Every once in a while when you're gaming online you run into a decent, civil person that tells you how cool it was when you pulled off a good shot on them or simply tells you "Good game!" whether they win or lose. Most of the the other people you encounter, however (assuming they have mics), are trash-talking SOBs that proceed to tell you how fat you are, how little sex you have, say something horrible about your mother, or something racist or homophobic. Welcome to the Internet.

So what's going on in these people's heads? On one hand, it's pretty easy to understand how people get so pissed off. With our little handles and avatars, online gaming is pretty anonymous and in most games you are shooting at each other. Even when people use a mic it's still pretty anonymous. So it's pretty easy to get caught up in assuming some vile intent from your opponent aside from just trying to when the game (assuming they're not teabagging, griefing, etc.).

On the other hand, it's pretty safe to assume that 99.9% of these people wouldn't say such things to your face in real life. The anonymity gives them the guts to just throw whatever crap enters into their heads out there. 

Of course, every once in a while you hear those stories about pissed off gamers hunting down their opponents in real life, so maybe it's just best to keep it civil.

Do you trash talk?

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