#oneaday Day 15: Approval Ratings

I caught a tweet earlier that resonated with me somewhat, and I wanted to share with you both why it resonated with me and how I think being aware of this might help me going forward.

Here is the tweet:

This tweet resonated pretty strongly with me because I've been aware that this is exactly what I've been doing for a while, even with a sort of passing awareness that it's a harmful and unhelpful thing to do. So perhaps me putting this out here today — publicly acknowledging that this has been a thing for me, and that it's had an adverse effect on my mental health — will be at least the start of a process of growth and change in a more positive direction.

Or perhaps it will just provide you, dear reader, with the opportunity to empathise with me, mock me for my misfortune or just get a bit of "insider insight".

I try not to be someone who holds grudges. But there are a few people in this world who, for one reason or another, are individuals that I feel have "wronged" me, and that I do not feel able to forgive. And there are a few in particular that have led to the specific phenomenon Tim describes in his tweet above.

I have, regrettably, found myself on the receiving end of bullying on multiple occasions in my life — starting at primary school and continuing sporadically throughout the rest of my 37 years on this planet. And one of the things I've found over the course of my life is that being bullied is oddly… "addictive", I guess is the best word.

I'm not talking about masochism here. I don't mean that getting bullied is in some way gratifying for me… I don't think, anyway. What I'm referring to is the fact that the negative attention brought by bullying — something I do not enjoy — can sometimes lead on to more positive actions as people empathise and sympathise with you, standing beside you against the sources of that negative attention.

This might sound ridiculous, and I have no idea if it's a widespread phenomenon or particularly unique to me, but it's definitely something I've been aware of since I was a kid. There were times when I'd deliberately go and provoke one of the people who was bullying me at primary school just so I could get punched, start crying and get the attention I apparently craved. Unproductive, I'm sure you'll agree.

Now, the things I've encountered later in life aren't the same kind of "bullying" at all, but I've found that they feed into that same sort of addictive negative feedback loop. And part of that is that, thanks to social media, it becomes possible to "check up" on bullies to see what they're saying; to deliberately seek out their negative opinions of you and reshare them to people who will (hopefully) stand with you — even if you have them blocked, or if they have you blocked.

I'll give three specific examples here, of varying severity. And yes, I will be naming names. Edit: I have redacted names when republishing for sake of a quieter life.

The first is a guy named X. I don't remember how I initially came into contact with X; I think I was just on a following spree and saw that he was supposedly into anime, visual novels, gaming, all the same sorts of things as me. We didn't interact much directly, but things went along all right for a while.

Over time, I noticed X getting considerably more negative and rude towards others — and inconsistent in his opinions, too. He'd tweet at developers, publishers and localisers excited to announce their new projects about how shit he thought their work was, and hurl abuse at anyone who showed their support for said companies.

One day, I told him to put a sock in it. PQube were promoting their recently released Gal*Gun Double Peace, and this was both a game I was very excited for and looking forward to covering on MoeGamer. (Check it out!) X responded to PQube's promotional tweet with some whiny negativity, so I told him to just leave them alone if he wasn't interested in the game. Fair enough, surely.

From that point on, X started hurling abuse at me on a fairly regular basis. I'd find him in my comments section (from which he got blocked). I'd find him on Twitter, where he'd passive-aggressively mention me in regard to "political" things he thought I'd be in favour of (somewhere he got it in his mind that I am an "alt-righter" despite me leaning noticeably left of centre in any test I've done) — and where I ultimately blocked him after giving him an earful one day. And I even found him in other people's comment sections; on one occasion, I left a comment on onahole reviewer Infernal Monkey's emphatically NSFW blog, only to find a reply from X whinging about my taste in games — despite neither Infernal's post nor my comment having anything to do about gaming.

Enough was enough. I took every effort to block this hateful little troll… but still I found myself "checking up" on him every so often. And I'd always get a peculiar knot in my stomach any time I saw him badmouthing me — because it was always, always stupid, ridiculous lies. Now, speaking rationally, his tiny follower count and the fact that no-one ever replies, likes or RTs his posts on Twitter — probably because he's an insufferably Negative Nancy — means that his bitching probably won't have any impact on my audience. But it's still not a nice feeling to know someone harbours such irrational hatred for you — and for such a stupid reason.

X is utterly unimportant in the grand scheme of things. But, regrettably, having anxiety means that you blow stupid things out of proportion. And as such, his comments would get to me — but still I'd seek them out. This is, of course, a stupid thing to do, but I've already talked about how weirdly "addictive" it was. This needs to stop now.

The other related cases involve my former employers and colleagues at USgamer, with the main culprits being Y and, to a lesser extent, Z.

Let me provide a bit of context here for those unaware of why I left USgamer. I wrote a variety of articles on the site. During its opening months, we were encouraged to "be ourselves" and write about our specialisms, so I wrote a lot about the Japanese games I was interested in. Over time, we received both audience feedback and an edict from on high that we should be focusing on more "ad-friendly" things, and it was around this point that Z got involved.

