And we were bullied for not having branded sneakers. Corporations have been doing their job very well for the past 80 years.
this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2024
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Yes, it wasn't exactly bullying but I remember a lot of peer pressure to have Nike shoes when I was about 12. All my friends had them but I had to settle for genuine imitation Nikes. I joked about it but I do remember feeling left out. Seems silly now of course.
Ugh, and my feet were always too wide for those narrow ass popular brands
Totally makes me think of High School when people were wearing Johnny Blaze and I was wearing Exco lol
Children have been bullying children who are poorer than themselves for a long time now.
It's learned behaviour. Adults do it to adults as well.
It’s learned behaviour. Adults do it to adults as well.
I wonder if it's a learned behavior. We've never taught our kids this (bullying poor people), but it's there, they do it and we discourage it. In this particular case, I repeatedly tell them I hate microtransactions and try to convince them out of spending their money on them.
I don't think they get taught as in told to do it, I think they learn from observation. Their peers and the wider society. Sometimes teachers in school will subtly disparage aspects of poverty.
Look at how the wider society treats homeless people and refugees. That's normalised in most media.
I think it's the other way around and there's a natural urge for intelligent creatures to feel more important and entitled than others. Kids don't understand their brains much and while compassion is natural, too, it often has to be reinforced.
Not to mention in this case, kids are shielded from consequences and even the victim's true reaction. I "bullied" a kid once in like 3rd grade and watching his smile fade to a frown killed any desire to continue. If it was just over voice in a video game, I probably would have kept going
It's a self-esteem issue. If you don't feel self-worth, you create it artificially by bringing others down.
It's not just related to gaming. There's a lot of material out there about the effects of consumer culture on children, in case you're interested.
Just because you didn't teach them that behavior doesn't mean it's nor learned. They just learned it elsewhere, from friends or from their own bullies.
My son, 10, wasn't bullied, but his friends pooled their money and sent him some skins as an act of charity. He has an allowance, I just didn't want him getting sucked into the addiction cycle. We tried talking with the other parents to nip it in the bud, but parenting styles vary widely, and all the kids want their friends to feel included. It was kind of touching in a late-stage capitalism kind of way.
The thing is pretty much everything kids (and adults tbh) want is consumerist garbage. Like all the toys they never play with.
The entire system gets you addicted to spending on shit. Whether it's the latest tech or trainers or whatever.
And here I'm bullying kids for wasting their money
I've probably spent a grand total of $30 in the past 20 years of buying stuff like skins in games, but as to the question of wasting money; is it really more of a waste than anything else you buy for joy or entertainment? Is it different to spend $40 on an rc quadricopter than a game skin? Both are likely almost pure profit, and realistically the skin will last longer than the rc. Most forms of entertainment spending could be seen as a "waste". For decades most people paid for cable TV. Or the NFL package. Fame skins really aren't different.
Skins have been a status symbol in games for a while. If you're rocking a default skin, you're gonna get called a noob and broke bitch by your teenage and tweenage peers. It's by design.
called a noob
It's very satisfying to show up in a basic default skin and calmly proceed to own everyone else there.
This. I refused to spend money or in game gold on paint jobs for the Warrobots game. Because of that, opponents think you are new or less of a threat ( since you can purchase weapon upgrades, and maybe don't have cash ) They let their guard down and then I would use stategy over brawn and wipe them out. Sadly it is totally pay-to-win now, because some rich kids or adults can spend $1000s and upgrade to a point where they can obliterate anything with one shot
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How horrible.
We need to go back to bullying kids for the colour of their real life skin, just as god intended.
Judge me not by the color of my skin but by the contents of my music library!
Shows how we need to stop this predatory shit. But I guess this is not going away ever again, it's too ingrained into free2play and too easy to work around any restrictions.
We could make any game with in game currency and real money 18+ for a start. Then they'd still have skin DLC and find ways around that. It's not helping that they prey on kids with subscriptions to gain "free" skins either. I honestly see no solution. To have parents required to monitor their kids 24/7 doesn't work. To simply let these companies keep going and give a "lesson" to the kids/parents, can't be the solution either.
Honestly gaming is fucked outside of indie games now, we see them start with monthly subscription to get all FOMO DLCs, we can tell we've reached end game capitalism. (Source: Paradox DLC subscription)
If a kid gets bullied into buying an expensive jacket, they still have the jacket, but with online skins for games who's server will shut down next month, there's zero return.
To have parents required to monitor their kids 24/7 doesn’t work.
And this assumes that 100% of parents would agree this is something that needs to be stopped. There will always be parents who don't mind this, so it'll never happen.
The kids in my school used to bully others for the dumbest reasons, like not having heelies, owning the wrong handheld console, etc.
No shit kids are gonna tear into each other for using last season's fortnite skins and other bs reasons.
And while the microtransaction hellscape isn't helping, a lot of the time kids will just find stupid excuses to pick on the same "underclass" kid/kids because teachers and parents can't be bothered to deal with toxic social dynamics before they grow into lifelong struggles that permanently stunt a persons professional and social life.
No I'm not salty about it, not at all. /S
This makes me wonder how many kids actually hate fortnite but reluctantly play it to not be left out of what everyone else seems to be involved in. Like I'll play some coop games with friends that I'm not enthusiastic about myself with it being a nice opportunity to hang out, but not being left out of what everyone seems to think is cool as a kid is even harder.
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"Haha! He doesn't have any Fortnite skins!"
"How am I supposed to buy skins when you keep stealing my money?!"
"That's your problem, loser."
Dominance hierarchy is going to kill the human species if we fail to rise above it. Schoolkid bullying is just one symptom in a worldwide problem. Genocide is another. Uncontested plutocratic rule in the face of global ecological collapse is another.
We need to solve the problem before the problem solves the human problem.
Kids are always going to bully. It has nothing to do with the skin.
And you want to know how this shit manifests when people freak the fuck out? My 5 year old is not allowed to speak about her birthday party because it might upset some of the kids we didn't invite.
because it might upset some of the kids we didn't invite.
But that's the main reason to not invite them?
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I never gave into this pressure when I was a kid. My parents helped by being poor.
Best thing to do is wipe the floor without a skin but with others then call them "shiny" or "blingy" or something to make fun of decked out players with no skill.
Wallet warriors was the term we used in my day
It's whale these days.
Default skin at the top of the leader board is simultaneously hilarious and infuriating (because it's never me >_<)
so many reasons to bully people and they choose that
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