Competitive Gaming and the Art of Shittalking

When I was a kid, my brother got Super Smash Brothers Melee one snowy Christmas. I received Mario Kart Double Dash. As children are wont to do, we ran down to the Gamecube and had a physical fight over who would get to play first (a conflict only resolved by getting a second Gamecube for $30 at a yardsale). Since he had a few years, inches, and pounds of muscle on me from his lifeguarding job, he won. Christmas Day was spent drunk on homemade Baileys and trying to get blue sparks. It was one of the better Christmas Days that I can remember. Of course, the honeymoon with Double Dash didn't last -- I fell in love with Melee.

Melee is a pretty complicated game for a party brawler - it still has a strong tournament following. My brother and I played for years. I was always Kirby, and he was always Captain Falcon, and in retrospect I think a little bit of it was humoring me. I appreciate that, still. Years of practice eventually meant I could go toe to toe with real tournament players, even though Wavedashing was beyond me.

But the most important skill I learnt was to shittalk. Ruthless, rude, out of control trash talk that had no boundaries. Daniel and I traded harsh words before we'd beat the crap out of each other in the game. We'd unplug each other's controllers with our toes. We'd try to pin each other under giant couch cushions during an intense game of sudden death.

My oldest brother bowed out of our games early on. The other brother had no interest in video games. So it was just me and Daniel, until he moved out. Melee gathered dust.

When I began dating Aaron, we hauled out the Gamecube and plugged it in. And out of habit, the relentless foul shittalk began. Aaron was taken aback. He hated it. He grew up in a household where he played video games with his mom. He asked me to stop. I was just as surprised. What's the point of competition without a little ribbing and profanity?

Here's the deal with the practice of shittalk - it requires a deep well of trust and friendship. It's fun as hell, but you can't haul it out on a first date or to a new friend. It's something that requires consent and boundaries and it has to be talked out before hand. Shittalk is like sex, in that people love to bring it out spontaneously but it should probably have a good, open talk before hand.

And here's the other problem with it: competitive, fun, friendly shittalking is dead.

The problem with shittalking is not only that deep bond of friendship and trust that it requires -- which is certainly attainable, if rare, on the Internet. Shittalking belonged back on that couch in my mom's basement, or in my boyfriend's bedroom. It's a real life art. And games are moving off the couch that you play with friends and onto Xbox live. Shittalking still exists, but it's been perverted beyond measure. Shittalking is now teabagging a guy you just killed in Halo. It's profane. It's foul. It's a slap in the face from a stranger you haven't said two words to. It just pisses you off.

Of course, maybe it was always that way? Those fond memories of shittalking with Daniel as Captain Falcon got smashed off Hyrule Temple may be fleeting, rose-colored memories that are impossible to replicate?

Whatever the case, it's a practice that you probably don't want to bust out on first contact. It has a time and a place, as rare as they might be.