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