[Discussion] What is 'elitism' to you?

[Nox]

Oh, how I wish this was under the FFXIV discussion so I could go into a two page rant about elitism outside of rp. Sadly, it is not; so I cannot. In an rp sense, I dont' feel obligated to rp with people. Never have, never will. I have denied someone rp because of an in character reason. My character hates his character with such ferocity that it makes hard mode Titan's rage look like a child's hissy fit. I have not denied someone rp for an otherwise stupid reason. I have heard tale, and actually seen, people denied rping simply because their name wasn't completely Lore friendly. Hell, I've been told off because I used "Gysahl" as my surname. I, for one, don't give a damn about what a character's name is. I'm not overly fond of all the Highwind clan or Strifes that I see, but I'm not going to deny someone fun because of it. Personally, the only time I'll deny someone rp (outside of an in character reason) is if they write like William Faulkner or something. It'd really have to be absolutely unbearable for me to just say "no."

 

Now that I've rambled sufficiently, elitism has already been defined. To me, it's not even a big deal. This topic is, more or less, a dead horse. A dead horse that we can, pretty much, ignore. If someone singles you out and won't rp with you, big deal. Pardon my language, but who gives a flying fuck? Join an awesome free company and surround yourself with people who aren't constantly trying to prove that they have the biggest penis in all of existence. Rp, for me, is kind of an extension of real life. People don't have to like you; and you don't have to know why or understand them. Elitism inside the rp setting is just not a big deal to me. Certainly not as much as the cancerous elitism that lives outside the rp. I was in a CM run yesterday and some people in the group were poking fun at a Black Mage because all she had was "Walmart" armor (her AF Gear). That's rude and degrading and will only get worse once gearscore is put in. 

 

TL;DR: I'll play the bad guy and say that elitism isn't a big deal in the rp setting.

[Suisei'to]

Ah, the age old MMORPG issue: Elitism.

 

The reality of the genre is that elitism is a very real thing, the game itself creates a progressive difficulty curve that supports players with more time and skill to rise above others. There isn't anything necessarily wrong with this set up but the elitist community will often times become inclusive, strangling itself over the long term. There's plenty of examples through different MMOs, especially with FFXI, WoW and EQ.

 

The same time of nature ends up bleeding into the RP community as well. Each person has a naturally different style and personality with their RP. People who have similar RP experiences tend to gravitate to one another naturally, growing friendships and tight communities. 

 

This, however, leads to the same kind of inclusive behavior we see in raiding guilds. There is a familiarity there that others can have a hard time cracking. Some call these Cliques, but in reality they are often mistaken as Elitism.

 

Standards are often touted as elitism as well, however is having standards for your free time really all that elitist? The reality of the situation is that we all have limited game time and we would all rather do it having fun. Some people don't have fun when people aren't up to their standards, what ever they may be. This isn't necessarily bad either, I think we can all understand and support wanting to spend our free time doing something we enjoy.

 

The line gets crossed when behavior becomes rude, by either side. To be frank, being pushy with someone when they don't want to RP is just rude behavior. So is someone dismissing and interested party offhandedly without explaining they just have other interests. In our P.C. society sometimes avoiding the issue creates more issues at the start. 

 

When it comes down to it Elitism is often a label used to cover up other issues. It's a security blanket to avoid confrontation or even a simple explanation. Talk, be polite and be thorough and we wouldn't have these issues any longer.

[S'demyx Tia]

Elitism is telling other people how they should RP, in my book.

 

 

Pretty much.

 

If people want to do something ridiculous and crazy for their RP, whatever, that's them. You don't need to put them down. I personally am pretty lore-oriented, but do minor changes like giving my Seeker fangs.

 

Speaking of, when I emoted about his fangs as he bared his teeth, I was put on blast by someone I wasn't even directly RPing with that jumped all over my ass.

 

Seriously? It's just teeth (And if they had read Dem's backstory, all the men in his tribe that come of age get their teeth filed sharply [took it from an actual tribe irl], hence why he has them). GTFO of my RP

[Clover]

Umm... I don't even understand what it means when "an RPer tries to be the elite". What elite? *Laughs*. Is it about becoming famous among RPers or something?

