A Big, Wordy Scholarly Post.
Sorry the post is so late today, by which I mean I should have had an article up like 6 hours ago. Nonetheless, as I consider the time before I go to sleep to still be the previous day, even if it is actually 4 and a half hours into the current day, you can consider this the post for Monday.
This is the reason I actually haven’t posted. I had to write a long-ass research paper for my Sociology class. I thought I’d go ahead and post part of it up here. It’s about the effects of violent media on social groups and individuals, and this section in particular covers why I don’t think that the effects violent media (in particular, video games) have on people are as serious as you may think; specifically, because when a scientist says games cause “aggressive behavior,” he doesn’t mean the subject starts punching him, he means a stronger desire to compete and take action against what the subject sees as an opponent. When Jack Thompson cites that same study, he tries to tell you it means the games compel the subject, perhaps through black magic, to take up the nearest firearm (which people like Jack Thompson have gone out of their way to make as accessible as possible) and just kill everything they see. I’m a little too fucking tired right now to tell if this is good or not, and I may reconsider this in the morning and replace it with dick jokes and Galaga references. Enjoy it while you can.
An interesting component of this debate is the relativity of the way some material is examined compared to other, similar material. Consider two games, both of which involve similar activities. In both, the goal is to defeat your opponent by physically attacking him, attempting to completely disable and prevent them from being able to progress. The only difference is one is real life and the other is make believe. The activities I am describing are football (specifically playing defense) and the video game Mortal Kombat. Both have similar effects on aggressive behavior afterward, but the difference is that Mortal Kombat is considered by many to pose a danger to children, while the other is a routine activity children are encouraged to participate in. Mortal Kombat is sometimes seen as dangerous (in the same way as other games) because it increases aggressive behavior towards others in children. Football, on the other hand, is encouraged for children because it causes increases in competitive behavior in children. These are different words for the same type of behavior. Of course, I am not suggesting that football is “just as dangerous” as video games; in fact, I am saying just the opposite. My point is that, strictly from an observational point of view, the science so often touted to “prove” that video games and other violent media cause violence could be used against many activities that are considered “good” for children. While I was able to find several studies linking the play of video games to violent behavior, and several linking the play of sports to aggressive behavior, I couldn’t find any studies that compared the two. However, it would seem from the data presented that the emotions produced by both activities are similar, and despite the pejorative use of “aggressive” in many news reports about violent media, it seems that, in the actual scientific data, it’s very similar to the “competitive spirit” so valued in American culture. This is often a problem when a scientific study is done with the purpose of evaluating and proving or disproving a specific claim; sometimes the data found is not properly contextualized. While I am of course not encouraging aggression in children, I can say from personal experience that, having grown up an only child in a neighborhood with no children for 10 miles, video games and televised football both helped develop understanding of the proper way to compete with others and how to contextualize aggression developed as a result of competition. I have concluded through my research that the “aggressive behavior” and “more violent reactions” touted by the news media and moral crusaders are really the same things I learned by playing pee wee baseball; a desire to do better than my opponents and be successful.
NIMF to Close at the End of 2009!
The National Institute on Media and the Family is set to close at the end of 2009. Known for, among other things, being responsible for the term “killographic”, NIMF has been around since 1996 and has cranked out a large amount of bullshit in those 13 years. The organization mostly focused on “eliminating them Natendos”.
I just hope this will lead to killography being widely available to those who wish to buy it. I intend on visiting my local killography store as soon as possible.
SHOCKING Xbox Live Poll Results!
www.joystiq.com/2008/08/29/gamerpicks-xbox-live-rock-the-vote-polled-obama-ahead
I’ve got some breaking news for you fuckers. MTV, bastion of vital political information, did a completely scientific poll (they counted gamertags with pictures of the candidate) to see who was leading in the hearts of gamers. Amazingly, Barack Obama, the 47 year old Democratic candidate whose revolutionary use of the internet and other technological means to gain the support of young people across the country is actually BEATING John McCain, a 72 year old Republican who doesn’t seem to know what the internet is!
