I hate this trend. I don't have to agree with people to understand them from their own frame of reference. But it often makes me feel like an outsider to do something as simple as disagree with my southern relatives on political points without assuming conspiracy theories about their motivations and hating the core of their essence over it.
Here's a less charged example: The NY Times released a video about the late bodybuilder and internet personality Zyzz yesterday. He was simultaneously inspiring and a downright terrible role model. The vast majority of people that like him know that and easily separate the whey from the chaff (positivity = good, steroids = dumb). There can be a lot of light-heartness, sarcasm and trolling on fitness parts of the internet. It was all taken at face value, stapled to existing media narratives, and shoved in front of a huge audience. I feel like, at some point, most people trying to share an understanding of others online are thick, not really trying, or actively malicious. It was a pretty depressing video (especially because the angle of the piece was to pick apart kids in their teens/early twenties trying to figure out life, that made the mistake of doing so online).
It's ultimately the people in power at Riot Games who have the responsibility to change.
There's one camp (camp A) whose cultural norms contain offensive practices to those outside of the culture, and another camp (camp B) who perceives those norms at face value, without context and intent, for their offense. Another poster here used The F Word (South Park) as a great example of this.
> This behavior of male-on-male aggression seemed to be a mechanism of asserting control.
I don't know where Barry gets this, and it's written like a National Geographic-esque piece of a man trying to understand the actions and intents of animals in the Serengeti. He doesn't "get" them, cannot establish trust, and as a result can't influence anyone in this piece's mind about how these actions are perceived by others outside of camp A.
> now I am having to speak to you like an exasperated camp counselor.
This is reinforced by statements like this. This isn't edifying. This is belittling, and completely ineffective. Barry's downfall here is that he believes this is "the long game, and slow and steady would win the race." He's correct, but his execution is fruitless.
Instead, what about trying to befriend these people, and then have down to earth dialogues such as, "I'm not trying to be a buzzkill, but maybe we could tone it down with the rape stuff, my dudes. It's kinda not cool."
I'm sure there are better methods for getting the idea across, but ultimately you change people's hearts and minds by appealing to them and winning them over.