The Controversy of Trash Talking in Competitive Pokemon

[@BKCplaysPokemon]

Maybe it can be summarized as me just not liking the kind that comes off as someone acting like an Internet tough guy. I think it should be deserved, as seen in this recent example, which is all about shitting on someone who WAS trash talking for no reason: www.smogon.com/forums/threads/smogon-premier-league-xv-semifinals-tiebreaker-post-63.3739170/page-5#post-10055009

[@TheBrownestFalcon]

Justified trash talk is always great to see

[@Eclipseon197]

The only trash talk I know is RestTalk Garbodor.

[@irakyl]

classic eclipseon with the banger comment

[@iantaakalla8180]

The only trash talk I know is when Connor, Joey, and Garnt talk about their opinions on their podcast.

[@TrueChill87]

The CTC Theorem

[@asepsisaficionado7376]

Him and blunder had way too much influence on my personality back then. Got muted a few times because I never took the hint and held back my bantering.

[@moist603]

Ctc is insufferable

[@BeeEmpress]

I’ve always been discussing, with my many, dimwitted colleagues, the many intricacies involved in The Controversy of Trash Talking in Competitive Pokemon

[@BKCplaysPokemon]

I missed you

[@VoltaVoid]

I just hit my opponent with “I got lucky” when I win with no crits just to hope they hurt themselves in their confusion

[@Snagavitch]

Haven’t watched the video yet but if I won I’m the best you can suck it and if I lost you got lucky, I brought the wrong team and my little brother was playing

[@Lobster222]

trash talk is a great part of any competitive community. it's doubly funny in pokemon because the game is so full of luck and nonsense, trashtalking your opponent for failing a coin flip is so fun.

[@doozsromhacks]

word LMAO

[@StefBryant]

This brought back up the memories of when I used to play on PO and you had the winning and losing message. I think mine was "Thanks for the points". But honestly its funny when your opponent trash talks during the game and says GG early and loses.

[@1peidu]

BKC the people would love a video on the fall of Keldeo and Mega Metagross in ORAS

[@redwarrior118]

What the hell happened LMAO

[@PiePie453]

The whole point of coming together as people enjoying one competitive thing is to call someone else bad and hype yourself up as obviously way better. You must also, of course, call anyone who beats you a tryhard and anyone who loses to you a scrub. But none of it means anything. None of the words matter, it's just the arguments, the results and the journey that keeps us going. Over 15 years in various forums, I've talked shit, smack, bantered, yelled, argued, raged and most recently yapped but I meant very little of it that wasn't directly about how to play better. But a good heel and a good face do make tournaments more exciting

[@Gabby-is7jx]

WAS THAT A CHOPLE BERRY HP FLYING CLEF?

[@toastprobably9774]

I'm gonna be honest. I saw the DPP Jirachi sprite at the start and assumed it was the infamous Lavos game. To be fair Lavos would've been very fitting for the topic of the video

[@glitchedoom]

That wasn't trash talk, that was poetry.

[@Inserteggpunshere]

Unfortunate

[@erblecde]

Not really trash talk though it was just rng rage

[@amberhernandez]

does not begin

[@Izuhra]

Blacklist rng

[@Hierophant_Bean]

"I'm all for psychological warfare, but saying ez after the fact is a huge no no"

[@davidpwns6776]

When I was laddering back in po days, I get mobbed by a huge crowd of people whenever my opponent makes a play on me, it was definitely traumatizing

[@Taterz.]

My favorite thing on Showdown is when someone PMs you trash talk and has you blocked before you even type a response 😂

[@ShinyTillDawn]

"Smogon Tiering Council" I'm done trash talking.

[@acc3209]

Did i just see hp flying clefable?

[@Mrdonjuliothewicked]

As someone who constantly runs stall, i never trash talk but i do find some fun in seeing others trash talk my teams and get mad. Something about 6-0ing a team with toxic + protect while being told im so bad is just funny to me.

[@midnightemerald]

honestly stall players aren’t even close to as bad as sub glare serperior players, got parad 5 times in a row and they claimed that I was just bad

[@Mrdonjuliothewicked]

@@midnightemerald I mean.....a skilled player would just simply not get fully paralyzed five times in a row, you just need to get better.

[@midnightemerald]

@@Mrdonjuliothewicked dang, maybe the problem is me

[@se44th]

only trash talking after you win is the most childish nonsense

[@landoftheninja]

Really, the worst part about trash talk is how long your opponent takes to type

[@dav5oly]

Kev, what happens if someone had a humiliation kink and enjoys the trash talking?

