Was I in the wrong?

[TattoedEnigma]

Its just culture really. In WoW, me and friends used to do the same thing. Find rando, emote at him non stop while following him, get a huge train going with more randos cuz being part of a thing is fun, good times and laughs for all. You don't go for someone specific over and over cuz then that's harassment. Some things people just read too much into and try to put a meaning or intent that was never there.

I’m honestly surprised you and your buddies didn’t get reported, I personally don’t like fandoms bugging me and would of had a detailed report of all of you following me done. That’s just me though.

[SenorPatty]

Being thin or thick skinned about emote spamming is irrelevant imo. It's what happens after a person asks to stop. You wanna follow and emote spam for fun? No problem but if the recipient asks you to stop, then stop. It's that simple.

Reminds me of the schoolkids who used to point their finger real close to your face and say "I'm not touching you" over and over and the only way to stop them was either running to a teacher or decking them in the face.


Personally, regarding the school yard, took me a long time to stop decking them in the face

[Aylis]

Its just culture really. In WoW, me and friends used to do the same thing. Find rando, emote at him non stop while following him, get a huge train going with more randos cuz being part of a thing is fun, good times and laughs for all. You don't go for someone specific over and over cuz then that's harassment. Some things people just read too much into and try to put a meaning or intent that was never there.

I played WoW and yes I found that kinda thing annoying there too, So I wouldn't go as far as to say its a cultural thing. Here, let's put it in a real world practice and outlook. Say a new family moved in the house next to you who happened to have children that really enjoyed playing air horn wars at 2:00 in the morning or whenever you're trying to sleep. They're just having fun with each other with no outside ill meaning or intent aimed at anyone. It's good times and laughs for them, but is is good times and laughs for you? Would you laugh it off or would you maybe have a talk with their parents?

[Ronduwil]

I don't find emote spam to be harassment. Because emotes are something Square-Enix put into the game, so they deem them acceptable language. But to each their own.

They put free-form chat into the game, too, but that doesn't mean that all free-form chat is acceptable. Also, context is everything. For example: The healer high-fiving everyone when a boss dies is not harassment. The healer high-fiving everyone when the tank dies is very likely harassment. If the OP felt harassed, then he was harassed. If he was just being thin skinned, then he wouldn't have gotten a majority to agree to vote kick someone who even had a friend in the group with them.

[Ronduwil]

Its just culture really. In WoW, me and friends used to do the same thing. Find rando, emote at him non stop while following him, get a huge train going with more randos cuz being part of a thing is fun, good times and laughs for all. You don't go for someone specific over and over cuz then that's harassment. Some things people just read too much into and try to put a meaning or intent that was never there.

This doesn't sound like culture. This sounds like maturity level. This is the kind of thing I might have done with my buddies at age 15 when I had lots of time on my hands and relatively few RL responsibilities. Annoying a random person for the crime of simply playing the game sounds like a huge waste of time to me, not good times and laughs for all. If I were the rando in question, I would simply have you guys on ignore and go about my business. I acknowledge, however, that others are more immersed in their playing experience and might genuinely be upset by this. So even though I personally wouldn't take offense to that type of activity, I wouldn't participate in it either out of a sense of basic decency.

[Ceridwenae]

Its just culture really. In WoW, me and friends used to do the same thing. Find rando, emote at him non stop while following him, get a huge train going with more randos cuz being part of a thing is fun, good times and laughs for all. You don't go for someone specific over and over cuz then that's harassment. Some things people just read too much into and try to put a meaning or intent that was never there.

What culture is that?

So, your intent is to have a good time and laughs for everyone. What happens when you pick someone who doesn't sign up to your school of good times? Are you and yours the arbiters of all good times, everyone has to adhere to what you've decided and damn them if they don't? Who gave you that power? Would you do it in the streets to just anyone? Perhaps you and your friends are a group of guys and you pick on a lone woman in the street, how does it look? Just because you don't see what's behind a toon in game, do you seriously think it's different? Do you or did you ever consider how the recipient of your attention feels or felt about it? Do you understand how, even in just one occasion, it can be construed or even misconstrued if you prefer as harassment regardless of your intent? I mean, did you openly say to your target "Hey, there! This isn't harassment. We're all just going to follow you around and emote or whatever at you for the next half hour. Don't take it personally! It's just fun!", so they know you're just following them for some weird kicks? Or do you really think that it's unimportant how other people feel, only your fun is paramount? Do or did you consider that the people you selected for this fun may only have said it was fun too because there was a group of you and they may have felt pressured?

Your intent is one thing, but it's also how it looks to the subject of your high jinks which should be of importance. Given it would seem you picked people you didn't know, how could you possibly know how they'd react? Would you even apologise if they were upset by it, or are you going to keep falling back on to them being thin of skin so it's all on them and there's no reason for you to pause, reflect and perhaps take some nuance into at least some consideration?

I mean, I know that's a ton of questions, and feel free to write it off as Answers on a Postcard, but I'm genuinely curious to see what your response is. I really don't want you to feel you have to answer everything or that I'm needling you, but consider this as my brand of fun (finding out what makes people tick). Sorry if it's a bit much!

