Logging into an online gaming service like PSN or Xbox Live can sometimes have the unfortunate side effect of feeling an awful lot like looking graffiti in a high school bathroom stall. Or like opening a door and accidentally finding yourself at an Odd Future concert.
Why is that? Well, because all young people are a bunch of foul-mouthed degenerates (or at least foul-mouthed degenerate-enablers), the Associated Press reports.
According to a recent national Associated Press-MTV poll of young people between 14 and 24, most teens and young 20-somethings think it’s alright to use slurs among friends or when joking around in cyberspace. Seventy-one percent say that people are more likely to use slurs online, and 51 percent encounter discriminatory words and images on social networking sites. Only half of those surveyed said they would probably ask someone using such language online to stop.
This might help to explain the phenomenon of deeply offensive, game-specific slang—anyone who has played World of Warcraft, for example, knows what I’m talking about to a T—but it doesn’t really do much to make up for it.
-Drew Millard