One of the things that kept me from getting into multiplayer gaming for a long time was the way players treated each other. The utter lack of respect that people have for each other under the cover of anonymity appalled me, initially… and it still does. The fact that there were more insults flying around than at my family reunion picnic left me speechless and wanting nothing to do with the multiplayer gaming scene as a whole.

When I asked a friend of mine if she would want to play online games with people who insisted on being obnoxious, she replied, " I would definitely be discouraged. I would want to go somewhere where I could have fun. Not somewhere where I would get annoyed and frustrated. I would leave and try to find somewhere else to go - or just stop playing on-line in general." Considering the state of most multiplayer gaming, I didn't take that as a promising sign that she would be online playing in the next week. It took me a while to learn that the only way for me to enjoy these games was to learn how to deal with it myself. I had to face facts… the most vocal members of the multiplayer gaming world are the ones who love smack talk - taking frequent, nasty stabs at other players.

I started speculating on the origin of the term smack talk, but didn't really find much info about it beyond articles pertaining to the social impact of it in gaming communities, and plenty of examples of it on gamer bulletin boards. It's the nature of slang to adopt whatever meaning for words which is current and popular, however, so I suppose the origin isn't really relevant. Let's just accept that smack talk is, at this point in time, a sometimes frustrating and unfortunate part of multiplayer gaming. I've seen evidence of it in all genres of multiplayer games, from online euchre tournaments to trivia games to first person shooters. No game is completely devoid of it, they all seem to have it to some degree.

Articles on WomenGamers.Com solely reflect the experiences and perspectives of the author(s). Feel free to agree or disagree in the accompanying forum thread.