Back in the earlier days of Xbox Live, while the Xbox 360 was still in its prime, the platform’s support forums used to allow users to complain about bans they’d received, and Microsoft staff would actually reply. Even if the users were being racist little shits.
It seems a universe away from how platforms are moderated in 2019, and in video game years I guess it is, but it’s still wild looking at this collection of screenshots. The sheer audacity of these kids trying to get out of their bans is almost admirable, but then so is the patience of the people having to deal with them.
Though getting in the odd sick burn looks like it made it all worthwhile.
While this forum is long gone, these screenshots have been saved by the upcoming Arsehole Goose Game.
“It was so good, I would read it every day”, he says, “mostly for the schadenfreude of idiot kids playing dumb and getting called out.”
Here are some of the highlights he’s managed to preserve (any shots with an M or X in the “community user level” are reps replying):
And my favourite:
Ah, the good ol’ days.
This story has been updated since its original publication.
Comments
52 responses to “Idiot Kids Will Try Anything To Get Out Of An Xbox Live Ban”
Wonder how many of those people now will read what they wrote and think ‘ewww yeah they kinda had a point and i kinda had it coming’
By the gamertags I see while playing online I’m guessing very few did.
The problem with being stupid is that you are too stupid, to realise that you are.
I had “I’m a lead farmer motherfucker” in my bio thought it was funny when Robert Downey Jr said it in Tropic Thunder, less funny when I got banned for two weeks
It was a more innocent time. But personally I don’t think there is anything wrong with the username BigFart. A name like xXx420KiLLA6969xXx for example is infinitely more offensive.
I had an immature chuckle over that one too – especially the variations of just changing the numbers.
Agreed. What if he was a large man who’s name happened to be Fartholomew!? Very unfair by Xbox Live imho.
Then he should have lengthened it, to make it clear his name was Fartholomew.
BigFarthole8, or whichever number he wished.
Even if he were to take up a reasonable username such as you’ve suggested and try and make the situation clear, I can’t help but feel that the puerile minds at Microsoft would have found some other reason it should be banned. I fear poor Fartholomew would find himself in a stink no matter what he did.
Probably because allowing “fart” opens the door to a whole host of stuff and before you know it you’re way over the line and legislating “this bodily function is okay, so’s that one unless you’re doing it on someone, while this one isn’t” is just too much of a hassle.
Or you could, y’know, just allow ‘Fart’ within context and assess each reported element on its own merit.
Heh heh heh… ASSess.
Each reported name represents hassle – meaning money and time – that they may want to just avoid. Apart from the occasional “but muh freedoms” there’s no real downside to being stricter than they need to be.
But it sounds like a manual system was in place given that people could create these names without it being auto banned or filtered… so it’s no extra hassle, really.
Agree on this. Such a stupid name should just let be so everybody knows they’re dealing with the kind of 13yo that finds “fart” the epitome of wit. I know I have spared myself of embarking in inane arguments with people on the Internet by noticing such usernames several times before.
In the third one, it’s actually funny that he thinks ‘suck a d***’ is an insult. If it’s so bad I guess he’ll refuse to ever allow it to happen to himself or any of his partners to do it! Ah, those quaint old days.
The freedom of speech one highlights how a lot of Americans don’t actually understand what their constitutional rights actually are.
The assumption is that the First Amendment gives them the right to say anything they want with impunity. As you say, shows how little they understand what the Bill of Rights actually are.
Not a lot of Americans realize that even they have laws against hate speech in America.
To be fair, not a lot of Australians know much about our Constitution either.
Like how it has nothing in it about freedom of speech.
Yup. Ours has nothing like their Bill of Rights, its just how the Govt is set up and operates.
All most people seem to know is that you cant be a politician AND have citizenship with another country, and that’s only because it was plastered all over our screens for 2 years.
To be fair, often it’s just kids.
Not sure where you frequent but I see it from adults all the time.
This is what happens when your society revolves around ‘muh rights’ but you have no idea what they actually are.
As an adult I completely agree.
Reminds my of the wild old early days Of Xbox 360 live when US gamers and Aussie gamers would trash talk each other (prior to dedicated servers) in Gears of War or COD MW. It would get super brutal….fun times!
