A Video Game Subreddit Shut Down For One Day And People Lost Their Minds
This year for April Fools’ Day, video game subreddit r/games decided to forgo frivolity. Instead, the moderators took the opportunity to take a stand against toxicity, intolerance and abuse in the gaming community. In response, people lost their damn minds.
Yesterday, visitors to r/games were surprised to find that they were unable to submit new posts, nor comment on existing posts. The entire subreddit had been shut down, with no notice provided.
The reason for this interruption to regularly scheduled programming was explained in a lengthy pinned post at the top of the subreddit, submitted a little after 10:30AM AEDT yesterday. In the post, r/games’ moderators explained that the shutdown would only be for one day and was in service of calling to attention the abusive, discriminatory behaviour that has become prevalent in the gaming community.
As a really positive move, Reddit /r/ games is offline for April fools day. It's not down as a gag, it's down to highlight a very serious post about toxic attitudes, discrimination, and disgusting behavior they're trying to combat in their own community. https://t.co/2PfwfsOJIm
— Laura Kate Dale (@LaurakBuzz) April 1, 2019
“This April Fool’s, we decided to take things a little more seriously and shed some light on a growing, pervasive issue that has affected the community of r/Games and gaming communities as a whole,” wrote the moderators.
“By showing disdain or outright rejecting minority and marginalized communities, we become more insular. In this, we lose out on the chance to not only show compassion to these people, but also the chance to grow our own community and diversify the demographics of those involved in it. Whether it’s misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, racism or a host of other discriminatory practices, now is the time to stymie the flow of regressive ideas and prevent them from ever becoming the norm.”
“Unfortunately, this inflammatory content is not an infrequent occurrence. The condescending, dismissive, vindictive and pessimistic attitudes we see in our day to day activity is troubling, especially when those interactions involve harassing or outright targeting regularly discriminated communities. It’s not uncommon for us to see the real issues surrounding these communities be trivialized, derided out of ignorance, or worse, for the sake of entertainment.”
The /r/Games subreddit mods shut-down the sub for the day as a statement against discrimination and hate-speech, which is an all too common occurrence there (as it is in many online spaces).
Really applaud them for taking a stand and highlighting an important issue.
— Skill Up (@SkillUpYT) April 1, 2019
To show people what they see every day, moderators included a link to a gallery of comments they have moderated over the last year. The comments express the gamut of reprehensible ideologies, from racism to homophobia to misogyny to transphobia to even the defence of paedophilia.
The moderators then ended with a call for people to “do better; be better”, while thanking those who take care of each other and call out discrimination where they see it.
r/games’ sidebar describes itself as “a place for informative and interesting gaming content and discussions”, and its content typically consists of links to game announcements and critical analysis. It is a huge subreddit, boasting 1.7 million subscribers at time of writing.
The task of managing this gigantic cohort falls to a mere 29 volunteer moderators, who ensure discussion is kept on track and redditors adhere to r/games’ rules. It’s a daunting task. If just 0.01% of r/games’ subscribers post one abusive message each, an individual moderator would have to read through 586 – assuming the messages are divided up evenly.
/r/Games has been locked for April Fools, and it isn’t a joke from pcgaming
Reading the moderated comments, it’s easy to see how reading hundreds of these messages on a regular basis can take an emotional toll. To consider these posts reflective of the gaming community, or at the very least an element that is allowed to thrive, is intolerable. r/games’ moderators hope that by taking this action, people will be galvanised to confront these views and reflect on their own behaviour as well.
In other subreddits and sections of the internet, reactions to r/games’ shutdown have stretched across the spectrum. Some have applauded r/games’ moderators for taking such a decisive, visible stand against discrimination and hatred.
Others have reacted as though being asked not to be absolute arsenuggets is an inexcusable infringement of their human rights, and are deeply upset that social and political issues have impacted their ability to scroll through a video game subreddit for one (1) day.
These issues impact marginalised peoples’ ability to enjoy that same escapist fun every single day of the year, a fact that means nothing to the lockdown’s detractors. Paradoxically, despite their rage about the shutdown, they appear unable to feel.
r/Games shutting down the sub for April Fool’s day in the name of social justice is the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever seen a sub do on this site. from unpopularopinion
I've seen a lot of takes in my day, but someone saying locking down /r/games for a day is "fascism at it's peak" is one of the most hilarious, ignorant things I've ever seen pic.twitter.com/NlBBR2SRT8
— shredberg (@shredberg) April 1, 2019
Fortunately, most people have been appreciative of the moderators’ stance against the pervasive rot in the gaming community.
“[W]e are profoundly thankful and extremely gratified that the amount of positive responses greatly outweighed the number of negative feedback, both via modmail and in other subreddits as well as other forums of discussion,” wrote r/games’ moderators. “It shows that our message received an immense amount of support. Thank you all so much for those kind words. We greatly appreciate them.”
r/games unlocked shortly after 10:30AM AEDT today, and now hosts a meta thread discussing the lockdown.