But really, no one is saying don't have fun, or don't do things because bad stuff will always happen - clearly that's not true! - but if your fun comes at the expense of another person you don't even know, you've really got some hard explaining to do about yourself, and you may find yourself crossing lines you weren't aware existed.

Whether you choose to respond again on not is up to you, but thanks for replying initially all the same, and I sincerely wish you a great rest of your day/evening/whatever it is where you are.

[Eloah]

Honestly, a lot of the replies on this thread make me sad. Some people just don't get it.

The simplest thing is this: Harassment is any, ANY, unwanted behavior that makes you feel uncomfortable. It doesn't matter how you rationalize it in your head that its "okay", even if it's culturally accepted, the other person doesn't even have to know it's harassment. But if it's a behavior that someone is doing specifically to you, that you find uncomfortable, that's harassment, pure and simple. It has nothing to do with thick or thin skin or understanding commonalities. Not to mention if it's brought to that persons attention and they still don't stop, well depending on what the harassment was, probable recoil is acceptable. In FFXIVs case reporting to a GM.

[Arazehl]

Its just culture really. In WoW, me and friends used to do the same thing. Find rando, emote at him non stop while following him, get a huge train going with more randos cuz being part of a thing is fun, good times and laughs for all. You don't go for someone specific over and over cuz then that's harassment. Some things people just read too much into and try to put a meaning or intent that was never there.

Don't expect for it to be okay in this mmo, because it's harassment. Also spamming emotes with player's chat window filling up over and over with the same expressed action is disruptive to other's game play and can be reported as such. Thank goodness mobs are hard to train here because they loose aggro range very quickly. I hope you check that sort of behavior and think twice before attempting the same in this game.

[AxlStream]

What culture is that?

So, your intent is to have a good time and laughs for everyone. What happens when you pick someone who doesn't sign up to your school of good times? Are you and yours the arbiters of all good times, everyone has to adhere to what you've decided and damn them if they don't? Who gave you that power? Would you do it in the streets to just anyone? Perhaps you and your friends are a group of guys and you pick on a lone woman in the street, how does it look? Just because you don't see what's behind a toon in game, do you seriously think it's different? Do you or did you ever consider how the recipient of your attention feels or felt about it? Do you understand how, even in just one occasion, it can be construed or even misconstrued if you prefer as harassment regardless of your intent? I mean, did you openly say to your target "Hey, there! This isn't harassment. We're all just going to follow you around and emote or whatever at you for the next half hour. Don't take it personally! It's just fun!", so they know you're just following them for some weird kicks? Or do you really think that it's unimportant how other people feel, only your fun is paramount? Do or did you consider that the people you selected for this fun may only have said it was fun too because there was a group of you and they may have felt pressured?

Your intent is one thing, but it's also how it looks to the subject of your high jinks which should be of importance. Given it would seem you picked people you didn't know, how could you possibly know how they'd react? Would you even apologise if they were upset by it, or are you going to keep falling back on to them being thin of skin so it's all on them and there's no reason for you to pause, reflect and perhaps take some nuance into at least some consideration?

I mean, I know that's a ton of questions, and feel free to write it off as Answers on a Postcard, but I'm genuinely curious to see what your response is. I really don't want you to feel you have to answer everything or that I'm needling you, but consider this as my brand of fun (finding out what makes people tick). Sorry if it's a bit much!

But really, no one is saying don't have fun, or don't do things because bad stuff will always happen - clearly that's not true! - but if your fun comes at the expense of another person you don't even know, you've really got some hard explaining to do about yourself, and you may find yourself crossing lines you weren't aware existed.

Whether you choose to respond again on not is up to you, but thanks for replying initially all the same, and I sincerely wish you a great rest of your day/evening/whatever it is where you are.

It was just how it was. Things happened. Wanna go storm an enemy main city during the next hour? Let's shout in the city chat and get 40+ people to go. No raid group no nothing. Random war like engagement over the most random point of interests on the map? A-yup. Random conga lines in Ogrimmar? You bet! You see, it was just what happened in the hubs. Same thing as the chat randomly spamming [Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker]. If someone didn't want to lead the clown fiesta that ensued, they usually outran us with a mount or zoned somewhere else or some other stuff but some took it in stride and just led this amazing mob of players just spamming some random emote. You knew if someone made the train sounds (there's a choo-choo emote/sound bite that's spammable), you best believe the whole hub was gonna spam that for a solid 10-15 minutes. Hell leading one of those was how I found out about them as when I started playing, I didn't hang around the main cities much as I was levelling 99% of the time so it was a fun surprise.

We didn't know they'd react, the plan was to emote till they did but we usually got bored and moved on if they didn't. Yes some people asked questions but it'd usually be like "why?" "idk we're bored dude" "lol k". Back then people we doing the most random shenanigans just because. Didn't need organization, didn't need planning, didn't need more than 5 people. We just went and we had a blast doing so. I guess it's just an aspect of the genre that died as the players became more diverse and more sensitive.

Also to the person that said it floods chat, I think performance music is awful 95% of the time and you don't see me complaining. Just like for the emote text, there's a nifty lil option to disable that. Go figure that one out.

[Anatha]

How about "don't inconvenience others and you won't have to worry about being punished"?