After finishing a long week of high school, my friends and I were all ready to play some video games. It was Friday night, and we were all on a voice call, while playing a game called Counter Strike, a favorite of 14-year-old guys. Counter Strike, or CS:GO, is a team-based first-person shooter, where there’s five people on a team. Players get money for killing players and winning rounds and use that money to buy guns. Wiping out the entire enemy team or winning a clutch 1v3 can feel amazing, and watching my friends fail is hilarious. But, when you whiff an easy shot, or your teammate isn’t watching your back, you can get angry very quickly. One of the most frustrating things is, if a player dies early, they have to wait around 2 minutes until the next round. So, when you’re a spectator, and you’re just sitting there watching your teammate, knowing that you died because he wasn’t paying attention, emotions can get out of hand. People start blaming their teammates, which leads to comparing of stats, which leads to insults and put downs. While I’m not amazing at the game, I’m still the best out of all my friends, and for the most part, I don’t rage. On the other hand, some of my friends get mad for reasons I can’t rationalize. While the emotions are unmistakable, my friends really don’t have a good reason to be mad. Why does it matter what gun your teammate buys as long as they do well with it? Why get mad when you get shot from behind and your teammate isn’t even close to you? And most of all, why get mad about what color you get?

When you play the game, everyone can choose a color, so it is easy to differentiate and figure out who is where on the map. Now most people wouldn’t care too much about their color, but two of my friends, Damon and Kebe, both really wanted purple. If they didn’t get purple, one of them would get mad. The rest of my friends just wanted to win, and didn’t care what color they got. On this night, as expected, things got a little heated when Damon and Kebe both selected purple. When we loaded in, Kebe got purple and Damon was orange. Damon said, “Alright, I didn’t get purple. I’m going to throw the whole game.” I mentally thought, here we go again. Usually, Damon doesn’t actually throw, he’s just mad for a little while, but after a couple of rounds, he was still sitting in spawn, doing nothing.

“Yo, Damon, can you try?” I said, not wanting to lose the game.

“You guys got killed and lost every round.”

Maybe it’s because we were playing a 4v5, I thought, but I didn’t say anything. Kebe was quick to chime in though. “Maybe if you were actually trying, we wouldn’t lose every time!”

“Shut up, you’re literally useless anyways, you have 1 kill!” Damon exclaimed.

I saw that this was quickly getting out of hand. I said, “Guys, chill, it’s just a color in a video game.”

Damon said, “I’ve been using this color since we started playing this game.”

“That’s definitely not true,” said Kebe. “I’ve been playing this game way longer than you have and I’ve always been purple.”

“Alright, well I guess I’m going to keep throwing then.”

Exasperated, I messaged Mateo and Jackson, my friends who were just laughing in the background, separately for some help. Mateo just found it funny, and Jackson said he didn’t know what to do, so I was by myself. Since Damon was being more stubborn, I asked Kebe to switch off purple. Kebe said it was Damons fault, and Damon said he would try if he got purple. I tried to ask both of them, but failed. I guess they both didn’t want to back down, because then they would be seen as weak.

Kebe and Damon kept bickering for a couple minutes, trading insults and blaming one another. I tried to say something, but my voice was lost in their shouting. I watched, helpless, as Damon kicked Kebe off the call. After a while, Kebe came back and kicked Damon off the call. Mateo and Jackson were beginning to see that this really wasn’t a joke, but an actual argument.

As a new round started, Damon started body-blocking Kebe, not letting him move and trapping him in a corner. In return, Kebe shot Damon a couple times. At this point they were genuinely angry, insulting each other on a personal level instead of in the game. Damon killed Kebe in the game, then sounded like he slammed his headset. Mateo said his name, but there was no response. At this point, we were all silent except Kebe, who was still complaining. I didn’t know what to say, as when I’d tried to help before, it just escalated the argument. Jackson and Mateo said nothing, which I guess was good for them because they didn’t get any of the blame. Kebe asked me, “Bro, why do we even play with Damon?”

“Look, I know you guys both want purple, but it’s just a color.”
“He was throwing first because he didn’t get it. Why are you even blaming me for this, it’s his fault!”

While it was Damon’s fault, in case he wanted to come back to the group, I didn’t want to make him mad again. So, I just didn’t say anything about what happened for the rest of the night, and no one else did either.  It was hard to understand why they were arguing, but I understood the nature of virtual arguments better. When communicating online, people feel as if there are no consequences to what they say. They know they aren’t going to get punched in the face or pushed if an argument happens, therefore they are more likely to keep arguing and escalate it. Another big difference from arguing in the real world and online is that people can’t see how the other person is feeling. They don’t see the impact their words have on them, but just keep arguing because they assume they aren’t hurting the other person.

In the following days and weeks, Damon and Kebe avoided talking about it, but they never got into a fight of that scale over purple again. We went on a winning streak, winning 7 or 8 games in a row, and no one got mad. While I was still top scoring, Kebe and Damon were pulling their own weight, even when they didn’t get purple. I think that those two actually seeing each other in school helped their relationship more than winning in a video game ever could. Just a friendly fist bump or nod in the hallway can change everything. Seeing someone in real life is the best way to deescalate a situation like this.

While this conflict discouraged me from speaking up in arguments for a while, I eventually came to realize that sometimes it’s necessary, even though it might not help. I learned that I shouldn’t place the blame on any one person, even if it is clearly their fault, because blaming people will just make it worse. Instead, I will just try to calm the situation down, and maybe ask my other friends who aren’t involved in the argument, as the more voices the better. And while this argument was just about a color in a video game, it let me learn a lot so that in the future I can handle serious arguments better.