 

The point of RP is to have personal fun, isn't it? There's no "elite" or "professional RPers"... o.oa

 

(I actually have no idea of what an elitist RPer is because I haven't encountered such a case. I know great writers who simply enjoy playing in communities).

[raindrops]

Speaking of, when I emoted about his fangs as he bared his teeth, I was put on blast by someone I wasn't even directly RPing with that jumped all over my ass.

 

Seriously? It's just teeth (And if they had read Dem's backstory, all the men in his tribe that come of age get their teeth filed sharply [took it from an actual tribe irl], hence why he has them). GTFO of my RP

 

See, something like this I'd consider a case-by-case basis thing. I can understand someone sending a polite tell with 'hey, you do know that it's keepers who have fangs right?' or something along those lines. It's something that could be a mistake easily enough, and personally if I had made a genuine mistake like that I'd want to know about it. I can see it getting annoying after a while, but it's also the kind of thing you have to expect when you give one of your characters the traits of another race/clan. You can't really expect everyone to have read your character's backstory.

 

Of course, it becomes a problem when they aren't polite about it or when they don't accept that it's a deliberate choice on your part rather than a mistake. There's a difference between being helpful and correcting people just to sound superior.

[LiadansWhisper]

Umm... I don't even understand what it means when "an RPer tries to be the elite". What elite? *Laughs*. Is it about becoming famous among RPers or something?

 

The point of RP is to have personal fun, isn't it? There's no "elite" or "professional RPers"... o.oa

 

(I actually have no idea of what an elitist RPer is because I haven't encountered such a case. I know great writers who simply enjoy playing in communities).

 

To be frank, it's just a human tendency to do things like this.  People want to be part of the group, but to have the group be "defined," there need to be people who are not a part of it.  Us vs. them.

 

It's the same mindset that you get when someone says, "Well, at least I'm not like her" or "well, at least we don't have anyone who [insert "dumb" RP style of the moment]."

 

It's seriously just the way most people are.

[Clover]

To be frank, it's just a human tendency to do things like this.  People want to be part of the group, but to have the group be "defined," there need to be people who are not a part of it.  Us vs. them.

 

It's the same mindset that you get when someone says, "Well, at least I'm not like her" or "well, at least we don't have anyone who [insert "dumb" RP style of the moment]."

 

It's seriously just the way most people are.

So it comes down to people needing to feel *~*special*~*?

 

In any case, as I said, I haven't met any RPer who believed themselves to be more awesome than the rest (that I know of). I've only seen people getting along better or worse with other people, which is normal. Hopefully, the extreme case mentioned here isn't very common?

[Lament]

It unfortunately is fairly common. I've seen cases so bad that RPers would get brought up in anonymous hate memes and torn apart by groups of anonymous players. Or entire RP groups/games/concepts would. It was vicious.

 

I was part of a group once that kept two secret chatrooms - one for the cool people, and one for the cooler than cool people. According to them, anyway.

[Naunet]

I was part of a group once that kept two secret chatrooms - one for the cool people, and one for the cooler than cool people. According to them, anyway.

 

Honestly, this is kind of the impression I get of the different Intermission LSes.

[K'nahli]

I was part of a group once that kept two secret chatrooms - one for the cool people, and one for the cooler than cool people. According to them, anyway.

 

Honestly, this is kind of the impression I get of the different Intermission LSes.

 

How is that? I heard a story about a particular linkshell I am in but I hardly pay attention to the chats enough to know about it myself. (Don't name and shame though, of course).

[LeCard]

ok...you made me do it.

Etymology time =)

According to the Oxford English dictionary:

Elite: A group  of people considered to be the best in a particular society or category.

Elitism: The Advocacy or existence of an elite as a dominating element in a system or society; The attitude or behavior of a person or group who regard themselves as belonging to an elite

Elitist: A person who believes that a system or society should be ruled or dominated by an elite; A person who believes that they belong to an elite; adj. favoring, advocating, or restricted to an elite

 

-ism: Suffix, denoting an action or its result: Denoting a state  or quality : denoting a system, principle, or idelogical movement: denoting a basis for predjudice or discimination:denoting a peculiarity in language:denoting a pathalogical condition.

also under a seperate heading

      A distictive practice,system or philosophy, typically a political ideology or an artistic movement.

