Random Saturday Ep 08: Scamming Justifications

Hi guys! Before we go, I'm not defending scammers here. That would be an odd thing to do on Special Agents STOPPING SCAMMERS. I am looking at common justifications I see for scamming (AJ scamming, specifically), and discussing them.

If you float around on the internet enough, especially in AJ circles, you will come across scammers who like to post videos of them happily scamming people. (Some of them are clickbait, but some of them aren’t.) Naturally, when the comments from people who aren’t active scammers come rolling in, people feel the need to make justifications for cheating small children out of their items. I’d just like to comb over some common ones I see a lot and discuss them a bit.

‘It’s just pixels! Why should you care about pixels in a computer game?’

This argument annoys me. Yes, they are pixels in a computer game. However, these pixels do have value in-game. There are only certain amounts of these configurations of pixels available in-game, and thus people place value on them. Animal Jam is also targeted at young children, and thus younger children make up much of the playerbase. Young children are not going to rationalize that these items don’t matter. 

Also, what’s the point of scamming pixels if they don’t matter?

‘Scams are really obvious. It’s your own fault if you get scammed!’

First off, victim blaming is almost never helpful. Especially since your average, functioning teen or whatnot is not going to fall for most scams. However, a good portion of AJ’s playerbase at any given time is not composed of average, functioning teens. Many small children, tired people, trusting people, and desperate people play as well.

You can draw an analogy here to actual, real-life scams. Many scams work because the victims are elderly, stressed, panicked, trusting, or desperate. Elderly people (and very young people) tend to not function at full capacity. This does not mean they are idiots, it just means that they tend to give in to panic or trust more easily. People who are stressed or tired are also not at their peak, and are more likely to fall for such things.

People who are panicked (say, because “the IRS” is suing them, or someone is “hacking” them) tend to act first, think second. Those who trust friends wouldn’t dream of friends scamming them, and thus trust them. People who are desperate for money, items, etc. tend to throw reason out the window when they see what they want. Scammers are not beings of superior intellect who are immune to human emotion. Calling people stupid for falling for scams is unfair and wrong.

“Alright, so you don’t like me/us scamming. So? How does it affect you? Just go on your merry way and leave us be, we aren’t hurting you.”

Yeeeahh, you aren’t hurting me, but you’re hurting other people. Since we like helping other people, we want to warn them about you and thus help them. Even if you think what we do doesn’t matter, it’s never a bad idea or a waste to try to help someone.

There you go, Random Saturday #8. Hope you enjoy! If you have another justification you have/have seen, feel free to comment it. Bye!