do you think it's wise to play the fool?

This wasn't captured in SL, so the chat format is slightly different, but the same rules apply, anonymity FTW.

3:18 PM] Axx: Mildly high-ranked players [b*tching} on MOBA forums about abusive chat bans will never not be funny.
[3:18 PM] Axx: "There should be some allowance for yelling at bad players as long as I'm not being racist about it", etc.
[3:19 PM] Axx: Like... hmm... no?
[3:20 PM] Axx: Nobody ever, at any point, needs to berate another player. Nobody ever even needs to hit the Enter key. Literally ever, these games can be played 100% without hitting that button.
[3:21 PM] Axx: If you can't not be an [a**hole], then you did it to yourself.
[3:23 PM] Axx: That all-thumbs feeder noob isn't going to suddenly and magically gain more skill because you typed "kys retard" into chat. Or even the slightly more polite "stop feeding" -- it won't magically make them stop.

For those unaware, "kys" is shorthand for "kill yourself". Some overly-angry players yell (or type) the entire phrase, some just snarl (or angrily type) the shorthand.

[3:24 PM] Axx: But "better" players think they deserve to be able to yell at "worse" players. And then they come to the forums and whine about it when they get banned for doing so. And I laugh.
[3:25 PM] Nxx: Yeah, [f*ck] people like that
[3:25 PM] Nxx: whiny entitled crybabies

True, but the larger gaming community either supports them in this, or just don't say anything, thus silently offering no open disapproval. And, in this case, silence equals approval as well--what they're never called on, they never see a need to change.

[3:29 PM] Axx: It's why I quit LoL. Because the community is just so awful -- at the lower level you have the low end of the Dunning-Kruger curve, the people who are so bad that they don't realize they're bad and yell at everyone else for being bad; and then at the high end, damn near literally every single higher-skilled player thinks they deserve to be able to rage at anyone less skilled than themselves, and that it's the bad players' fault that they're raging [a**holes], not their own fault for lacking self-control.
[3:30 PM] Nxx: Yeah, that's the impression I get
[3:30 PM] Axx: Like "if you would just stop playing like [sh*t], then I wouldn't need to rage", and it's just so backwards -- and it's absolutely pervasive in the highish skill tiers.
[3:30 PM] Nxx: I have no doubt.
[3:34 PM] Axx: Part of me wants to blame the isolation and relative anonymity online gaming provides for that one. After all, if you're sitting down next to someone with a controller at the same console, and you start spouting off at them the way these people do, they could just reach over and smack you upside the head and you'd 100% deserve it. I'm not so much saying that the lack of fear of physical violent retaliation is the cause, but the fact that you have to look someone in the eye in face-to-face interaction is a near-automatic source of mutual respect. If you can look someone in the eye and talk [sh*t] at them, either you really mean it or they really deserve it.
[3:39 PM] Ash: Whereas with online games you can just go "you're all so bad!" and suddenly and magically nothing is your fault and you didn't have to actually directly accuse anyone to their face -- and since the behavior is so normalized, you won't even get a bad reputation for doing so, so you can just keep on doing it.
[5:44 PM] Fxxxxxx: That part of you should absolutely blame that, because it's true. But it doesn't explain why it's worse in some games than other games.
[5:47 PM] Fxxxxxxxx: Investment
[5:48 PM] Fxxxxxxxx: A game that is over in five minutes is more frustrating then one over in 45

Maybe that's it, but it doesn't seem to ever change the behavior. Examples (and warnings for language):

Several of the worst offenders seem to be adults with poorly controlled anger issues.

Men explaining how women need to be yelled at by men to behave properly.

A video explaining why women generally choose to play single-player games, or not voice while playing MMOs.

And apparently it's not exclusively a male thing, as women have been just as much as fault as the men.

And what brought all this up recently is hearing of one particular streamer involved in a case of domestic abuse and battery (yes, he was charged for this) against his wife.

And he's far from the first. Racism, bigotry, homophobia, Islamophobia are rampant, because oftentimes it is easier simply to exist a current game with an abusive player, and join a new one, rather than raise a fuss and tell them to stop. Because most of these individuals are so high-strung they will just go off, screaming, raging, entirely out of proportion to the level of offense. Who needs that kind of stress? Most people don't, so they don't engage, leaving the individual to think they're in the right.

And believe me, I understand that reaction--sometimes, I just want to play a game. I don't want to worry about being harassed over my voice, or my looks, or my opinions; my Steam profile mentions more personal details than many services I use, but that's also because with few expections, my games are single-player. There is no one else in Minecraft, or Layers of Fear, or Hell Girls, or Diablo II to get in my face and tell me I'm terrible because I didn't automatically know how to deflect the thing they've been deflecting for a decade now. It's useless to argue with some of these people, and I, like many, don't even bother anymore.