 

according to Webster online the origin of the word Elite is thus:

French élite, from Old French eslite, from feminine of eslit, past participle of eslire to choose, from Latin eligere

First Known Use: 1823

 

TL;Dr?

cliff notes:Elite=good Elitism= 50/50 good/bad Elitist=bad

Elitist are your problem here, and what we should be/ are really talking about here.

 

For those that did read it all, take a cookie and leave your more informed ideas on the matter below =)

[YesGood]

I dunno how else to elaborate it. Striving to be the best you can be at something is aspiration. It's a goal. You're aspiring to constantly improve. Chances are you'll be better than you think you are and you'll always be trying to do more than that. It's great when you don't apply the standards you hold yourself to, to others.

 

You -can't- consider -yourself- to be elitist without acknowledging that there are others who 'are not on par with you'. Somewhere in your mind you're saying that someone is god-awful. This doesn't just apply to RPers or gamers, also to artists and musicians. I don't think people -have- to be humble, but I usually don't know what to think when someone presents to me that they're virtually the best thing since sliced bread and everyone else is a clump of dirt.

 

I won't agree that elitism is often if at any point a label thrown on cliques by people who feel left out or looked down on. Most times cliques do ostracize people that one or another individual in that clique has a problem with. It's part of being in a closed group. Always when this happens they'll try to justify it with the most 'rational' approach 'Oh jeez guys, look at his NAME' 'That grammar's terrible' 'Dude, are you seeing this, I'm loling so hard right now'. All of that indicates you would never do such a thing. Chances are, you have before and likely would not have liked it if people were saying this about you behind your back as a newbie. MORE than that, this stuff has a tendency to spread like the flu in close quarters and so at least one or two people will say, and you've likely either heard, seen, or done this, 'Well I heard this person got into this with so and so so I'm just going to avoid that'. ...*eyelid rubbing*

 

If something does something you don't like, IC or OOC, denying participating with them isn't being elitist, it's preserving your own gameplay. STANDING THERE AND BERATING THEM IS BAD. No constructive criticism? Go tell all your friends how bad they are? Yeah. Bad. Elitist. Bad.

 

Being 'straight forward' and 'honest' are excuses I often see used to sugar coat what is really a 'I know I'm better than you so you should know it too' mentality. It's not good. It's not fun.

 

I will agree that using the terms 'elitist' and 'elitism' sometimes goes the route we've seen with 'I'm not an ERPer!' or 'No Lore-bending!' in that it's now a staple excuse for people to give other people flack when their opinions don't agree in the hopes that a bunch of others are going to misconstrue something and jump on the anti-elitist bandwagon with them when they likely did something pretty wrong themselves. Elitism isn't good. But I'm not saying that everyone who claims someone else is elitist is right. It's not as clear cut as that, frankly, but when you see one, you'll know it because it'll make you wince with how hardcore they're driving someone else about how 'bad' they are; they do it like it's their job.

 

@LeCard: Adorable as I think you are, don't you think the last two apply? I mean I already quoted Elitism.

 

The attitude or behavior of a person or group who regard themselves as belonging to an elite

 

... Isn't it -worse- when you 'regard yourself' as being part of 'A group of people considered to be the best in a particular society or category.' rather than, say, being voted in? Doesn't that already denote that there's a problem?

[Clover]

It unfortunately is fairly common. I've seen cases so bad that RPers would get brought up in anonymous hate memes and torn apart by groups of anonymous players. Or entire RP groups/games/concepts would. It was vicious.

Um... Alright, I have seen (and been the focus of) those. I just didn't relate that to elitism but to the deepest form of human stupidity. I guess it's because I tend to see anonymous haters as very frustrated, very insecure, and very jealous beings.

 

In any case, it might be me being naïve, but I want to think we don't have that kind of special snowflakes in this community. Or at least they don't have the means to torn apart anyone here, which is a step...

[Fates Skein]

After having it broken down as it was above, I find that I am in agreement with basically everyone that's posted here.  Elite is a positive word but being 'elitist' is not a good thing (is basically what I considered as just being rude/jerky).

 

I think a lot of people that have roleplayed in MMOs a long time have run into this elitist behavior- I had 2 MRPs of mine put up on one of those 'bad' sites.  The funny thing was, one was held up as a 'perfect example' of good RP, the other was lambasted.

