Every once in a while, we may find our friends or people over the Internet exchanging terms that we have no clue about. More so when it comes to gamers, as the gaming community heavily relies on slang and acronyms to allow for quick conversations.
One such acronym you might have heard from gamers is “BM” or “BMing”. It’s a term that is often used in multiplayer games, which means you should know what it implies as well as some examples of its usage.
So, what does BM mean in gaming? Let’s find out!
What Does BM Mean in Games?
BM is shorthand for “Bad Manner” (or Bad Mannered). As the name suggests, BM is used to imply obnoxious conduct or actions that some players do in order to annoy or frustrate others.
This can include things from deliberate time-wasting, unnecessary spamming of emotes to even some aggravated things such as making vulgar statements in the in-game chat and other toxic behaviour.
If someone tells that a player is BMing in the game, it simply means that they are being disrespectful to other players or are doing something that is unsporting.
Some Common Ways of BMing
There are numerous ways people BM in games, however, the most common ones are listed below.
Inappropriate Dialogue in the Voice/Chat Channel
This includes yelling at other players, making derogatory or vulgar remarks and anything related to bad speech.
Emotes
A lot of the games use emotes as nice cosmetic additions which are often part of the rewards of some events or challenges. Although many players do find emotes to be visually appealing and to flex on their opponents, a few misuse them by spamming emotes onto their opponents.
The main problem here is that not all emotes are meant to be “in good fun”, and a few contain elements that might annoy or tease people, such as laughing or crying emotes. Players will often spam these when their opponent loses to them or other scenarios.
Distressing your own Team
Not all people do this, but some like to BM their team by doing things such as deliberately feeding the enemy team by offering them free kills, building walls to block your teammates, choosing characters that are mediocre just to show off, killing your own teammates etc.
Why Do People BM in Games?
The use of BM ultimately boils down to the attitude and personality of the person doing it. Not all BM is awful; If a player is BMing as a way of introducing friendly humour and is doing that within limits, then that’s an acceptable and sensible affair. On the other hand, if the player goes far beyond just “bad manners” to maybe intentional harassment, then that’s really immature of them.
Talking about the intentions behind people BMing, turns out there’s more to just annoying other people. BM can serve the following purposes as well:
- Harmless BMing: Wishing them luck before the game, appreciating them after they beat you or simply enjoying the fancy emotes that the game offers can all be considered as the sporting way.
- Psychological Method: To anger or distract opponents as every advantage counts in a competitive scenario. If you BM your enemy in the 4-5 games you win against them, chances are that they will be scared upon facing you the next time.
- Response to Opponent BM: A lot of players BM only when their enemies do first, which is fair enough.
BMing in Some Popular PC and Mobile Games
Fortnite
BMing in Fortnite or PUBG is usually happening when players down an enemy, and when their opponents are spectating their gameplay. The person spends a full minute spamming their collection of emotes as they spectate.
Take the L, The Infinite Dab or Laugh it Up are some of the most popular emotes in Fortnite Battle Royale and are often used by people to BM others.
Hearthstone
Hearthstone players BM by the use of emotes and other actions like taking way too long for each turn, or building overkill forces for the most ruthless defeat even if completely unnecessary. Luckily, Hearthstone allows you to disable the emotes for yourself by enabling the Squelch feature. This can be useful when you don’t want your opponent to ruin your day.
League of Legends
League of Legends suffers with excessive amounts of BMing, just like many other multiplayer video games. The game is usually filled with trash talk from BMers, especially in the ranked lobbies. Players also use some of the most annoying emotes like mastery, laugh or taunt to provoke other people.
Clash Royale
Being a mobile game that’s played by millions of kids and adult players, one shouldn’t be surprised upon seeing how much silly BMing is prevalent in Clash Royale. Players can be really salty to use up their quota of 100 emotes per game that only lasts a few minutes.
Not only that, some of the emotes are no fun at all. It can be demoralising on seeing someone spamming a crying-face or tongue-teasing emote even when you are winning. Players use “Thanks” at the end of the game implying that you played badly to give them the win.
What Can You Do To Stop BM?
Not a lot actually. You can’t stop other players from doing their thing, however, many games offer ways to reduce or counter BM.
For example, some games that use emotes allow you to disable them on your end such as the “Squelch” feature in Hearthstone and the “Mute” button in Clash Royale. Similarly, few games allow you to mute a player’s voice or messages individually, which can be very helpful if someone is trying to be smart.
Of course, you can’t disable the in-game chat in most multiplayer games, which means that negative experiences will be there. You might want to argue back or BM in return, but that’s rarely the solution.