To discover how this impossible scenario could ever happen, I decided to take it TO THE STREETS.
Unfortunetly, no one was willing to dignify me with a response, so I’ve got nothing.
Ahem.
Did you guys see the Olympics? They were pretty cool.
GTA Blamed for Firebombing; Gaming World Breathes Exasperated Sigh
www.mmoclerks.com/2008/08/08/arrested-teen-blames-gta-for-hit-firebombing-spree-crime/
Well, it’s finally starting to happen. Dumbfuck white trash teenagers are seeing that dumbfuck old people who are afraid of technology will let them off the hook for anything if they say they they learned it from video games. Never mind that the game doesn’t teach you how to make firebombs in any way, nothing even close to it. Far be it for them to do any fucking research on anything before they complain about it.
You know what? I don’t think GTA is to blame here.
I blame the literary works of Herman Melville.
I’m really not familiar with any of them, but he wrote Moby Dick, and I assume there’s a part where Ishmael tells the reader how to build an explosive-tipped harpoon, and Ahab uses it to become popular in high school and get sex from all the hottest cheerleaders, and a free Ferrari. Then he gets wasted and yells “Whoo! Drinking and driving is the coolest thing a teenager can do!” Is this the kind of media we want raising our kids for us? I hope not, because God knows we’re not mentally capable of raising them ourselves!
Jack Thompson Killed by Gamer
Anti-Game Crusader shot to death outside of courthouse
Early yesterday morning, anti-video game protester Jack Thompson was shot to death during a protest against Rockstar Games’ new product, Grand Theft Auto IV. The identity of the shooter has not been confirmed, but witnesses say he was carrying a mouse and keyboard. The man snuck up behind Thompson, pulled the mouse and keyboard out of a trenchcoat, used the mouse to steady his aim, held the ctrl button to crouch, and fired one glowing laser shot. He then screamed “BOOM! HEADSHOT!” and escaped to the top of a building. Thompson’s body twisted a few times, then landed twisted up with his legs touching his back, not unlike a ragdoll. The shooter than made his escape. “He just jumped from one building to another, using his rocket boosters. I mean, I knew all along Jack was right about video games being evil, that’s in the Bible, but I didn’t realize he was this accurate about them turning kids into killing machines,” said Wayne Kalasky, a fellow protester following Thompson. “After he shot him, he fired about 3 of these huge missles into the courthouse, which for some reason didn’t even seem to make a dent in it, then hopped into a World War 2-era fighter plane, which immediately after liftoff he crashed into a wall.” Despite police investigations, no body has been found. “We believe he has reappeared, or, ‘respawned’ in another location,” said Tim Perkins, chief of police. The investigation is ongoing, and details will be posted as they come in.
Could Haggar’s Incumbency be Threatened?
Dean Rexley, a city councilman from Metro City, USA, has announced his candidacy in this year’s Metro City mayoral election, becoming the first to oppose incumbent Mike Haggar since his first term. In an interview with the Metro City Generic Press that has been described variously as “insane” and “suicidal”, Rexley stated his reasons for his campaign against Haggar. “13 terms is simply too many! The only reason Haggar was elected in the first place was his ‘anti-crime initiative’. Yes, I agree that Metro City had a crime problem at the time, but Haggar took it too far. In response to requests for increased police funding, Haggar simply walked down the street killing everyone in sight, viciously beating them with lead pipes and piledriving them into the concrete, headfirst. All of this culminated in Haggar dropkicking handicapped businessman Horace Belger out of his wheelchair and through a plate glass window to a deadly 11-story drop. I mean, the man eats barbeque he finds in oil drums! Do we really want someone like this running our town?” Upon hearing this, Haggar, who had been standing at the door waiting to be interviewed, shattered the door to splinters with his trademark Spinning Lariat, threw a knife into Rexley’s face, then suplexed him four times. Witnesses report Rexley then flashed 3 times and disappeared.
(This blogger endorses Mike Haggar for Metro City Mayor.)
