The Most Vulgar Place in Social Media is …

Vulgarities are spit like snake venom. Somewhere in between comes a fair share of language many would classify as hate speech. There’s misogyny. There’s making fun of fat guys, fat girls, old people, young people and all of it’s done without the least bit of thought about repercussion. People pay to hear this and some actually enjoy it, despite the fact that within the forum, the language breaks almost every rule set forth by its owners. Where am I talking about?

XBox Live, of course.

Hiding behind garbled nonsense usernames, XBox Live’s 17 million users (by Microsoft’s account) are mostly anonymous. People can’t see one another. IP addresses and locations are mostly masked. Users pay their 50 bucks for a year’s worth of connectivity, sign on and play their games. However, some have chosen to use the connection, which includes live voice chat during games like Halo, Modern Warfare 2 and others, to act out on their inner-most feelings. The one’s that would, in any other setting, get people thrown in jail.

An example: while between games of ‘Modern Warfare 2′ the other night (my gamer tag is ‘BulletSponge869′ ), I overheard a conversation between a man and a woman that went something like this:

• Woman: Great round.
• Man: Sure was, fat girl.
• Woman: What dude?
• Man: I said it was a great round fat girl. You’re a big fat girl aren’t you? I bet you’ll eat a lot.
• Woman: F–k you, loser.
• Man: I wouldn’t f–k you because you’re too fat, fat girl. But it’s all good, you know?

The conversation, which lasted more than two minutes and was not all good, spiraled out of control from there. Almost all of George Carlin’s seven dirty words got dropped in, and so did all the others. She withstood it like a trooper (probably because she’s heard something similar several times before). I’m betting that XBox Live’s predominantly vocal male population makes the gaming experience that much more difficult for her and other woman who like to play games online.

There’s also racism. It’s not uncommon to hear the ‘N’ word.  There are also sharp exchanges based on people’s accents and spoken language (Americans seem to hate French people; everyone seems to hate Americans). if there are gay gamers, they must cringe as well; there’s enough to make the LGBT crowd stay away, or at least not don a headset while they play.

Nothing is off limits really. The anonymity does this. Or, at least, the perceived anonymity. Users can report these things. However, I’d bet most don’t since, like other sports like, baseball, football, soccer and in other place, there are unwritten rules for these kinds of things. Gamers know this. And why should that be any different than any other place in society? Every community has, would could be termed, an undiscussed level of hate, racism and maleficence. Why should XBox Live be any different?

With 17 million people, it’s also a form of social media relatively untapped by the wave of corporations moving into that space.  But they are coming. They know people have conversations and talk about their products there, too. They also know the demographic is young and has some expendible income (esp. considering they have extra money blow on an online video game membership). It’s not the 250 million projected users facebook has, but it matters because it is a rich source of training minds for the products and services of tomorrow’s advertisers — and many for today.

Now, it’s fair to say that the people responsible for what’s making your ears bleed are but a sliver of the 17 million. But do you think people buying into the XBox Live space would tolerate gobs of teenagers saying these things? Look at all the advertisers who have run from Glenn Beck’s program. Remember how Janet Jackson’s nipple made the FCC and a whole host of CBS advertisers go into cardiac arrest? There’s a reason for that seven second delay.

The answer is: probably not. The eyeballs are what matters, not the ears of the few of us donning voice chat headsets. Besides, the Domino’s ads I’ve seen are on the main menu and play over my speakers, not in my headset. So the voice chat function of XBox Live could go unchecked unless there’s some kind of voice recognition police (no chance) or users do something (even slimmer chance). However, more and more, anonymous Internet users are being squeezed slowly by regulation, corporate interests and the need to monetize the Internet. Look at how Apple closes off its ecosystem, charges programmers for the privilege.

Meanwhile, the venom will continue in my ear piece. Until GLAAD, the NAACP or, better, someone with some teeth who can curb this problem decides to don a headset, join the game and hear what’s going, this form of social media won’t be so social.

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