[@BKCplaysPokemon]

I've yet to see this but would be fascinated to

[@waaaaaaah]

I dunno, that sort of thing is usually only enjoyable in certain, uh, atmospheres. And usually only with certain, trusted people. Competitive Pokemon is HARDLY compatible with that kind of thing. I think even people with a fetish for it would at least get annoyed if they were trashtalked by a random stranger.

[@iceee420]

Trash talking is a part of any game, "you have to take your opponent into a deep, dark forest where 2+2=5 and the path leading out is only wide enough for one"

[@Izuhra]

It’s not a part of chess

[@maazali9604]

It might sound funny but I still use IRC in the modern day as a youngster, in fact I just started using a year or so ago. Its sad to see the #smogon room be practically empty on synirc, I seemed to have missed people being active there by a decade.

[@joelct7983]

I personally love trash talking, I find it fun to listen to and participate in. But like with teasing in general, there’s a fine line between fun and obnoxious and different people have different levels of tolerance. It seems to be that in sports trash talking is celebrated while in esports trash talking is seen as toxic. I think the reason for this is the in-person component. It’s a lot harder to accurately communicate online than in person. Without body language and facial expressions, it’s much harder to pick up on things like sarcasm or playful jests, and also to pick up on whether the other person is receiving your jests in good spirits.

[@RoaringPirates]

I love how Kev’s mind works. He sees it’s raining and thinks “I should do a history of rain in competitive Pokémon.” He sees some trash talk and thinks “I should do a history of trash talk in competitive Pokémon.”

[@disasterarchfiend9638]

I'll say this. It's a matter of the audience. Trash talking to people who understand its for good fun adds a layer of humor, its one thing. I also understand those who do it to attract people's best plays is an underrated aspect of competitive play. What I think, is if they could shake hands at the end of it, it's all good.

[@mapwatcher8630]

I feel like trash talking is a thing that you really need to read the room on. For formal tournament stuff it feels less 'proper' than just random laddering

[@J0ulez5]

Completely irrelevant to this conversation, I would love to see you do a video where you looked at teams that look good on paper, but in practise don't work. I find the theory vs practise thing really interesting. As someone who gets caught up in theory, i would love to see you explore teams that "should" work but don't, and thats why you need practise.

[@StarmanNessStarmen]

your editing style is impeccable, really.

[@EndingNote111]

4:02 - 4:10 The very elusive Flatias

[@baddragonite]

I remember one guy trash talking me in OU singles because I beat him with a Dragon-type-only team. He also said that it made the game unfair and gave me an unfair advantage that I only brought one type. Showdown is weird sometimes

[@yep9462]

My main question is was this in a fairygen

[@amberhernandez]

Someone got all Reddit-bro on me because I lost with a full Explosion team, and he was ranting and raving about how he was sick of people throwing and how did I get to 1400 and blah blah blah. Meanwhile, I was sitting there laughing myself sick because the poor guy was so mad about _winning._ I was playing for fun and he was just going off for no real reason lmao

[@baddragonite]

@@yep9462 yeah, I wanna say it was gen 7 or gen 8, though it coulda been gen 6 I remember because another time in OU I ran into a guy who was also running a solo-type- team of fairies lol needless to say that one didn't go so well for me

[@alecrutz956]

@@amberhernandez "full explosion team" do you mean that you ran an entire team of pokemon using nothing but explosion? because if so that's hilarious

[@amberhernandez]

@@alecrutz956 Nah, it had some strategy to it. Azelf had coverage moves and faked being a lead, Lando-T was a rocks user with Z-Fly, Mega Glalie provided Ice coverage, and Ferro did the usual Ferro stuff. The last two members escape me, but the game plan was to gain a solid resource advantage, then let 'em rip and explode away. For the rest of the info, I'd have to dig through the alts I can recall because my computer literally burst into flames and I had like, seventy alternative accounts at the time. You know how they say some things are held together by duct tape and a dream? This one was more like Scotch tape and a hallucination lmao

[@Mrdonjuliothewicked]

I like to think showdown users are mature but as someone who has been playing online since i was 8-9 back on shoddy battle(25 now for reference), i forget that there are literal 10 year olds im facing against sometimes lol. I never take it to heart in the slightest if someone is trash talking. I dont recall a single time ive been trash talked for actually playing bad or getting wiped by a team, so if someone is talking trash i must be doing something right lmao.

[@AB-ee5tb]

I started with net battles back in 2005. My very first battle some guy lost his mind, probably another 13 year old 🤷‍♂️

[@CubeBizz]

trash talking is a art

[@elimayer1237]

I'm not a tournament player, but ive been high on the ladder the ladder a few times. I find the people who trash talk in the chat are always the ones ones losing. They complain about the first crit or status, while not seeing the bigger picture of the matchup and throwing their wincon into that situation. I dont respond to those people, its never worth it.

