I don't play Minecraft, my kids don't play Minecraft and I'm not an asshole, so the practice of people trolling children in the game then making a spectacle of it isn't something I was aware of. Now that I am, ungh.
So, yeah, it's a thing for people to jump into Minecraft games and ruin a child's world, kill them and take their stuff. Make kids upset, make 'em cry. Then film it and put it on YouTube.
What the hell is wrong with these people.
It's one thing to troll a game populated by adults. You'd hope an adult at least had the faculties to deal with it.
But purposefully going after kids? Gaining pleasure from making a child, no matter how annoying you think they're being, upset? Then immortalising it?
You're not funny. You're not clever. You're a bully. A piece of shit.
This video, by Video Games, has over three million views on YouTube. This one, by AfterMathGameVideos, has over six million. A search on the service for other instances of people trolling kids will net you a flood of results. Most from channels with ads, many with surprisingly high view counts.
In other words, there is a cottage industry built around this. People making some money over footage of them making kids cry.
Yeah, you could say trolling happens everywhere, in most games. And you'd be right! You could also say the scale of Minecraft's success means there's going to be a disproportionate amount of trolling going on. Again, you'd be right! But that doesn't make it OK. In fact, the size of the game's playerbase, and high number of children playing, only makes that worse, because instead of a handful of kids getting bullied by an online encounter there will be hundreds/thousands/probably more.
If you're a parent, you might want to keep a closer eye (or ear) on your kids while playing Minecraft. If you're a kid, sorry I said "shit" up there. And if you're the kind of person who actually enjoys this kind of stuff, oh boy. You're hardly going to modify your behaviour based on a post like this, I know, but do be aware that karma is a bitch, and it shows little mercy on those who think making fun of children is a funny thing to do.
[via Reddit]