As an American expat who now calls Canada home, I feel like I’m in a unique position to say this. My fellow Americans, for the good of everybody, please leave your election talk off our precious gaming chat channels. Yes, big developments are currently happening in the primaries. Yes, some people are going apeshit and punching each other in the face. And yes, our gaming channels are often a cesspit of random racism, sexism, and homophobia anyway, but election arguments make them even worse !
I say this on behalf of just about everybody who wants to relax and play some games after a hard day of work, but I say it in particular on behalf of the non-Americans who share your gaming servers. Yes, most gaming servers aren’t US servers, they’re North American servers. Believe me when I say that your gaming counterparts in Canada and Mexico (not to mention other parts of the world that lack dedicated servers or have pockets of English-speakers who prefer North American servers) have already heard way more about this election than they want to, and it pretty much scares the shit out of most of us. Do we really have to listen to Trump Stumpers or Bernie Bros while we’re trying to play Monster Hunter, Star Wars: Battlefront, or even freaking Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 ?
It’s not like people who can actually vote in the upcoming election want to hear your thoughts during their gaming time, either. This election has already completely carpet-bombed every other form of US media. It’s nearly impossible to escape it for even a few minutes. Let’s gift each other with some of those precious election-free minutes while we game. Games take place in lovely alternative locations like Tatooine, Middle Earth, and not-Spain (we love you, Resident Evil 4 ) where we should only have to worry about fictional evil empires, rampaging hordes that mostly shout “raaaaargh,” and creepy mutated monsters created by abuses of science. Escapism is a big part of why many people enjoy games, so let’s keep it that way.
Plus, what are you trying to accomplish by arguing about politics in a gaming channel? According to this completely true statistic that I just made up, approximately 0.00000% of gamers have every been convinced to change their political opinion by some random person arguing with them online. Most of us in Canada know this (ignore the commentators on the CBC News site, the rest of us sure do). I mean, while you were gaming last September and October, did you hear us blathering on about Harper vs. Trudeau vs. Mulcair in your online games? “OK, Trudeau is the pretty one who just had a bromance with Obama and Ryan Reynolds at the White House, but who are Harper and Mulcair?” you ask. Exactly!
But what about my freedom of speech? I hear certain elements yelling this whenever anybody politely asks them to STFU about something or other online. Let’s get this straight: requests to be a respectful person and stop ranting like a lunatic are not attempts to curb your freedom of speech. They are attempts to make our online social experiences a bit more fun – or at least a bit more bearable. Maybe your teammates are interested in talking about, y’know, the game you’re playing. Maybe they don’t want to hear why you think Trump or Cruz or Bernie or Hillary are the best/worst thing since sliced bread/Hitler. They aren’t asking for you to be jailed or punished for speaking your opinion. They are asking you to be a decent human being – and if they aren’t, they’ve probably already muted you.
Let’s do what makes everybody happy. Let’s stop arguing about politics while playing video games. Instead, let’s just have some good, clean, old-fashioned fun like joining together with gamers of all nations and mowing down the opposing team with a variety of deadly virtual weapons. You know you want to.
Image Credit: Max Goldberg, Davi Sales