[@nonifuji1566]

It's just low self-esteem in my experience, they need to feel better at someone else's expense so the hit from winning is sweeter. Which is obviously not very nice at all

[@user-hb7bo4mr2i]

Very clever choice of music

[@catandfishfc]

I used to be a god-tier trash talker. Nowadays, I just don't wanna get locked lol.

[@pantsumonster]

Yeah same

[@donlyphans7801]

I'm lost as a viewer without BKC shoehorning in that people who don't even play the gen influence the game

[@RollingBobbyJones]

I feel like this is more of a debate in FGC which is a choice. If you are going to trash talk you better keep up appearances or get cooked, but in pokemon where anything can go wrong I would just save it for the end. Personally I wouldn't say anything till I get smack talked first.

[@BladeRabbit]

BKC highlight reel

[@bomoose]

why is this a short

[@AndrewRKenny]

bro fist spitting to Mazar after beating him is a GOAT moment. Save the video you were gonna make for a rainy day.

[@hansoskar1911]

typing "you suck" after you won is weak as shit. typing "you suck so much I coult beat you with a gen 3 UU team" before the game and then 6-0 them in 8 minutes is balls.

[@roland8357]

If this was considered trash talk? In the games i play if its not a death threat its basically a compliment. I think trash talk in competitive games will always exist but keeping it "funny" and "light" is important

[@alecrutz956]

Only time I ever had trash talk was a couple cases, one of the users actually got banned later on apparently. One instance was someone accusing me of playing like sh*t and still won (their words not mine) because my Chansey took out both his Snorlax and his Tauros with counter. He would have probably won if he had gotten a crit, or you know after seeing that Chansey has counter, just use earthquake or literally anything else. At that point Chansey would likely be in KO range, and if I don't switch out Chansey's going down. Instead, 4head over here decided to body slam again, and lost his Tauros. A blizzard miss and a gen 1 miss thunder wave later, and he forfeited and that's when the "you played like sht" line dropped. Like bro at no point was I roasting you for the counter kerfuffle. The other case was someone flaming me for how I play Gen 1 OU, like telling me "learn the tier before playing this nonsense on ladder" despite me for the most part running your typical OU team. Idk I already feel like I'm not a very lucky person in general so playing pokemon showdown is like trying to use chansey as a physical attacker and a physical wall, it's kinda why I quit not too long after starting, I don't need people flaming the crap out of me just for not being good at the game.

[@pikminman13]

insulting the opponent is for the weak, insulting the mon is where it's at

[@99sonder]

Trash talk during the match itself to try get an advatage at least makes sense, even if it's not positive sportsmanship. It's all part of mental warfare to win predictions, and you can just opt out of by muting the opponent. Trash talk at the end of a battle is just gloating. Now putting yourself up or, if you feel the opponent deserves it for whatever reason, putting them down doesn't really help you win, but at least it has its justification even if it's not a healthy way to play. Gloating after winning by just insulting the opponent is just a straight up sociopathic tendency though.

[@catandfishfc]

I always noticed that a lot of Smogon players have a pretty negative attitude towards things not going their way. Tilt on hax, tilt on their opponent "making a bad play". Posting straight up salt in the battle chat mid-game. It's allowed me to beat some top-level opponents after they got in their own head.

[@jesusnegrete6018]

"You break mirrors "

[@drewswoods]

Just because you're right (just because you win) doesn't give you carte blanche to be an asshole about it.

[@daronreveur1229]

I think people who truly enjoy competition in the most competitive sense enjoy trash talking & hating being trashed on because it's like when youre giving it out youre stoking the fire in someone else, it's like inviting someone to come back at you. Think of it like how a character like Goku seeks stronger fights and often encourages his opponents to give their all or whatever, its like putting them on tilt on purpose to make them play harder. Playing a lot of fighting games and sports, you often talk shit to everyone and everyone does it back and it makes you both more competitive. This doesn't excuse people who are just mean spirited or dont respect boundaries or something like that, but I think people deep into that competitive mentality just get wrapped up in the "Im better come prove me wrong" aspect of things. And also in the context of leagues and tournaments its fun both as a spectator and a participant to have your bad guys you root against and underdogs you root for, it's all in the story of the sport to a point. At least thays how I have always seen things

[@lordinfernape4753]

People who trash talk for no reason have the lowest egos ever, even if they win they need to feel better than you

[@qsns_]

there truly was nothing more satisfying than beating tyrants in spl finals

[@aldwych285]

Why trash talk isn't everything

[@bomoose]

burning kevin challenge

[@birthdayninjah]

3:52 Flatias

[@Izuhra]

Being loud/aggro has got me everything … being humble, nothing…

[@BeeIconoclast]

Contrary to popular wisdom, and indeed, contrary even to some so-called "expert" analysis (which is but a shallow attempt to shield the masses from their ignorance, a problematic topic we will discuss another day), the very concept of The Controversy of Trash Talking in Competitive Pokemon is too flawed to truly discuss, without falling into the very same epistemological traps which have plagued our society for decades, nay, centuries.