 

I think I've had some really negative experiences with people demanding that everyone be treated exactly the same and that exercising one's preferences for certain types of RP (single-line, multi-paragraph, not emoting thoughts/emoting thoughts as a fourth-wall breaking joke) is the sign of an elitist, bad roleplayer when really it's just that certain things don't appeal to me.  This attitude (everything is right and you're bad to not accept it) is what makes me feel that wanting to be elite is not bad, what makes it bad is if you attack/put down/laugh at or otherwise denigrate people because their way is not your way.

 

I'm really, really impressed with the responses to this thread.  It's the most mature I've -ever- seen people be about this topic and I've been doing this for a long, long time.  I'm really happy to see that people are discussing this and not calling other people out as big bad meanie-heads- as I'm sure some people are accustomed to seeing when this topic comes up in other MMORP communities (WoW, I'm looking at you).  I definitely think this is the right community for me.

 

*throws love and confetti all over this thread*

[Dehqon]

Having an elite caste is an easy thing to do in a PvE/PvP setting because there are hard numbers that separate the good from the bad. Win/lose ratio, gear score, DPS output, hours played, and so on can all be used by one person to say "This is why I'm better than you" in ways that are hard to deny. What kind of stats are there for a social setting where rules can be made up and points don't matter?

 

Wanting to better yourself to feel more elite is okay and offering to help others improve is good too. There's nothing wrong with hanging out with people you already know and get along with because it happens everywhere. There's even a name for it. Monkey Sphere. (A more clinical description here.) Expecting everybody to come to know and care about every one of the hundreds of people they may cross paths with is simply impossible with the equipment we have. The best we can do is learn to play nice in our shared sand box or at least recognizing when differences are too great to get along and step away before it blows up.

 

The ugly side of elitism comes when one person, or one group, decides that another person or group is bad because and takes it upon themselves to spread their opinions to others in private, knowing how rare it is for anybody to ask for the opposite's point of view. It isn't just happening here in Final Fantasy. It's happened in every community wherever people get together and find things to gossip about even if those very people deny doing it until they turn blue.

[Talathar Khalynn]

Going to be completely honest here : I am not the best player in any MMORPG. In WoW, I did not have the patience to deal with people for prolonged raiding, my paladin did not PvP much (for RP reasons), and I didn't ever bother to strictly adhere to the "proper" ability rotations or stat builds. But then I hung out with folks who would do crazy stuff for fun, like challenge a dungeon using only 2 hunter pets for tanking. Because we played for fun, and we didn't care about "leet" gear or any of that stuff.

 

Our group was a mix of many different types, from serious RPers to people who didn't RP much, hardcore raiders to stubborn anti-establishment rebels of the norm (like myself), and everything in between. But we all respected each other, helped each other, gave each other advice and encouragement, and did not judge each other for how we each decided to play the game.

 

They were all great people, and I always felt priviledged to call them friends.

 

My point? Whether in RP or just in-game, I don't feel elitist attitudes enhance my gameplay, and so I choose not to indulge. As my static party leader in FFXI used to say, I'd rather have a nice person who is a novice but plays well with others, than a leet geared ass who treats everyone like dirt.

 

Your mileage may vary.

 

Have fun in game, everyone.

[DAISHI]

I guess I'm going to be the guy with the rather controversial opinion.

 

For me, people are being elitist when they strongly adhere to their own RP preferences and refuse/demand the same from others. I think that when it comes to RPing, people should be flexible and kind as possible. For instance, in forum RPs, I typically don't like one-line, two-line, RPs. But I don't think it is ever a big deal enough to ever refuse to RP with that person and think of him/her as an inferior RPers. Some people like quick and fast words/action. Some people like explaining the feelings of their characters. Some people like writing essays detailing everything.

 

As long as it doesn't break the rule of things like god-modding, ridiculous lore breaking, meta-games, etc, it is my opinion one should be as accepting as possible. So, sorry to say, when someone goes "I don't want to RP with that person because of [insert subjective style of RPing here]," it feels elitist to me. I'm not going to begrudge the person of course, but that person falls under being an elitist to me.

Must be a matter of perspective. I'd consider this acquiescing  to mediocrity.