games

Back when I played multiplayer games on the Xbox 360 I had my voice chat volume permanently turned down to zero because I didn't see how hearing obscenities yelled into those horribly low quality Xbox microphones added to the experience.

When the Master Chief Collection and Gears of War 5 launched on PC I ended up leaving the voice chat on because I became deeply amused and fascinated by the Xbox players I crossplayed with. People noisily munching Doritos into the void, middle-aged parent gamers talking to their children in between callouts, people who have really loud music blasting in their living room, groups of friends who like to play and chat together but for some godforsaken reason don't just use Xbox parties or Discord.

Naturally, there have also been horribly racist moments, like the one time some -brained gamer started being racist to a black person on the same team from the moment he heard his voice, at one point telling him that his ancestors were building aqueducts while the black person's ancestors lived in mud huts

In response, the black guy just made fun of how nerdy the white guy's voice sounded and how badly he was playing. I kept dying in that match because the absurd banter had me dying in real life