Exhibitionist Strangers with Tourette Syndrome

By Erik Hekman on 11 March 2010

I am not a big fan of online cooperative gaming on the Xbox 360. It is not that I dislike these types of games, on the contrary; I like the thrill of working together and competing against a non-familiar non-artificial player. However in order to cooperate one has to communicate. And this is the part where I mostly mute the conversation rendering all opportunities to cooperate.

Mostly it starts with a simple ‘Hello’ in any given accent but it turns out to be a waterfall of insults and curse words. If I could create a tagcloud the word mother would be the largest next to ones defining my sexual preferences. Is this why Xbox Live now allows you to define and share ones sexual orientation and race? “No dear stranger you are mistaken I do not prefer Klingons nor am I a Vulcan it says so on my Xbox Live profile! You must have mistaken me for someone else”. Of course I could report one of those, mostly children, to an administrator but the damage is already done. This leaves me to mostly game online with people I know from the physical world. Okay you can also meet nice people on Xbox Live but they are scarce.

I do however enjoy the occasional Mario Kart on the Wii and I wonder why. Is it because I only see a name and a location and cannot communicate with anyone? Could it be the absent of contact that makes me sort of addictive to the online version? I always love to fantasise that, when I win (it happens!), the person in Japan (that came in second) is cursing and throwing with the Wii-mote. I like to fantasise about it but I do not like to hear it from the person itself.

And do not get me started about ChatRoulette! ChatRoulette gives you as the user the option to get connected to a complete stranger (via the webcam) and interact with that person. While at first I thought of it as a nice way to randomly meet strangers the reality is that people are far to exhibitionistic for my taste.

How can it be that the internet is filling up with exhibitionist people with tourette syndrome? A possibility could be the anonymity one enjoys while being online. On Xbox Live I see a cryptic username and on ChatRoulette I do not see the persons face. We are given the opportunity to interact with strangers and to meet people outside your own country. This should lead to something right? This should enrich us as humans. Yet anonymity stimulates us to swear and show body parts. These are examples of the internet you will not hear on your next social media conference. Believe you me!

tagged with: chatroulette, tourette syndrome, xbox