Several communities have nasty language or "pranks": college fraternities, certain forums and several MMO guilds find it normal to call members "niggers", "faggots", refer to PvP as "raping" or "fucking", calling females as "bitches" or "cunts" or even commit nonverbal harassing acts like pushing their heads to toilets or intentional friendly fire in games.
When someone complains, their answer is "HTFU": "harden the fuck up", meaning that one should be a tough guy (like them) and accept this treatment as a form of friendly bonding. They vehemently reject that their behavior is harmful, they claim that they encourage everyone else to threat everyone the same way. They claim to believe in a kind of spartan society where everyone is tough with everyone in order to keep each other in a combat-ready state to smash our enemies when the time comes.
People usually don't follow their advice. Instead of HTFU, they follow one of the two common responses. One is quitting or turning hostile to the organization, this case the person is either considered weak or simply "did not belong here". The other is silent obedience, trying to get out of their sight and hope that after the "necessary" initiation period they find new targets to harass and leave them alone. So the "HTFU" approach remains undisputed and at least the theoretical chance join them as equal due to "harden the fuck up" is believed to be there. To disprove HTFU one has to indeed do as suggested "take the hazing as a man" and still not be accepted.
After joining TEST I started to participate on their forums. I was probably ignorant to many game mechanics and accepted doctrines but hey, it's the alliance that wears "bad at EVE" as a badge, what can go wrong? So I posted what I believed both in comments and in new threads. Soon I started to draw - not criticism and disagreement - but hostile responses. I mean they did not even try to offer arguments just some "funny" picture or the kind suggestion to "shut the fuck up", maybe with some labels like "publord", "shitlord" and "faggot" or the legendary "kill yourself".
This was the time when the theoretical advice of "HTFU" was put to the test. No, not purposefully, I did not see the importance of that. I am simply naturally immune to social effects and considered them random idiots. After all 20K people were allowed to post on those forums (TEST and blues), so having a few dozen drunkens, braindeads and trolls is normal. However as time went on, this behavior just worsened. At first they responded this way only to things they disagreed with, later they dug out every post I made, even totally technical ones and started their own ones for no other reason than express their hate. Yet, I kept posting without minding them. I did not throw them insulting replies, just ignored them and kept posting whatever was on my mind. By then I was already labeled the worst/best troll TEST ever had despite you wouldn't find my post trolling. I mean how much trolling lies in the question "Do you know who is Cha Ching PLC?" (a non-blue alliance living in near proximity). Please note that I just said you would find my posts technical, on-topic and non-trolling, I did not say that I was unaware that this harmless-looking question will indeed infuriate them, nor that I did not wish it.
This went on until the point I post my findings about TEST culture here on the blog. I wrote that they are effective because their automatic and bureaucratic system distances the simple member from the obnoxious and bossy people polluting every social space. They were celebrating in a 100+ comment thread. What did they celebrate? That I finally quit. That I was weak like the others. They even gave me a special in-game title "paid 60b to get trolled out of TEST and probably EVE". When I clarified that I never intended to quit, merely expected to be kicked over calling the small-corp leaderships useless, they were very upset.
The "shut the fuck up publord" one-liners, "kill yourself" comments and other niceties became much-more frequent than before, but still with no effect. OK, that's not exactly true, I started to look at them as forum tears and started to word my posts in a way to harvest maximum amount of those. I started to brag about my downvote status. I was the living example of "HTFU", the guy who isn't simply remain unbroken by "friendly pushings" but actively participate in these "acts of spartan friendship".
However the "HTFU" guys were not so happy. Besides becoming less and less original, they started to demand me to change my destructive behavior and inform me that I'm offensive and harmful. My favorite topic was the one where I suggested to use the existing stratops-announcer so people can participate. This topic was probably my only with net positive votes: it was so popular that my hating "fanbase" couldn't cast enough downvotes. Here they explicitly told that while the idea itself is good, I introduced it in an insensitive way that could cause the people feel that "I'm talking down to them" or "consider myself smarter than them". The same people accused me insensitivity who wrote "kill yourself faggot" half an hour ago! When I replied with "HTFU", they weren't happy at all. It seems they find their own medicine bitter!
