I played Runescape, one of my favorites from when I was a kid. They’d upgraded the censorship since I was a kid- it’s actually impossible to cuss or use specifically vulgar language without resorting to very creative methods, but people do. It’s not an obligatorily social game, so I decided to go to one of the main towns, where people would commonly give shoutouts for trade or teaming up for quests.

Racism wasn’t so obvious at first, given the censorship I’d noticed and apparently fairly attentive mods, but it was there. Coy letter and number substitutions declared one user name to be W1t4N166A. Similar substitutions came up in chats.

I got bored eventually and started exploring and, to be honest, trolling for perverts. My character was a shiny new low-level female, and I’ve had a history of colorful interactions with that combination of traits. Sure enough, after I’d moved into the range of moderate level difficulty on the map, I had acquired a follower. I was given an invitation to trade, and when accepted, offered a large amount of resources. When I canceled, the other player offered again, which I refused and began to leave the area. The other player than followed me, offering invitations and pet names, before he apparently got bored and went back to mining. 

I’ll note that, although i did go out with the intention of finding someone like that, I did nothing to actual provoke the attention. Even Runescape, which I would say strives for a more youth friendly game environment, can’t completely eliminate this level of harassment.