Normalisasi Bahasa Kasar dalam Komunitas Pemain Mobile Legend: Bang Bang (MLBB) Berdasarkan Teori Konstruksi Sosial

Abstract

The use of offensive language in the online game Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) has undergone a significant semantic shift from behavior previously regarded as deviant to a widely accepted communicative practice within the player community. This phenomenon suggests an ongoing social construction process that continuously shapes, legitimizes, and reproduces the normalization of offensive language in digital spaces. This study aims to analyze the social construction processes comprising externalization, objectivation, and internalization that form and sustain the normalization of offensive language among MLBB players, and to identify the social, cultural, and situational factors that support the continuation of this practice within an increasingly competitive digital interaction environment. Grounded in the Social Construction of Reality theory proposed by Berger and Luckmann (1966), this study employs a qualitative descriptive-interpretive approach. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, observation, and documentation involving five active MLBB players selected via purposive sampling at Warung Compas 58, Sidoarjo Regency, East Java. Data validity was ensured through source and method triangulation, and data analysis followed the interactive model of reduction, display, and conclusion drawing. The findings reveal that, at the stage of externalization, offensive language initially emerges as an unfiltered spontaneous expression an immediate emotional response to competitive game pressure. At the stage of objectivation, repeated communal use transforms these individual expressions into a collectively recognized social fact, complete with an informal regulatory system distinguishing acceptable from unacceptable usage. At the stage of internalization, objectivated norms are reabsorbed into individual consciousness as part of players' communicative identity and habitus, transmitted primarily through seniority-based socialization. Four synergistic factors sustain this normalization: competitive psychological pressure, relational closeness and interaction intensity, seniority-based socialization mechanisms, and informal narrative legitimation. This study concludes that the normalization of offensive language in the MLBB community constitutes a self- sustaining socially constructed reality, continuously reproduced through everyday player interactions, and affirms the analytical relevance of Berger and Luckmann's (1966) framework for contemporary digital communication phenomena.