Why do people identify civilians as "rats" immediately?

[hillievonb]

17 hours ago, Lop said:

Rats are people who use their character as a self insert or Mary Sue, people who hang out in a few select spots 99% of the time just doing some /anim's, treating the server as some kind of social hub more than a roleplaying server. Rats use the server to communicate with their OOC friends through a veil of 'japanese gun wielding super car driving bisexual model business woman who is also a DJ'. It's like shitposting with a visual engine. These characters add nothing to the world, they are just there to stand around and talk to their OOC friends ICly. No development, no real character, no problems, just standing there.

 

The problem is that often all it takes is one or two of these characteristics for some people to start throwing "mallrat" around without ever getting to know the character at all, period. Hair of an unnatural color is enough, sometimes. I've seen people call members of another criminal faction mallrats because... from what I can tell, they were female characters with guns outside South LS, I guess? It's like, for some people, anything other than miserable poverty-afflicted drudges or junkies driving shitboxes is mallratty, there's zero effort to find out more, it's just a shallow superficial assessment.

 

Using mallrat IC is just cringeworthy mixing of OOC and IC.

[Tsarna]

I do agree, that painting people with the same brush is stupid and idiotic. But this community has people, who whine about mistakes, which some people have made two years ago - so it is no wonder, that they keep on whining. The best is just to "not give a damn" about it. If people have problems, where they mix IC and OOC a lot, then they are the problem, not you 😉

[Petey]

18 hours ago, Lop said:

'japanese gun wielding super car driving bisexual model business woman who is also a DJ'.

This right here.

[Brian3898]

I agree that people tend to throw this term around recklessly simply because people don't roleplay the same way they do. It's honestly a low effort way of making someone feel bad for roleplaying the way they want to roleplay. 

 

Not every civilian has 10 jobs, 5 super cars and absolutely no flaws. Sometimes people have deeper characters than may seem apparent at face value, and the type of people who usually say these things just don't have the attention span to dig deeper and find out the true traits and temperament of these characters. 

 

Just ignore these people, it's likely that their own roleplay standards are so lacking that they don't even realize how hypocritical they are.

[Garras Up]

8 hours ago, orca112 said:

Nowadays, it is simply used as an insult for (seemingly) low quality roleplay - "Oh look, this mallrat drives a pink riced up car".

When the term originated on RP servers (LSRP in particular), that's exactly what it meant then and still means now if I'm being honest with you. It's an OOC insult disguised as an IC one.

[marbella mondays]

8 hours ago, Zani said:

Yeah, the term 'rats' is honestly quite degrading to an individual because it really just says that X person has the lowest roleplay quality, not caring about development for their character. It's thrown around rather recklessly. Just like the term 'robocop' is thrown around after someone interacts with your character for just about under 2 minutes, it's quite insulting and frustrating to think that people would just resort to insulting other players without getting to really know the background of their character.

 

If anyone's bothering you to that point, I'd honestly consider a report on them.

 

[Barbie]

Don’t feel targeted if you actually roleplay your character.

I call mallrat the cat ears bitches who go to clubs every night to /anim jazzercise talking about the sun with their littles friends and leave in $400,000 cars to their apartment in Del Perro.

That’s the difference between an actual civilian and some weird incel second life type character.

[Ink]

Like in all RP communities, there's a lot of elitism rampant on this server--a lot of people looking down their nose at other people's roleplay and deeming their own superior. GTA:W is a big enough setting that people can play what they like and there's room for everyone's experience within reason.

 

A person's RP is not invalid or "worse" than yours because they RP a character who generally does well and lives a mundane life. Not every single character has to be a violent, drug-addled sociopath with no passions, convictions, or ambitions besides climbing the ladder in being a career criminal with XYZ SET STREET BLOCK CRIPS 13.5 or LASAGNA-FETTUCCINE CRIME FAMILY. Personally, I'd rather see this server full of the mallrats people complain about than more mentally unstable, ruthless, aggressive, murderous, uninspired, drug addict criminals. At least the mallrats contribute to the server's economy, fill out open businesses, and create roleplay with other people which doesn't involve a power fantasy.

 

One thing I notice in this thread, and in the threads like this, is people let their casual homophobia and misogyny fly proud. Most of the replies in this thread point the finger of blame at "lesbian" characters. While I agree many characters that are lesbian are played very poorly and are often just little more than ERP alts (and how amusing that so many criminal RPers in official factions create lesbian alts to vacation on) making blanket statements about lesbian characters is ignorant and offensive. It's the same exact type of ignorance as saying "all Davis RPers are incapable of stringing together a single sentence and their roleplay is garbage tier" or, perhaps even more accurately, saying something like "all white supremacist roleplayers are IRL racists and are merely using their neo-Nazi characters for an outlet for their real world racist ideas and power fantasies." But while it's totally okay to call out all lesbian characters as being played by men who want to ERP and disregard real life women, trans women, or even men who are just playing a woman who happens to be gay, calling out the far more accurate trends with other character types causes people to get really defensive and rally together in denial.

 

Obviously not all criminal characters are shitty, just like not all civilian characters are shitty. But that's where the attitude of calling people mallrats comes from--it comes from people just thinking they're hot shit and much better roleplayers. And most often, they think they're much better roleplayers because they're roleplaying yet another cookie cutter troubled youth criminal who does nothing with their lives but do drugs, steal, kill, and fuck prostitutes. How is that any better than the "mallrat" mechanic whose life consists of working, going to clubs, and having sex.

 

At the end of the day, life really just isn't that complicated sometimes. Regular people in the real world wake up, go to work, hit a bar or night club, try to find someone to have sex with, and go to sleep. Rinse and repeat until you die. In the real world, nobody gives a shit how "realistic" or "unrealistic" you or your spending habits are, life is really what you make of it.

 

GTA:W offers you all the tools you need to craft your RP experience however you see fit. You do you, and if someone else's RP isn't your cup of tea then move the fuck on and let them have their fun. Being an elitist looks bad on everyone. Do what most of your characters would suggest and mind your own business. focus on your own RP, and have your own fun.

[UTOPIA]

You will know one when you see one, this does not apply to all civilian role-players but a certain caste of people who play the game like it's their second life rather than a roleplay server. i.e do not separate player from character, players use their characters as an extension of themselves.  Usually this leads to them breaking rules such as power game, breaking fear RP, etc. 

 

[Gambler]

So the term "Mallrat" had its meaning in LSRP, but now the term has evolved in its context and is used deliberately to replace the term Poor RP.
Now, there are two different uses I've seen on this server.
-First one is what I said above, just as replacement where some has a lack of character depth/ poor rp, which is somewhat okay.
-Second one is what you said on your original post. Stupid people with elitism issues, who in reality are just way more inferior and narrow-minded than the rest, that think that their RP is the creme de la creme. 

My advice? Do your thing pal, and listen to no one. People who call others mallrats spend more time on forums doing that, cause their RP is stale and don't know how to kill their time IG.