissonance. Yet the intensity and 
aggression are still there. 
This aggression may be a 
result of the lens of masculinity 
in a competitive context. Men 
are stereotyped to be dominant 
in any position that allows it 
to be possible. Climbing the 
corporate ladder, participating in 
romantic and sexual exploits and 
playing sports are all different 
environments, but they all offer 
an opportunity for men to prove 
their 
dominance 
over 
other 
men. Gaming also has a pretty 
serious sexism problem, and 
it’s a fair assumption that this 
— in combination with sexual 
misconduct — is the result of 
the hypercompetitive masculine 
ideal that has been pushed so 
hard in our current society. 
Anger is not exclusively a male 
trait, and the rage that can come 
from the cocktail of inferiority 
at the game itself and the taunts 
of opponents is a universal 

experience. However, I believe 
this response is more amplified 
for men, who may be responding 
to a subconscious thought that 
to lose is to be emasculated. 
The times I have faced my 
most humiliating defeats are 
times I have felt serious disdain 
toward myself for being weak, 
for not being a man — getting 
significantly worse grades on 
high school assessments and 
letting in 20 goals in my first and 
last chance to be a goalie, to name 
a few. Defeat is no longer simply 
an outcome, no longer a learning 
experience, but rather a source of 
shame as a man.
Once players in both the 
digital and physical worlds start 
developing an audience, conduct 
quickly shifts. Most conflicts 
between professionals can be 
chalked up to banter, and the 
expectations of sportsmanship 
are more strict. Of course, how 
sportsmanship is defined varies 
widely with which sport you’re 
talking about, but the respect is 
universal. In both professional 
sports and esports, if there is 
a wide gap in skill between 
competitors, then the expression 
of dominance doesn’t extend past 
the play of the game itself. I think 
we can all agree that it’s generally 
frowned upon for a pro to mock 
their opponent about the results 
of their match, especially if it’s 
directly afterward.
Games can be frustrating and 
contain 
competitive 
aspects 
but still have a relatively tame 
or even welcoming community. 
Dark Souls, a franchise well 
known for its refusal to coddle 
newcomers, is a good example of 
this. The Souls series is mainly a 
single-player experience but has 
multiplayer PvP options. The PvP 
portion of the game, while mostly 
an additive part of the experience, 
has a thriving community behind 

it, especially since it adds a new 
dimension to the game. Players 
with different builds, combat 
toolkits and strategies at their 
disposal will provide a more 
nuanced fight than a boss who 
is designed to be beaten. There 
is a huge emphasis on respecting 
your opponents in Dark Souls PvP 
and ensuring that everyone has 
a fun and fair experience, with 
various unspoken rules to follow 
so you don’t end up completely 
outclassing your opponent or 
frustrating them with strategies 
that 
would 
be 
considered 
dishonorable. This Reddit post 
provides a comprehensive guide 
to the etiquette behind Dark 
Souls PvP that has been agreed 
upon by a large portion of the 
game’s dedicated player base. 
I believe there are two things 
that have made this game free 
of toxicity: the first is that the 
game’s genre and competitive 
nature both promote slower-
paced combat and attract a more 
serious, dedicated crowd. The 
second is that you can’t verbally 
communicate with other players; 
the most you can do is perform 
a gesture from the game’s fairly 
limited selection. All of the 
verbal communication is saved 
for after the fact, in forums and 
discussions in person, when all of 
the competitive tension has long 
since dissipated. 
Compare that to a game like 
“Clash Royale,” which is also 
a game involving one-on-one 
competition and no options for 
direct 
verbal 
communication 
within 
the 
match. 
However, 
“Clash Royale” is a real-time 
strategy game that is much more 
fast-paced and much more casual 
due to it being a mobile game. 
There is much less expected 
etiquette between players — 
it’s 
pretty 
much 
guaranteed 
that when you lose, you’ll hear 

