“To me, ROBLOX is an escape from reality. I had a lot of situations in this past school year and to me, ROBLOX is a safe haven I could go to and just have fun. I especially love playing ROBLOX because it calms me down at times, and it also gives very realistic experiences of things we could not do during covid.”
I am simply confused about this Tesla car Zara; you keep mentioning this car like you own it. Can you explain to me what do you mean? Is this a violent game? I understand COVID has made the world realize we are all equal. Does not matter who you are COVID can get you. Now that families could stay home and bond with their loved one’s gaming has become a popular sit-down event amongst loved ones. Zara is currently playing with people from Russia, Italy, and South America.
Most games have a chat in which participants interact with each other chatting and it is there where they start revealing their backgrounds, occupations, and locations. I still do not know who or what ROBLOX is so it is fair to say we will learn together. ROBLOX is the power of imagination. Roblox is an online platform with many servers; games created by developers for participants to imagen, create and participate in the playing of the free games they choose. The game “Pacifico California” and the location of the game itself. This is the first time Zara, and I are having a conversation about Roblox. It is the first time I can see her so upset pacing around the kitchen and not enjoying her favorite dish; macaroni and cheese. I politely ask her to explain to me what is bothering her so much about a game.
“So, in another ROBLOX game, Pacifico California! It was about 7am (in the game) and I was on my way to get coffee before work. I was in a rush, so I decided to parallel park in front of the Coffee shop because there were openings to park. So, I go inside and get my coffee, then I come out only to find this huge truck trying to fit into a tiny parking spot right in front of my car. Mind you there is a whole PARKING LOT available right next to the coffee shop for the customers.
But he still tries to fit his huge pickup truck into a tiny parking spot in front of MY car. I know I am still in a game but still. He keeps trying and keeps trying. THEN he makes one wrong turn, he runs his truck right into the front of my car, and my whole front bumper comes off. I just stand there in shock, and this man steps out of his car and just stares at me. Then he asks me in the chat if this is my car. I am so mad at this point that I just walk up to him and pour the whole cup of hot coffee over his head.”
You can do that in this game OMG sounds cool but not a good look for you in terms of social civilized behavior actions towards the and with fellow citizens.
“After that I drop the cup on the ground, and we just randomly start fighting. All the employees and customers came outside. The fight continued and we end up wrestling on the ground for about a good 10 (ROBLOX) minutes, which equals one second per minute in the game. Then the same barista who served me my coffee ran outside and had to pull us apart. After that I just got in my car, and when I pulled out, I purposely hit his vehicle and left a dent in the back of his truck. I drove off. When I went to fix my front bumper, it was a total of 480 dollars, equivalent to $5 US dollars, with the new paint job since of course the guy scratched half of my paint in the front and left like a million scratch marks on my freak in ‘car.”
People around the world are faced with wreck less automobiles drivers every day. Our job as members of humanity is to drive safely, obey the rules and respect all drivers while always being respectful towards others. Zara owns her dream car, a Tesla. She is driving, has a job as a google designer designing all their prototypes and programming them. She needs her coffee to start her day and get to work. She is living the dream, as we say when we get that ultimate job role. Or should we say in her imaginary world.
But who are we to say anything since we are not Zara all we can do is follow the story from the chronicles point of view? I am more concerned with the emphasis, the stress, the focus Zara has dedicated herself to with this game of ROBLOX. I want to continue to communicate with her and indulge with ROBLOX world. As we can read from the above paragraphs the world people of all communities are infused into playing ROBLOX. In these games existence of bullying, peer-pressure, and racism towards people of color based on their character creation and decision to play certain games considered by the others Faul play.
Because you can find a game that fits you, you begin to start behaving in real life like you are in that game. Like this truck driver, he felt the need to do what he wanted and then stand around and not resolve the matter adequately. However, your reactions are not civilized in our world or in any world for this matter, is my biggest concern I say to her. Throwing coffee at a civilian is considered a crime Zara. Perhaps, playing games like ROBLOX are not so much of positive vibrations.
