I have an issue with the “don’t interact with the angry gamer” approach. Someone needs to show to all the moderate gamers that are reading, that the angry gamer is wrong. Otherwise we get echo chamber that just create more angry gamers. That is what you are doing on this blog: you’re trying to correct these misconceptions to the ones who will listen.

There’s a significant difference between “somebody needs to show the moderates the truth” and “you should confront the angry gamers”. I do agree that we need to reach out to the moderate audience but I don’t do that by shouting at the angry gamers and hoping I get the moderates in the exchange. I specifically target the moderates and curious with my posts. I try to treat questions as being asked in good faith. I specifically try to avoid confronting angry gamers because it’s very hard to persuade someone who is deeply emotionally involved.

Experience has taught me that confronting angry gamers generally results in them demanding more and more “proof” that they’re wrong while providing none themselves, moving their goalposts until they’re still technically correct (even to the point of absurdity), questioning my career experience (despite having little to none themselves), and generally pulling the arguments into the weeds. Angry gamers generally aren’t arguing in good faith; they’re arguing because they’re deeply emotionally engaged and venting those negative emotions onto whoever will listen. Those in that echo chamber are also similarly emotionally compromised. No amount of truth telling will change that because they don’t want to learn the truth - they want to be angry and misery loves company.

I feel I am much better off aiming at the moderates and intellectually curious to begin with and bypassing the angry shouting matches altogether. At least this way the audience is generally looking for education and is willing to listen. It just isn’t worth it to pick a fight if I don’t have to, it takes far too much effort for far too little reward.

[Join us on Discord] and/or [Support us on Patreon]

Got a burning question you want answered?

Добавить комментарий

Ваш адрес email не будет опубликован. Обязательные поля помечены *