[@whatware13]

i dont get trash-talking for inconsequential things/competitions. not even in the sense of ladder game vs. tournament game - it's Pokemon. most of us got into the series when we were children who thought the various creatures and beasties looked cool and cute. we aren't fighting for our lives out here, we're sharing a mutually-enjoyed game with other people. why be a dick in that scenario? to "psych out" your "opponents"? we're all playing pretend monsters together, it simply isn't that serious.

[@депресијагејмер]

nobody knows the trash talking that goes on in the albanian gold nova csgo voice chats

[@tibazao]

Trash talk is part of the strategy

[@mrpink8228]

Atleast the thumbnail was good on this one 😂

[@nathanieljones8043]

Bkc about your trash talk as strat take. No it can make anyone crumble trash talk/bm is so over powered most traditional sports outright ban it in detail.

[@Blade.5786]

C ontroversy of T rashtalking in C ompetitive pokemon I rest my case.

[@BaudshawSky]

I pray that you never ever have to make a video on the history of Hail

[@BKCplaysPokemon]

heaven forbid

[@pantsumonster]

Haiti

[@amale441]

Any plans for a "doing CTC's MBTI-adjacent test" vid?

[@BKCplaysPokemon]

actually yes

[@Gandhi0]

How I see it, we're all nerds playing the same game at the end of the day. Sometimes I see trash talk and it reminds me of High School Gym type of petty and it makes me cringe. It's almost roleplaying in my eyes.

[@JuscelinoVibecheck]

If you're trash talkiing after you win then it's usually bad. You could say something before and you just didn't have the balls to do it before it. If you've been saying it since forever and it happened, damn you're good

[@siddhantkamble9502]

Crazy how people evolve. Take this year's Tyrants lineup and put them in 2016 and the records for trash talk wouldv'e been shattered.

[@aldrichunfaithful3589]

i think it's a bit of a grey area, it depends on what you're trying to do and if your opponent "deserves" it. i remember back when abr won the 1300 turn game against tubby, tubby was known for being a complete AH so it was fair game, and abr decided to needle him so he'd make more mistakes, but in general it's just a bit rude and if you aren't doing it for a competitive edge (or having harmless fun with a friend like when aim and blunder played in the star tournament recently) then i dislike it. the two things i really draw the line on are what christo did here by being disrespectful at the end of the game for no reason, or using trash talk as an excuse to use slurs. if someone thinks it's funny to call me the r word or is juvenile enough to call me gay then i'm just reporting them i don't care if it was meant as a joke, and it's not because im personally offended (even if both names are true lol) i just think it's bad behaviour to be encouraging

[@datboi7893]

99% of people feel the urge to trashtalk go away when they lose their virginity

[@pantsumonster]

Top 1% Ratatta

[@yeeuoi7333]

HP Flying chople berry Clef?

[@Blowjabbadahut]

BKC trash talking!? No say it ain’t so. I never would have thought.

[@Magikarpador]

I want to be humiliated

[@Rose-ez7yn]

thats absolutely pathetic

[@elbananitolokito]

Get an 8 to 20 job with the minimun legal salary

[@davie7670]

I just think it's unnecessary to trash talk, especially to random dudes on the ladder. Generally I just look at trash talkers (the for no reason type) like they are little kids, like they think it's soooo cooool.

[@dream_weaver6207]

Damn these shorts are really starting to ruin my attention span

[@pantsumonster]

Showdown censors everything. It’s so gay.

[@emptywisdoms]

bkc the good take machine

[@bakurasensei]

Thisll be a good one lol

[@sptflcrw8583]

Dabbling in KZbin Shorts I see.

[@GhostBrian]

Flatias 4:06

[@tecul1]

contRAWversy

[@solomonpnq]

CBCTC

[@pikminologueraisin2139]

I only trashtalk weebs and vgc players

[@bomoose]

binghofuts

[@bobforeman8924]

The Pokemon community is endlessly woke and soy.

[@roxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

woke is when people aren't endlessly vicious to each other

[@bobforeman8924]

@@roxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx they actually are vicious to everyone who is not woke

[@Jaybird-145]

@@roxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Woke is when 30 year olds aren’t cussing out preteens and calling them slurs

[@ohnoitsdominoes5393]

Using the words woke and soy unironically in a sentence is the most fatherless behaviour I’ve seen in a long time, log off the internet and go outside dear lord

[@xlimey2k12]

glad to hear your voice sounding better