I understand we are poor living in tenement buildings, with WIFI as our best friend, surrounded by four walls with nowhere to go, so we result to the world wide web for friends. We do not live in a four-bed room house, near a lake with a boat, with a yard, and a porch to sit at and have a drink while reading and writing the best Novela of the year. We turn to the web specifically to ROBLOX yes where violence, poverty, education and COVID are very much in topic. I explained to Zara that violence is not how we react when people are not understanding our communication, next time step away re-evaluate the situation and re-approach the issue. She is only eleven years old and wants a detail explanation which is when I tell her that these games are made to control your perception, to make you wonder off into the space of the unknown so you will not question the reality of the situations we live daily as people of color, the minority, the poor people. She reacts with more energy and begins to tell me about a similar experience in ROBLOX.
“One day as I was shopping for a new bed set for my brand-new home at a furniture store named Mowes (Which is Basically Lowes but spelled differently due to copyright, just like the others star blocks, for Starbucks coffee, toyoto, for Toyota vehicles, just buy, for Best Buy appliances and bublix, for Publix supermarkets are some of the names used in the games). In Mowes I came across the prettiest bed in the store. Remember Mowes is a department store inside the game Southwest Florida in ROBLOXA lady working in the store was walking past, and in the chat, I wrote,
“Ma’am? I’d like to know what other colors this bed set comes in?”
And she was taking a while to respond, until she wrote in the chat,
“Um…I don’t think this is going to be in your price range, its 6,999 without the dresser, and 7,300 with.”
Dude, I just stood there wondering how someone can go from asking for colors, to the person responding talking about prices. I just did not get it. What really set me off was when she said in the chat,
“We can find something in your price range, the clearance section is to the right! I can take you there, we have some bed sets for under 1,000 dollars that might suit your price range!”
At this point I am livid. What does this lady know about my price range?! I ask the woman in the chat if she knows where her manager is. She points to the front desk and rudely says,
“good luck with that.” I move my character to the front desk. I put in the chat:
“Sir, I’m aware you are busy but the lady with blonde hair, a blue polo shirt on, and beige slacks must be fired.” He ends up agreeing but I continue to chat,
“Sir, that employee was being extremely racially biased towards me. As you see her character has a much lighter skin tone than mine, and as soon as I walked away from her, she ran to another customer, whose character clearly had the same skin tone as her and sold her the most expensive bed set in the store without questioning the person’s price range. You can’t tell me that’s not racially biased.”
He agreed to Fire her, and apologized for the horrible experience, and said he would give me a discount on whatever bed set I would like.”
Racism is always directed indirectly to those with less of a voice but sometimes articulating the circumstances in certain scenarios can make the difference even in a game. Honestly, especially in a game it defeats the purpose of having fun, enjoyment and being able to be free, which can be misinterpret and used to slander those less fortunate. We are not the less fortunate, we are the fortunate aware of the abuse. She confesses,
“I stuck around and bought the bedroom set for 4999 instead of 7999 since I was treated poorly as indicated by the manager.”
Wow even in games you will find individuals that resist accepting that marginalized people are now the most popular or better yet have been the most popular since the beginning of all cultures, and in control aware of the abuse towards those less fortunate living in poverty communities. Our kids, kids are playing these games as we watch them develop their own perception of society based on games. Racism is something we must learn how to channel, delegate, and always resolve, since it is part of our history, culture, and everyday life around the world.
The world wide web, TV, movies, newspapers, and journalist dictate to us who we are, and we follow whatever is viral since it is popular culture to surf, watch, and absorb the urban culture giving birth to the continuous sub-genres of violence, racism, and stereotypes in the gaming platforms of ROBLOX, during the pandemic of COVID and after in which people decided to play the games for twenty hours plus every day. Violence, racism and COVID are worldwide issues we are all faced with. These elements can make our world unstable-chronic worlds, but we are smart human beings who want to live a free, safe, and loving life on the planet earth.
ROBLOX is owned by David Baszucki and the 360 billion engagers that play ROBLOX daily on its platform website enjoy playing different games. The game of life some would say since its closely related to everyday life. It portrays the illusion of real life with believable characters, sound, and visuals. The themes draw you in because the setting is realistically believable allowing the participant to engage in the game creating while having fun.