that iconic laughing emote: the 
boisterous and arrogant “hee hee 
hee ha!” that lives in my head 
rent-free. While it’s impossible 
not to laugh at the goofy nature 
of 
these 
interactions, 
it’s 
a 
decent 
counterexample 
that 
lack of communication does not 
stop toxicity. A famous example 
of mocking your opponent — 
teabagging — is simple: repeated 
crouching up and down, no 
words required. The gesture was 
popularized through the Halo 
games, and its influence is seen 
in every game with a crouching 
mechanic.
Maybe — due to the nature of 
interactions through a screen 
— we are doomed to destructive 
clashes of online personas where 
egos are inflated and our pride is 
that much more fragile. Screens 
don’t fight back, after all. A screen 
won’t puff out its chest and take 
a swing at you for jabbing at its 
insecurities. When a screen hits 
you with derision that leaves 
you reeling, you can take your 
time to methodically craft your 
response, no quick wit required. 
You can even ask other people to 
do it for you, like Sneako did. It’s 
no secret that the anonymity of 
the internet brings out the worst 
in us. Hate accounts very rarely 
broadcast their names when they 
want to slam the object of their 
disdain. 4chan, an online forum 
that has created a culture of 
referring to users as “anon,” has 
some of the vilest, hateful content 
you’ll find on the internet, simply 
for the joy of being contrarian and 
baiting reactions out of others. 
Even 
something 
seemingly 
harmless, like a password, can 
be an example of people online 
indulging in their ugliest bits 
in the shadows. The Wikipedia 
page for the 10,000 most common 
passwords is sprinkled with edgy 
words and phrases — anything 

from “fuckme” and “bigdick” to 
literal slurs. It’s a disappointing 
window into who people are 
when they think nobody is 
watching. It’s hard to imagine 
not feeling shame at having to 
remind yourself of your shallow 
immaturity every time you type 
in a slur as a password. 
When I was in my pre-teen 
years and would make usernames 
my 
11-year-old 
self 
thought 
were absolutely hilarious, like 
“justaname666” for my Snapchat, 
I thought I was setting myself 
apart from the rest. “The devil’s 
number attached to such a casual 
name will really make those 
uppity 
god-fearing 
oldheads 
clutch their pearls!” he thought 
to himself. I thought I was 
contributing to some identity 
for myself when my real self was 
too early to be developed into 
anything worth considering. But 
pre-teen me started to fade as I 
grew into who I am today, and it 
was apparent that these attempts 
to be edgy were easy to see as 
desperate. It did me no favors, 
and the moment I learned I could 
change it, I did it in a heartbeat. 
The part that disappoints me 
the most about the passwords, 
though, is that you don’t think 
about your password when you 
type it in. It becomes mind-
numbing repetition — a set 
of 
movements, 
mechanical 
and 
automatic, 
that 
are 
as 
unconscious as breathing and 
blinking. The shame I felt from 
having to tell a new Snapchat 
contact my username is no 
longer present, that feeling of 
humiliation pounded into my 
head over and over again is lost 
when a password is reduced to 
a pattern of button presses. I 
think toxicity in video games 
and digital interactions as a 
whole reflects this behavior. 
Completely dropping any facades 
of politeness and immediately 
going for each other’s throats 
has been repeated so many times 
that it’s like emotional muscle 
memory. In many online spaces, 
hostility has become the path of 
least resistance, and it takes effort 
to be patient and respectful.
Then again, I could just be 
overly sensitive. I’m not the 
type of person who has thick 
skin. Maybe I just need to touch 
some grass; rude behavior is 
hardly exclusive to the digital 
world. Plus, who even writes 
an article to analyze how they 
got their feelings hurt on the 
internet? I’m hardly providing 
an objective view here, but when 
speaking on such an emotionally 
charged 
topic, 
it’s 
difficult 
to stay completely objective, 
especially when it’s a topic I’m 
so familiar with. People’s digital 
personas are irrationally hostile 
sometimes, and that’s not up for 
debate. Whatever the case may 
be, if we do end up encountering 
each other through the screen, I 
hope you try to choose to be kind. 
I’ll try too.

