hexeme | bringing people to the geeks and geeks to the people

Griefing is an irritating aspect of online gaming. You know, by design. It’s a phenomenon deeply rooted in our contemporary culture, from the lowliest doorblocker to the mightiest Goonswarm. In short, griefing is playing a game not win the game, but to annoy and harass other players. But is it only a gaming phenomenon? How can one adequately describe the annoyance, the frustration, and the occasional guilty joy of griefing to your less wasd-inclined cohort?

At Hexeme we’re committed to bridging the gap between geeks and the rest of world. To that end, we offer up a few real-world griefers to use as examples in a segment we call “Griefers in History“.

Robert Mugabe

Grief: Duping

In the past year, Zimbabwe has removed a total of 18 zeros from its currency. The official inflation rate is 2.2 million percent. All you need to be a quintuple-fucking-brazillionaire in Zimbabwe is one US dollar, and Mugabe has locked down the exchange of foreign currency, so he has all of them. You vainglorious bastard.

Aaron Burr

Grief: Player killing

The dude shot one of the Founding Fathers. I can’t think of a way to be bigger asshole in this country than by shooting one of the Founding Fucking Fathers.

The British Museum

Grief: Ninja looting

The French invaded and conquered Egypt. The French discovered the Rosetta Stone. A French guy is credited as the primary translator of the stone. But the Rosetta Stone is in the British Museum. What the fuck?