From this point on, any news stories I wrote had to be run past Z before I could post them — despite his working day not starting until mine was getting close to its conclusion. Z outright forbade me from writing about certain games, with Monster Monpiece being the main one that sticks in my mind, and would also berate me for "writing about boobs and panties" when in fact I had done nothing of the sort.

One occasion that remains particularly memorable for all the wrong reasons was while I was at the Eurogamer Expo (now "EGX") in London, covering the show single-handedly for the site. I got some time with the third Final Fantasy XIII game, Lightning Returns, and came away with quite favourable impressions of what I'd seen. Around that time, numerous other publications had been joking about the fact that the eponymous heroine apparently had considerably more pronounced "boob physics" than in previous installments, and I thought this was rather childish; as such, I wrote an article about all the interesting things Lightning Returns was doing from a mechanical perspective, with the title "Lightning's More Than Just Jiggle".

I thought nothing of it at the time; I just thought it was an entertaining retort about the general standard of coverage the game was receiving at the time, but Z yelled at me about it — clearly having not understood the context or actually read my article at the time. It was extremely upsetting, and it made it very clear at that point that Z had it in for me.

It was a few months later when I suddenly received an email from Q, then the head honcho of Gamer Network, the company that owns, among other things, USgamer and Eurogamer. He unceremoniously laid me off, saying that USgamer wanted an "all-American" staff instead of me as the lone Brit populating the site with interesting content "overnight"… and not long afterwards, two new writers were recruited onto the staff: Y and B, both of whom were close personal friends of Z.

It doesn't take a particular genius to figure that one out, does it?

Anyway, I'd worked with B previously so although I was upset at her for replacing me, I just kept my distance. Y, though, I clashed with almost immediately. The opportunity to review Atelier Rorona Plus came up during my notice period, and the editorial staff discussed it in an email thread. Y, supposedly an expert in Japanese games and RPGs, had never heard of the Atelier series and thus decided to "research" it by running a Google Images search. He noted, I quote, "it didn't take me long to find the creepiness".

I immediately took the opportunity to cover the title, politely requesting that we have "a little less of the 'creepiness' thing, please" — particularly as during my time as USgamer I had helped establish the site as a place that was a lot more friendly to Japanese "otaku games" than many other outlets, and myself as someone who both knew what he was talking about and was willing to give these games a chance.

From that point on, I've received sporadic abuse from Y (typically second-hand, delivered by people who think they're being helpful, so I can't really blame them) about the past things I've written. His favourite hobby horse is that I "promoted an incest porn game to people who liked The Walking Dead", which is a gross misrepresentation of the fact that I suggested a number of games with bleak, depressing themes to those who enjoyed Telltale's narrative-centric classic, and one of those games was Kana Little Sister. Anyone who has read Kana Little Sister (or indeed read my coverage) will know that, despite having explicit scenes in it, it is most certainly not "porn"… but you know how people get with this sort of thing. Sex is the great taboo in gaming, after all.

Like with X, I found myself "checking up" on Y every so often, and was frequently dismayed to discover that he obviously namesearches himself and screenshots people who talk about him, even if he's blocked by them. Not only that, he has followers who are more than happy to do this for him, too. I found myself publicly "shamed" in this way on a number of occasions, and it was always that weird, horrible combination of nausea and addiction that I felt when it happened. And there was nothing I could do about it, either; I tried reporting Y, but without any direct insults or slurs directed at me you can't get Twitter to do anything.

As for Z, I haven't looked at his feed at all, I'm pleased to say. I know he wrote something about me shortly after I left because MoeGamer got a bunch of referrals from his personal blog, but I never checked what it was — I was too scared, to be frank. I resent him, though, for treating me like shit while I worked under him, and for ultimately ruining my career in favour of recruiting his cronies to come and work for him. I feel he jumped at the chance to get rid of that disgusting Brit who didn't immediately scream blue murder any time a game with the slightest hint of sexualisation showed its face.

I need to let these incidents go. As I am now, I would almost certainly kick all three of these people square in the bollocks if I ever had the misfortune to meet them face to face, and I know that is not a productive or helpful use of my time. But I want — need — to get my frustration with them out of my system. I don't really know how.

I do know that an important step in that process is paying attention to Tim's tweet above. I don't need their approval. They are people whose opinions I do not value; people who I'd go so far as to say I legitimately despise. That's not a nice thing to say, but it's important to acknowledge, because why would you deliberately seek out the "approval" of someone you hate?

I feel if I can find an answer to that — or, well, no. I know the answer to that — it's "you shouldn't". I feel like if I can sear that answer into my brain sufficiently, I'll be able to move on and be much happier. MoeGamer has already made me happier and more proud than anything I ever did as part of the professional games press, because it's all mine. So that should stand by itself, and none of these other people should matter.

I need to keep telling myself that.