This went on for a few more weeks: I posted something that an outsider would consider technical and on-topic (maybe ignorant but still harmless), they spammed insults in a more and more desperate way. These people had a status within the alliance and by openly ignoring their bully I questioned that. Even the most harmless technical post of mine was a "the king is naked" exclamation. I wasn't among the cool kids who were allowed to speak and yet I did! As a new color the fan-of-fan emerged, these posters did not support me but expressed amusement on the misery of my "fans" with comments like "You couldn't silence Gevlon by writing "shut the fuck up publord" 1000x, and now you hope that the 1001.th will work?" Forum moderators wrote "hahaha, you can't imagine how many idiots report Gevlon as offensive instead of just ignoring him".
Finally, when no less man then Montolio, the alliance leader realized that there is no amount of insults and hateposts can make me ragequit or even scale down posting (actually it made me scale up), I was kicked.
So no, HTFU isn't even a theoretical chance. Being insulting, racist, sexist isn't a form of bonding. It's an offensive act that is aimed to force someone into obedience or to display power. "HTFU" is merely a form of damage control, it's a lie claiming that their behavior is OK. They know it's not OK and if anyone else does it to them, they aren't happy. If you refuse to be bullied into obedience or ragequit, they won't accept you as an equal as they promised but try to bully you harder and if that fails they quit defeated. By kicking me Montolio protected his staff that pays their privilege to be assholes by slave-work. If he didn't kick me, this collection of obnoxious idiots would have ragequit over their inability to make me ragequit. He couldn't afford them ragequit as someone has to process the reimbursement forms, fuel the towers and welp fleets faster than self-destruct or the alliance stops functioning.
If you see "friendly pushing" like that, you can do two things only. One is flying under the radar, disappearing from their eyes. TEST is a perfect place for that due to its size. If you don't speak on the forum or in fleet chat, they will never notice you. The other is quiting. You can't make them accept you as equal (not to mention why do you want to be an equal to someone who calls people "nigger faggots").
When someone complains, their answer is "HTFU": "harden the fuck up", meaning that one should be a tough guy (like them) and accept this treatment as a form of friendly bonding. They vehemently reject that their behavior is harmful, they claim that they encourage everyone else to threat everyone the same way. They claim to believe in a kind of spartan society where everyone is tough with everyone in order to keep each other in a combat-ready state to smash our enemies when the time comes.
People usually don't follow their advice. Instead of HTFU, they follow one of the two common responses. One is quitting or turning hostile to the organization, this case the person is either considered weak or simply "did not belong here". The other is silent obedience, trying to get out of their sight and hope that after the "necessary" initiation period they find new targets to harass and leave them alone. So the "HTFU" approach remains undisputed and at least the theoretical chance join them as equal due to "harden the fuck up" is believed to be there. To disprove HTFU one has to indeed do as suggested "take the hazing as a man" and still not be accepted.
After joining TEST I started to participate on their forums. I was probably ignorant to many game mechanics and accepted doctrines but hey, it's the alliance that wears "bad at EVE" as a badge, what can go wrong? So I posted what I believed both in comments and in new threads. Soon I started to draw - not criticism and disagreement - but hostile responses. I mean they did not even try to offer arguments just some "funny" picture or the kind suggestion to "shut the fuck up", maybe with some labels like "publord", "shitlord" and "faggot" or the legendary "kill yourself".
