I’ve been gaming for 25 of my 28 years, and for the life of me cannot understand raging at something as inconsequential as video games.

I play / have played almost all of the popular competitive shooting games available today, and I’d say I’m about average to above average skill in most of them. Rainbow 6, CSGO, Warzone (or any COD ever), PUBG, Apex, Hunt, etc. all seem to attract people who have an incredibly tough time managing their sportsmanship / anger. I never understood reacting in such comically angry ways, especially if you aren’t competing for money. I’d say that the death com in Warzone / Modern Warfare is the best thing to happen because it highlights how insane people can get.

Now that’s not to say I don’t have my frustrations, like say dying to a glitch spot or bug more than 3-4 times certainly makes me go “what the fuck”, or packet loss. But even the most blatant of cheaters just makes me shrug my shoulders and start something else up. It doesn’t have to be online focused either, because I made it through just about every Souls game without so much as raising my voice, and despite Ultra Nightmare on Doom Eternal adding 100 hours to my playtime and hundreds of attempts I never once blamed anything but myself.

I like to spend my energy enjoying myself, and as a result have had to stop playing with a couple of my friends because they complain so fucking much it’s unbearable. I understand voicing your discontent, but it feels like an insane amount of people have made complaining a part of their personality, like they’re forced to play the games they hate and it’s torturing them. Twitch doesn’t really help this either, big streamers really play up the rage for the audience, and kids are going to start believing that the only appropriate way to react to failure is anger. Some of the best streamers are calm and collected and enjoyable to watch because they don’t blow the fuck up when TimmyXOwnsXYou picks them off from a distance.

Anyway, how about y’all? Do you rage? Are you calm?