I've learned a bit while I've ventured into the realms of Toontown Infinite, possibly starting a new chapter in my life and ending the osu! chapter (or at least making it not so prevelant in my life)
I've learned much that will help me as I start going into my teaching career. I want to teach Middle School Band, and these guys are, well, a lot of them are in middle school or just out of it.
I've learned, for instance, that children need boundaries in freedom. In fact, everyone needs boundaries in freedom. That's why laws and rules exist. However, children need this to be carefully monitored.
I made this observation in the IRC channel they had. Someone opened up an unmoderated channel, since the regular IRC had to be put on moderated mode quite often that day. So I immediately went in. All I see is
"cock"
"shit"
"fuck"
"xd"
and stuff like that, and I realized something. Moving from a family friendly setting to a completely free setting, people are so prone to just go like "AHAHAHHAHAHA I CAN DO ANYTHING LOL XddDDddDDdd", and will end up making bad decisions under the premise of "WOW I'M SO FREE."
It's an issue that even happens in life. It's a thing I notice a lot from college students. My parents are always fearful that I'm going to start getting into drugs, alcohol, and crime when I'm at college. I of course have no plans of doing that, and have been presented with the opportunity to try them out, from people that I am friends with and trust, and I say no. But of course, I understand their fears, because for a lot of people, it's completely true.
It starts out in high school, kind of. High School is the point where children get their first experience of freedom. Parents are usually more leniant to kids to stay late. The notion of having to stay at school until 6 PM isn't so weird as it was in middle school. A lot of kids end up being able to drive places, and "hanging out with friends" is more accepted by parents. Horrible law enforcement policies about illegal substances for minors is calculated in, and suddenly, children see a lot more freedom to do the things they couldn't do before. I was talking with one of my high school buddies, who was a sophomore, who had started smoking weed recently with his friends, all of whom I knew were good kids. I have nothing against smoking (weed I mean.), but it was still amazing to see how much "Hey, you're able to go out more with limited supervision, still make good choices!" didn't really mean. I sort of felt like that I was the only one who had still made every decision under the pretense "my mother told me it was wrong, so I'll choose not to do this"
Then you're in college. I remember at our orientation week, our entire freshman class (small private school, so not as massive as you'd think
.) stood on the steps of our admin building and screamed "NO PARENTS!" as loud as possible. I felt sort of weird saying it (Not just because the joke of "man orphaned children and foster children are gonna feel really shitty about this"), because it sort of gave people the idea that parents no longer had an influence on us. That we were 100% free to "be our own person". Which is good. . . ish. I've loved not having family around at school, because it's given me an ability to express myself more. It's given me leadership ability to realize many things about being on my own. But when people are given so much freedom, where they're not always under the constant beck and call of parents (a lot of kids in a different state than their parents), there's a hugely different thought process. You're no longer thinking "HEY I CAN DO THIS THING NOW, NOBODY'S GONNA STOP ME", rather than "Hey, I can do this thing, but what repercussions will it have". That's why I see so many incoming freshmen going into college that are like "omg im gonna have so much sex lol : - )". That's why I've seen kids literally deface school property and make themselves just look stupid. That's why kids are running around naked in a field for some sort of "initiation" or "tradition" or something. (Which by the way, public nudity is a crime/misdemeanor
). Which is also why a lot of people end of failing in college, because they're given too much freedom too suddenly, and spend their time basking in the freedom rather than keeping their moral mindset in them, while adjusting to freedoms (ie. Being able to visit people without asking, being able to plan schedules without accomidating for family, etc) and responsibilities (ie. Laundry, getting enough sleep, etc).
Of course, something else I noticed while in that IRC channel. I came back in on the second day. There was a lot of people, but. . . it was a lot calmer. Everyone in there was people that I knew, none of these randoms saying "SHIT COCK xD" that I saw yesterday. It was a decent experience. The people in there knew that they had more freedoms, but also remembered that they were still people with morals. So even though there was a lot more "I fucking can't believe. . ." and stuff, it was still mostly civil.
That's what I believe is the issue as well as the solution with off-topic. Yeah, people will come in and shit themselves once when they see "POST UR SHIT HERE?! OK xddDDDdDdD" However, after getting their asses kicked out, and realizing there are consequences to their actions, many will just leave. However, those that stay usually realize that there are still rules in a place that seemingly has no rules. And of course, there are always those who never learn, and those that take longer to learn. However, realization of this comes from a personal mindset. There is nothing anybody can do to help them with this except continue dealing punishment for incorrect behavior and praising correct behavior (in the context of OT, this is when a thread gets lot of replies and isn't locked).