One post tagged with "Genshin"

Author / momo

Edited by the < Reliable Editorial Desk >

Originally, she only opened Genshin Impact somewhat "against her own instincts" because she wanted to have a few more words to say with her teenage daughter. A year later, she had reached Adventure Rank 60, cleared the Spiral Abyss, and her relationship with her daughter had entered an unusually close stage—not seen since her daughter was born.

She wrote this experience up as a Xiaohongshu post titled A Middle-Aged Person Suddenly Became Enlightened After Playing Genshin Impact With Her Daughter, and then she went through a public opinion storm that was no small thing for an ordinary person. In just one week, the post received over ninety thousand likes, seventy-four thousand comments, countless derivative posts, and countless portals for social media judgment. The online controversy forced her into a spiral of self-proving: she wasn't paid, she wasn't a false flag, and she hadn't blocked anyone proactively.

It was clearly just a heartwarming story about "a parent entering their child's world," yet simply because the game was Genshin Impact, the discourse headed toward opposite extremes. So much so that the person involved had to mount an innocent-until-proven-guilty defense of her own sincerity. On what grounds?

The original post's story was simple and pure, beginning from a portrait of countless ordinary families: after her daughter entered adolescence, there was less and less for mother and daughter to talk about. To find common ground with her mom again, the daughter invited her to play Genshin Impact together, but the mom refused at first. Her first impression of the game wasn't good—she thought anime-style games were childish and over the top, with characters cuteness-ified to excess—but in order to understand what her daughter loved every day, she began her own journey through Teyvat.

Once she got truly into the game, she found that the game her daughter played was more complex than she'd imagined. Team building required understanding elemental reactions, weapons and artifacts each had their own intricacies, and the story and characters gradually exceeded her original judgment of Genshin Impact as merely a "cute little game." A year on, she had pushed the main story to the latest chapter and leveled her account to 60. Yet she still considered herself a "newbie" in Teyvat, just as her daughter was similarly just getting started in the "big world of Earth." Playing the game, the mom needed time to get to know a virtual open world little by little, and her daughter needed time to learn and grow up too.

Thoughts like these gradually changed how she approached her daughter. She began criticizing less, and stopped pointing fingers at her daughter based on her own experience. The process of exploring the continent of Teyvat became this middle-aged person's process of exploring the world of today's teenagers' hobbies—from misreading, to learning, to understanding—and she even recalled the "Aranara" of her own childhood, accepting that children have a growth period where innocence and childlike wonder should be preserved.

At the end of the post, she reminded other parents: if during their child's growth "you have similar troubles, don't blame it all on phones and the internet—first try entering their world of hobbies and start as a newbie."

Reading the whole post, I felt warmly moved. After becoming adults, we learn to speak in the so-called tone of "grown-ups" and try to act like "grown-ups," but growing older doesn't automatically bring greater experience and ability. In the process of learning to grow up, we are never far from being "children," yet we're afraid of unknowingly turning into the kind of adults we once disliked.

I'm very glad to see that someone of my generation didn't perpetuate the generational trauma so commonly discussed on the internet, but instead tried to understand and change. In the eyes of an adult like me who hasn't been grown up for long, this was especially moving. The comments section of the original post was likewise full of kind expressions: "Welcome to Snezhnaya," "You really are such a gentle and open-minded mom!" There were enthusiastic redemption-code givers, fellow travelers discussing music, story, and travel memories, and kids who had similarly gotten their moms to play Genshin Impact. Everyone cheered each other on, talking about the game, and about family too.

The story didn't end at its warmest moment. As the post spread, controversy followed. It started with character outfit designs, moved to debates about the game's aesthetics, and eventually devolved into factional squabbles between different games. A casual post sharing everyday life ended up with a comment section heading in a completely unexpected direction.

Some said she had "successfully farmed an account," and on that basis doubted her motives for identifying with her daughter. Some guessed it was promotional and that the story might be made up. Some even directed their worries at this mom's family choices, asking whether she was sure she wanted to play with her daughter, worried that the outfits would lead the child's aesthetics astray. At this point, the criticism had begun forcing a total stranger to prove her judgment all over again.

Many netizens couldn't stand to watch and rushed over to support and "protect" her, but their voices didn't calm the controversy—instead, the event entered the classic vicious cycle of "anime gacha game community wars." People guessed factions from comments, confirmed factions from avatars, IDs, and profile pages, and then it became mysterious campaigns by rival games' "friendly competitors," shills, and brigading. Against these entanglements, the story of a mother and daughter simply stopped mattering.

In the end, a single line—"it's because they play Genshin"—could dismiss all specifics and mock every player who spoke up for her. This ordinary mom, this ordinary Genshin Impact player, ended up at the center of the vortex, forced to become the one answering for Genshin Impact. She was expected to answer for character outfits, explain story controversies, and somehow be responsible for what other players had said. All she wrote about was her everyday life playing a game with her daughter, but because the game was Genshin Impact, many strangers were waiting for her and other players to hand in sheet after sheet of self-proving homework about the game, family, and personal identity.

It shouldn't have been this way. Criticizing a game is one thing; competition between companies is another; but putting an ordinary player who likes a game on the defendant's stand is something else entirely. In an environment of such extreme public opinion, Genshin Impact could be swapped for any other game at any moment, and this mom could be swapped for any other player. That's terrifying.

