Content warning: Discussion of insults relating to self-harm, suicide and violence.

There are a couple of things that separate online gaming spaces from the real world. For one, the presumed anonymity leads to lessened pressure in upholding social norms. This also has an effect on politeness: the need to be polite in communication isn’t as prevalent as it is in face-to-face interaction. Our self-image, or, following Goffman’s linguistic theory, the ‘face’, has two basic needs in interpersonal communication: (1) the positive face, which strives for validation from others and (2) the negative face, which strives for freedom of inhibitions by others. Both faces can either be catered to or attacked by face-flattering actions or face-threatening actions respectively. The positive face can, for example, be flattered by praise or compliments, and threatened by insults of personality. The negative face can be flattered by consideration of the other’s space and time, for example, through the use of politeness particles like ‘please’ when asking for something, or threatened by direct commands, like the use of the imperative. In my search to find out more about specific patterns in impoliteness, I turned to online gaming spaces as the perfect environment to observe ‘unfiltered’ impoliteness.

So – what better game to find out about impoliteness than League of Legends (LoL)? Renowned among the gaming community as the most toxic game there is, I went on a mission to find out how exactly insults in LoL present themselves linguistically and how often they occur in the selected LoL games. The data looked promising, especially after a few particularly tilted* players unleashed their wrath upon their poor teammates.

Here are some of the recurring patterns in the insults in my dataset:

Firstly, the use of animal denominators for players seemed to be very common. Everything from the simple ‘dogs’ to ‘brainless apes’ to ‘u fat low iq pig’ was used to insult teammates. The use of animal insults positions the insulting player as biologically and therefore presumably intellectually above the victim. This secures the insulting player a position of superiority, intellect and power by threatening the ‘face’ of the hearer. 

A more extreme version of an insult would be the life-threatening insults that occurred in 40% of the games I analysed. After all, most people would rather be a ‘fat low iq pig’ than, well, dead. Insults ranged from ‘end ur life bro’ or the shortened ‘kys’ (k*ll yourself), to more elaborate descriptions like ‘wastes of oxygen’ or the simple command ‘SHOOT URSELF IN THE HEAD’. Even more cruel than animal pejoratives, these insults target the most precious thing each one of us has: our lives. Due to the lack of spatial closeness among the players, insults related to self-harm are used much more often than direct threats of violence in comparison to real-world spaces. This signifies a lack of power that the insulter has over the target of their aggression, which is compensated for by the most power-asserting linguistic structure there is: the imperative. The command to end one’s own life is the closest LoL players can get to men punching each other at a bar after spit-shouting ‘what u lookin at me like that?’.  

In total, the insult culture of League of Legends is an interesting space to analyse power dynamics and relationships. Sometimes, it can bring out the most creative of insults to avoid chat restrictions and player bans, resulting in strategies of impoliteness that are definitely worth further study. So maybe, all you bisexual black cat girlfriends should check out your nerdy golden retriever boyfriends’ Discord servers before fully committing to that new relationship? 

[*State of intense frustration and anger, exacerbated by negative in-game experiences, resulting in poor in-game decision-making and a decline in performance.]

Note on sources: The data discussed in the article is based on a university research paper by Kathrin Loithaler, titled “Von Beleidigungen bis zum Bann: Sprachliche Aggression, die Umsetzung von Unhöflichkeitsstrategien und Chatbann-Vermeidung im Spielerchat von League of Legends”.