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Imagine as you sit quietly in the safety of your own home, you find yourself becoming a victim of hate speech, and prejudice because of your race, religion or sexual orientation. Imagine your child is the victim of cyber bullying or virtual rape, while trying to play a game online. Unfortunately this is becoming a common experience for many individuals who engage in online media, like interactive gaming communities.
In the case of homophobia online, according to a 2006 survey of gay video game players, conducted by the University of Illinois, "When asked how frequently players experience homophobia, those surveyed who responded "Always" or "Frequently" equaled 42%. Add in "Sometimes" and it brings up that total to 74.5%." (Cole, 2009). The study is a few years old, however this problem has only been getting worse, and in an effort to find solutions, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) has launched, The Project on Homophobia & Virtual Communities. This issue is of great concern because virtual prejudice or cyber bulling is one thing, but what happens when these behaviors spill over into real life?
Prejudice and discrimination tend to be terms that overlap. So in effort to clarify them, prejudice is a result of any kind of negative prejudgment of an individual or group, it is a negative attitude. While "discrimination is a negative behavior" (Myer, 2007). Real life discrimination can become physically harmful, and even deadly. "Cyber-bullying is a psychologically devastating form of social cruelty among adolescents." (Shariff, 2005). Keep in mind, the average online gamer is 35, however 25% of online gamers are under the age of 18 and they are not only witnessing and engaging in anti-gay behavior online, some are beginning to practice this behavior in their real lives.
"According to a 2007 report by GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, "86.2% of LGBT students reported being verbally harassed, 44.1% reported being physically harassed and 22.1% reported being physically assaulted at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation."
In addition, in 2008, 15 year old Lawrence King from Oxnard, California, was shot twice in the back of the head by another male student while sitting in class, simply because he had asked the shooter to be his valentine (NYTimes, 2008). In 2009 an 11-year-old boy from Massachusetts and an 11-year-old boy from Georgia, both committed suicide. Both boys were victims of anti-gay bullying at their schools (Cole, 2009). What is important to note is that, according to the American Psychological Association, "suicide is the number one cause of death for gay teens" (APA, 2001). What is even more unfortunate is it seems that sometimes, even in death, these young victims are still the focus of hate. For example, in the case of Lawernce King, a public Facebook group was created to honor his memory and when asked why the comment wall had been removed, the creator stated that:
"The wall was being abused by many of the members to spew hatred and show disrespect towards the cause and many messaged me asking for it to be disabled so I did." (Gianakos, 2009).
The social learning theory of aggression, purposed by Albert Bandura, states that we learn aggression by observing how others act, and by taking note of the consequences (Myers, 2007). If online gamers, adults or children, learn that it is ok to engage in hate speech, bullying, and violence online, why should we expect any different from them in real life? In virtual communities there appears to be little regulation or protection from these types of virtual assaults, but the efforts of GLAAD's Project on Homophobia & Virtual Communities is a first step. Hopefully this act for social change will generate awareness, and help people realize that this is not just a gay issue, it is also an issue that affects people of different races and religious beliefs.
In doing my research for this topic, I came across several articles on how games, violent and prosocial, impact the player. However, there seemed to be very few articles on the impact of virtual prejudice, and discrimination and how it impacts individuals in real life. I am sure in the future this will not be the case.
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