Two days after the original post went up, the mom published A Middle-Aged Person's Response to the Genshin Impact Incident. The previous post's title had been about her daughter, and its content was all about her daughter too, but in the new post, only the "middle-aged person" remained. The parent-child story had given way to a public opinion storm; when she spoke again, she protected her child, facing and handling the controversy in her capacity as an adult.

She said she wouldn't delete the post, because she refused to be "an adult who breaks her word"; she would speak up for the online environment as an ordinary player caught up in the discourse, because she didn't want "the discourse around games to be dominated by extreme voices"; she felt that "genuine emotion shouldn't be mocked," yet she still had to go through an entire passage of self-proving.

Someone messaged her privately, urging her to hide the post and protect herself. She said: "It's okay, sweetie, I'm an adult." In the comments, she replied to a stranger who told her not to delete the post: "Auntie really hasn't deleted it. I don't know if you'll still see this, but I kept my promise."

After enduring days of online harassment, she was still the mom willing to work hard to understand her daughter, still a netizen who took promises to strangers seriously, and even more, a mature and dependable adult willing to defend ordinary players' right to speak and to work for a healthy online environment.

"It's because they play Genshin" cannot slap a negative label on all players through stereotype alone. Every real, living player, with their stories and attitudes, bravely faces the unpredictable tides of online discourse. It's impossible they feel no anger, no discouragement, no self-doubt—but they still step forward and tell us loudly: don't worry, this world isn't that bad.

Is playing games really a sin? Of course not.

Nobody has to like any particular game, and certainly nobody should be put on trial for liking one. There are no perfect games in this world, and sharing your experience of playing one doesn't mean taking responsibility for everything about it. A person's choice of game only says something about how they entertained themselves during a certain period; it cannot directly prove their judgment, motives, or even their character.

Criticizing the story, the outfits, and the monetization belongs to discussion of a game's content. Raising specific doubts about whether a post is genuine can also be verified through details. Any contradictory experiences, any biased opinions—all of that can be brought out and discussed. But as bystanders, accusing someone of making up a story without evidence, then slapping labels on them with "it's because they play Genshin," turns gaming identity into a verdict written before the trial even begins.

Supporting this mom and criticizing Genshin Impact can absolutely both be true at the same time. Under her response post, someone acknowledged that the outfits of female characters have problems, while also believing the game experience and cultural experience are worth thinking about. Mature discussion of a work should inherently have room for more complex deliberation.

But in this confrontation, "Genshin player" has become a label, as if simply admitting you play Genshin Impact means you naturally carry the "original sin" of being obsessed, and ordinary life-sharing is easily pre-interpreted by opponents as whitewashing. Some players, under attack, lump opposing opinions into factional explanations like "rival games" and "auto-targeting." Fierce counterattacks get screenshotted and recirculated, becoming further evidence for the stereotypes.

Attack and defense feed each other, until in the end everyone looks more like what their opponents imagined in advance. Seeing this spectacle, the safest choice for ordinary players is to stay silent, and more and more people become afraid to speak. But the more people stay silent, the more the community is left with only extreme voices, and the more newcomers dare not open their mouths. That's the worst outcome: the quarrels that care most about winning and losing end up with no winners.

Looking back, all this mom shared was a personal experience, telling of the joy she and her daughter found in this game. From beginning to end, she never asked that Genshin Impact as a product be exempt from criticism. Her brave response was only the hope that, as an ordinary player, she could boldly say "my family and I have found joy playing Genshin Impact"—and after saying it, not have to immediately undergo a round of identity screening.

Playing a game is just playing a game. It doesn't require representing anyone, apologizing to anyone, or proving your own normal life and character to anyone.

The social psychologist Gustave Le Bon wrote in The Crowd that when individuals hide within a large, relatively anonymous group, the sense of responsibility that once restrained them may weaken, and emotions and behaviors pass among the crowd. Some people keep going along with "everyone says so," doing things they would have restrained themselves from doing alone.

Le Bon also acknowledged that groups can act in another direction. Under certain inspirations, crowds can sometimes display devotion, sacrifice, and a sense of justice rarely seen in individuals.

Crowds amplify malice, but they also let kindness find companions.

Under this post, both directions of gathering were visible. Some reduced her to a stereotyped label, while others worked to spread goodwill, "building walls" of support in the comments.

The wall-builders wanted to put the mother-daughter story—already compressed into the background by factional conflict—back in front of passersby, reminding those who came later that the post was simply about how a mom learned to understand her daughter.

Genshin Impact won't become flawless because of this incident, and no game is magical enough to automatically repair a parent-child relationship. In this story, Genshin Impact was merely a medium; the key direction of the relationship depended on the mom herself—it was her willingness to step into her daughter's world of hobbies that brought about the reconciliation of their relationship.

Any normal community discussion should first see the concrete person. Genshin Impact can be criticized, and players can also publicly express their love for it. But most importantly, ordinary players need not represent Genshin Impact, nor answer for other players.

At the very least, they should have the freedom to say they like a game.

Malice may already have borne fruit, but the seeds of goodwill have only just been planted in the soil. They came too late to erase the harm that has happened. But as long as someone is still willing to plant them, then the next time someone is pushed to the center of a crowd for saying "I like this game," at least someone will walk over, stand by their side, and let them know they needn't stand alone in the wind.

So, I support this mom playing Genshin Impact with her daughter. I support everyone naming whatever game they play, expressing themselves freely, without having to prove themselves—without even needing to be brave.