Theirs is this moment in which when I watch Zara as she likes to be called, building her houses from scratch playing ROBLOX. She designs the layout using walls that come only in one height. She places them exactly where she imagens and then makes them a certain texture like stone, wood, plywood, fabric, and brick. She then creates a landscape beside the house, followed by a path to the garage, and the front of the house. This is fun, watching her indulge in the game of Blocks burg, where she can build her own house from scratch as I am witnessing. She then goes to the game called Greenville to play the role of a criminology student because she loves the TV series Clarice, the spinoff from the film “Silence of the Lambs.” She explains to me how she is profiled and stereotyped by a white law enforcement agent.
“So, if you are not aware, in certain games on ROBLOX you can choose to attend college. I am currently going to Marquette University Law School and am currently studying criminology. I live quite a distance away from the school, so I normally get up early to get to campus on time. But on this certain day I was running late and had a meeting with the dean. So, I decided to speed there. Which was not the best idea. I was going 130mph on a highway, but all the signs said 55 mph. I was going over. But I thought I was not going to get caught since my exit was coming up. Then I got pulled over and got a ticket. The police officer was nice about it. I went to school and parked in the parking lot. Mind you, this is a PUBLIC parking lot for students who attend the campus. So, my classes are done, and I walk to the parking lot to find cones all around my car, and a ticket on my window.”
I am only plain out mad at this point, so I decide to read the ticket and it says, illegal parking. I normally pay my tickets, so it is never a big deal, but this certainly was not right. I get in my car, and I try to swerve around the cones and end up running over half of them. Now I found it hilarious that this police officer tried to put cones around my car, and really thought I would not run them over just to get out. After that, a couple of (ROBLOX) days past and it is all good. Till I get a letter saying that I have multiple unpaid tickets, and guess who the tickets were from, the officer that pulled me over the one day on the highway that one morning. I looked at the times of the tickets I did not match the day of the incident, so I did not pay and when I say these times were crazy, I mean it. On one ticket it said, “3am, Sunday.”
I was extremely mad and confused, but since I had nothing to do the next day I decided to sleep, and deal with it in the morning. I slept, and when I got up in the morning, I drove down to the police station. I asked for the officer that the tickets were from and when he came to me, I typed in the chat, “Sir, I’m aware you gave me a justified ticket for speeding Tuesday morning last week, but how could I be in one location in two different days receiving tickets from you for all these crazy hours in the night?” He responded, and said it was not a mistake, and there was something wrong with the credit card that is linked to my tickets (that is how it works in ROBLOX). I was furious he made such a comment. He also had a much lighter skin tone than me. (I do not remember what happened in this part) So later, he was suspended for giving unjustified tickets to multiple people who attended my college. He was so furious that I had reported him and got him suspended with no pay, that as I was walking to my car one day coming out of a coffee shop, he wrote me a ticket, while suspended from law enforcement, and the ticket was for harassing an official police officer, I ignored him and ripped it up.”
Online gaming in games like ROBLOX can have violent, racist, and stereotypical individuals playing the games and sending negative vibes to the online communities. Games like ROBLOX have sub-genres of games in which people can play the role of a student, a doctor, a nurse, a police officer, a house builder, the role of a father raising his family. This game gives the participants the opportunity the imagen while creating and having fun playing a game with individuals from around the world that you really do not personally know or may never get to know for that matter.
With Zara I try to take the time to explain how imagination, and creation are good and free to dream and visualize to stimulate the mind and the brain cells. The things allowed in the games are also allowed in our real society, but we can be arrested, processed, and sentenced if found guilty. We are responsible for our actions just as much as the game. A game is a game for excitement, for entertainment, to enjoy the moment with loved ones and create positive beautiful memories. I can see how ROBLOX can help understand our society in terms of the digital revolution. But I can also see how the messages of negative violence, racism and stereotypes can live within a growing online community. In this process of indulging and watching Zara I have learned about ROBLOX and the different kind of games, different kind of characters one can become to play and have fun in the digital platform.
On The Edge 
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