Rapper T-Pain takes aim at gamers who harass devs: 'f*cking chill out. It's a f*cking game my dude.'

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He's right.

T-Pain performs at The Novo on May 12, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.
(Image credit: Ella Hovsepian/Getty Images)

In response to a Respawn statement on harassment experienced by its developers, Grammy-winning rapper and Apex Legends streamer T-Pain shared a message urging restraint and self-reflection by gamers.

"Bro, y'all have to fucking chill out. It's a fucking game my dude."

T-Pain continues, "Play something else if you hate it so much bro. Walk away from your pc/console if you've become so consumed by a game that you feel the need to threaten the people that work hard to make it. Chill bro."

You know what? He's absolutely right. It's unbecoming, gamer rage. There are very few things in this life that give me more secondhand embarrassment than seeing an adult throw a tantrum on their Twitch stream. It's a truly elevated self-inflicted humiliation to let your beep boop games rile you up so much that you bug people about it at their job.

The comeback "touch grass" gets thrown around so much to lose all meaning, but it's a useful starting place for changing your outlook. Something that helps me keep my emotions in check with weird stuff on the internet is trying to explain it verbally to someone completely unfamiliar with it and realizing how utterly deranged it sounds.

Imagine, if you would, explaining to a beloved relative or high school classmate who started a family why you sent pictures of a game developer's house to them in response to a balance change on your favourite shotgun.

While not encouraging developer harassment, the prolific streamer Tyler "Ninja" Blevins offered a competing philosophy on gamer rage to the Zen of T-Pain back in 2020.

"The phrase 'it's just a game' is such a weak mindset." Blevins wrote. "You are ok with what happened, losing, imperfection of a craft. When you stop getting angry after losing, you've lost twice."

"There's always something to learn, and always room for improvement, never settle."

Truly the great philosophical debate of our time, whether you should get really pissed and slam your desk and scare your cat when you lose at Apex, as advanced by Ninja, or to just be kind of normal about it, as suggested by T-Pain. I know who I side with in the debate.

Ted Litchfield
Associate Editor

Ted has been thinking about PC games and bothering anyone who would listen with his thoughts on them ever since he booted up his sister's copy of Neverwinter Nights on the family computer. He is obsessed with all things CRPG and CRPG-adjacent, but has also covered esports, modding, and rare game collecting. When he's not playing or writing about games, you can find Ted lifting weights on his back porch. You can follow Ted on Bluesky.