This was the time when the theoretical advice of "HTFU" was put to the test. No, not purposefully, I did not see the importance of that. I am simply naturally immune to social effects and considered them random idiots. After all 20K people were allowed to post on those forums (TEST and blues), so having a few dozen drunkens, braindeads and trolls is normal. However as time went on, this behavior just worsened. At first they responded this way only to things they disagreed with, later they dug out every post I made, even totally technical ones and started their own ones for no other reason than express their hate. Yet, I kept posting without minding them. I did not throw them insulting replies, just ignored them and kept posting whatever was on my mind. By then I was already labeled the worst/best troll TEST ever had despite you wouldn't find my post trolling. I mean how much trolling lies in the question "Do you know who is Cha Ching PLC?" (a non-blue alliance living in near proximity). Please note that I just said you would find my posts technical, on-topic and non-trolling, I did not say that I was unaware that this harmless-looking question will indeed infuriate them, nor that I did not wish it.
This went on until the point I post my findings about TEST culture here on the blog. I wrote that they are effective because their automatic and bureaucratic system distances the simple member from the obnoxious and bossy people polluting every social space. They were celebrating in a 100+ comment thread. What did they celebrate? That I finally quit. That I was weak like the others. They even gave me a special in-game title "paid 60b to get trolled out of TEST and probably EVE". When I clarified that I never intended to quit, merely expected to be kicked over calling the small-corp leaderships useless, they were very upset.
The "shut the fuck up publord" one-liners, "kill yourself" comments and other niceties became much-more frequent than before, but still with no effect. OK, that's not exactly true, I started to look at them as forum tears and started to word my posts in a way to harvest maximum amount of those. I started to brag about my downvote status. I was the living example of "HTFU", the guy who isn't simply remain unbroken by "friendly pushings" but actively participate in these "acts of spartan friendship".
However the "HTFU" guys were not so happy. Besides becoming less and less original, they started to demand me to change my destructive behavior and inform me that I'm offensive and harmful. My favorite topic was the one where I suggested to use the existing stratops-announcer so people can participate. This topic was probably my only with net positive votes: it was so popular that my hating "fanbase" couldn't cast enough downvotes. Here they explicitly told that while the idea itself is good, I introduced it in an insensitive way that could cause the people feel that "I'm talking down to them" or "consider myself smarter than them". The same people accused me insensitivity who wrote "kill yourself faggot" half an hour ago! When I replied with "HTFU", they weren't happy at all. It seems they find their own medicine bitter!
This went on for a few more weeks: I posted something that an outsider would consider technical and on-topic (maybe ignorant but still harmless), they spammed insults in a more and more desperate way. These people had a status within the alliance and by openly ignoring their bully I questioned that. Even the most harmless technical post of mine was a "the king is naked" exclamation. I wasn't among the cool kids who were allowed to speak and yet I did! As a new color the fan-of-fan emerged, these posters did not support me but expressed amusement on the misery of my "fans" with comments like "You couldn't silence Gevlon by writing "shut the fuck up publord" 1000x, and now you hope that the 1001.th will work?" Forum moderators wrote "hahaha, you can't imagine how many idiots report Gevlon as offensive instead of just ignoring him".
Finally, when no less man then Montolio, the alliance leader realized that there is no amount of insults and hateposts can make me ragequit or even scale down posting (actually it made me scale up), I was kicked.
So no, HTFU isn't even a theoretical chance. Being insulting, racist, sexist isn't a form of bonding. It's an offensive act that is aimed to force someone into obedience or to display power. "HTFU" is merely a form of damage control, it's a lie claiming that their behavior is OK. They know it's not OK and if anyone else does it to them, they aren't happy. If you refuse to be bullied into obedience or ragequit, they won't accept you as an equal as they promised but try to bully you harder and if that fails they quit defeated. By kicking me Montolio protected his staff that pays their privilege to be assholes by slave-work. If he didn't kick me, this collection of obnoxious idiots would have ragequit over their inability to make me ragequit. He couldn't afford them ragequit as someone has to process the reimbursement forms, fuel the towers and welp fleets faster than self-destruct or the alliance stops functioning.
If you see "friendly pushing" like that, you can do two things only. One is flying under the radar, disappearing from their eyes. TEST is a perfect place for that due to its size. If you don't speak on the forum or in fleet chat, they will never notice you. The other is quiting. You can't make them accept you as equal (not to mention why do you want to be an equal to someone who calls people "nigger faggots").
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