Loved playing with Americans. They would trash talk whenever they won but didn’t realise how much lag we were playing with. Then one game the host switched to an Australian, they all got stomped, and then rage quit.
Oh to be hosting on Gears… who’s the boss now ? ! Ha ha
Hosting on Gears was so bad. I’d go from sometimes respectable to god mode.
I bet the awkward conversation that followed that last one was fun.
There’s nothing wrong with some of these. Case in point: telling “Muslim terrorists to get out of America”. The only people offended by that would be Muslim terrorists. Why is Microsoft catering to them?
It’s discriminating by only calling muslim terrorists out. What about catholic terrorist and irish terrorist? Its obvious that it is discriminating against muslim ones only.
What’s offensive is the line “Anyone who doesn’t respect or support the U.S. Military then go lay in a hole and die!!”
Hard as it is for most Americans to comprehend, most of the ordinary people of the rest of the world (including in the countries of many of your allies) DON’T respect or support the U.S. Military. And with good reason. We get to see the facts that your own govt, schools and books hide from the American people. The U.S. Military have been global thugs and bullies serving the interests of U.S. Big Business for over a century. A truth which even the most decorated U.S. soldier of all time, Marine Maj. General, Smedley D. Butler admits in his book “War Is A Racket”. I highly recommend you read it.
My own perspective? As I put it in a bumper sticker I recently made for someone – “U.S. Army – Over 100 years of helping to steal sh*t from brown people.”
These used to all be on whywasibanned, it’s a pity that the site is gone.
Do these kids honestly think that the staff on these forums don’t have any access to your ban record/ Account records? That they will somehow unban you just because you say so?
They’re kids, American kids……
They think thou who scream loudest, getest what thou wishes.
Alright, help me out with expanding my profanity knowledge friends:
In the image with all the asterexes, wtf is “ho*o”
Homo
Here I was thinking it was Hobo, and thus a classist comment.
Reading these makes me think less of kids and more that they’re edgy 20+ year olds, or in their 40s or 50s and wondering why they can’t talk like they used to.
I think sometimes, despite all evidence, that people just don’t realise how big a shit they are being until the content of what they actually said or wrote is quoted back at them.
They’re having so much fun with their shit stirring, and their offensive throw-away ‘jokes’ are so off the cuff and impulsive, that they’ve genuinely forgotten what they’ve said, sometimes before the words have even left their mouth or fingers.
It’s amazing how sheepish people suddenly become when they have to defend their actual conduct instead of just spewing confected outrage.
I knew a guy that got a week ban for having his bio:
I <3 B==D~
Good times…
Made me laugh…. Then sigh.
These are amazing… I cannot laugh harder…. The very last one… HOLY HECKENS BATMAN…
I want a book of enforcement now.
Soo…. I assume the only real “update” on this article was swap out 2018 for 2019? =P
Yup. Kotaku really should be more transparent with these reposts. Perhaps put [repost] in the article title.
Eh… they used to do it once upon a time… in fact they actually put the repost warning AND the date of original article release at the beginning of every article… it progressively went from there to move to end of article then drop original date of article… and now a little pointless scoorter that doesn’t say/mean much to normal ppl =P
Holy yearly repost Batman!
See you same time next year Bat-viewers! Same Bat-Time! Same Bat-Place!
Quiet time of the year, most of the staff are on holidays, so very few people about to do new stories. So why not repost stuff that doesnt really age?
Its annoying at times, but I get it. Got to fill the site somehow. I didnt mind this one, it was entertaining to remember some of those excuses. That last one cracks me up every time I see it.
Nothing wrong with reposts.. as long as they mark it as a repost.
They used to at least mark the article at the very beginning or after the first paragraph..now you just get a lazy this article has been updated at the very end at which point its obviously too late.
Also why not hire a temp to do some filler articles like earlier this year over the long weekend and we had a slew of really interesting articles.
It’s maa freeee speeeeech
There was a time when you could say almost anything in online gaming.
Some of the bans make me suspect they come from an earlier era.