To quote Benjamin Franklin, 
“nothing 
is 
certain 
in 
life 
except death and taxes.” After 
this endeavor, I’d suggest an 
addition to that phrase. I think 
that nothing is certain in life 
except death, taxes and “Little 
Women” adaptations. For as 
long as film has been a viable 
storytelling 
medium, 
people 
have felt the need to make these 
movies. I can’t imagine that 
changing in the near future. So 
what might we want from future 
adaptations? Where does the 
story go from here?
The beauty of adaptation is 
that there’s no way to know 
what form the story will take 
in the future. I’m excited to be 
surprised. But I’d be especially 
thrilled if a film adaptation 
managed to get Beth’s character 
right. 
She’s 
consistently 

overlooked in “Little Women” 
films. It makes sense — why 
waste precious screen time on 
the shy sister who’s going to 
die anyway? But for her death 
to feel as devastating as it is for 
the March family, her life needs 
to be fleshed out. In the books, 
whole chapters are dedicated 
to her obsession with the piano 
and her carefully cared-for doll 
collection. I’d love for a film to 

allow her to be a fully realized 
human. Meg is also often left in 
the margins of film adaptations. 
It would be lovely to see her 
given more care on screen.
Laurie 
is 
also 
often 
misrepresented. 
He’s 
an 
American who was born in Italy 
to an Italian mother, which 
was fairly unheard of at the 
time, especially in higher-class 
society. It would be interesting 
to see his identity as an outsider 
factor more significantly into 
his character.
I’d also love an adaptation 
to acknowledge that “Little 
Women” is a novel about war. The 
American Civil War alters the 
Marchs’ daily lives significantly. 
It would be interesting to see a 
“Little Women” that could be 
legitimately classified as a war 
movie. 
So What? 
I was hoping to come out of 
this endeavor with a satisfying, 
digestible takeaway. 
I 
wanted 
to 
figure 
out 
what made “Little Women” 
so enduring, and I assumed 
there would be some sort of 
straightforward answer. Maybe 
we still care about the story 
because Jo is such a compelling 
character or because the novel 
focuses on sister relationships 
in a way not many stories 
do. There are a lot of simple 
explanations for the relevance 

of “Little Women.” 
My personal takeaway was 
a lot more complicated and 
melodramatic. I am convinced 
that “Little Women” remains 
compelling simply because we 
are humans, and it is a story 
about humans. 
Alcott’s novel was immensely 
popular when it was released in 
1868 because it was relatable. 
It’s 
a 
story 
about 
family, 
grief, love and growing up. 
These are things every human 
experiences. By extension, these 

are themes that most people 
want to see in the stories they 
consume.
The movie adaptations of 
“Little Women” have all been 
lucky enough to be of at least 
decent 
quality. 
This 
means 
that they all conveyed the core 
universal themes that made the 
story initially compelling and 
popular. 
When people sat down to 
watch the latest adaptation in 
2019, they were watching a well-
made story about grief, growing 

up and sisters. Everyone liked 
it because we’re still human 
— just like Alcott was in 1868, 
and readers were in 1901, and 
moviegoers were in 1933. 
Any story that was compelling 
to humans at one point in 
history can still be compelling 
today. It just needs to be told in 
the correct way. Every “Little 
Women” film has been told in 
a manner that is compelling 
to its contemporary audience, 
resulting 
in 
almost 
two 
centuries of humans who care 

immensely about the March 
sisters. 
The “Little Women” story 
has reminded me that time 
is irrelevant to our innate 
humanness. 
I 
wouldn’t 
necessarily suggest watching 
every single film adaptation, 
but it might be worth your time 
to choose at least one. “Little 
Women” serves as a brilliant 
reminder that humans have 
always had minds, dreams and 
hopes — all of which we can still 
connect with today.

Design by Haylee Bohm

6 — Wednesday, April 19, 2023
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

JAMES JOHNSTON
Daily Arts Writer

Screens don’t fight back

The ‘Little Women’ Project: ‘Little Women’ of the future (part 5)

LOLA D’ONOFRIO
Daily Arts Writer

Courtesy of Lola D’Onofrio

