As fans of video games, we’re certainly familiar with the bizarre claims thrown at our hobby by the ill informed. Whether it’s the fact that violent video games cause people to go on killing sprees, or the unavoidable truth that games like Bulletstorm and Mass Effect will lead to rape (something we touched on during the most recent episode of The GamerSushi Show), video games are the current scapegoat for our world’s problems.
It wasn’t always this way, though. Before Fox News accused Commander Shepard of violating aliens, people pointed their mass hysteria elsewhere. In a recent article by the good folks at GamePro, things like the bycicle, Dungeons & Dragons and even the bikini were pointed to as instrumental in the demonizing of the young folk and the cause of the world’s problems.
GamePro basically put together this article to demonstrate that we’ve always been willing to shift our blame onto the current hot trend and make that the reason our civilization is going down the crapper. As time has gone on, though, our previous trouble-makers have become social norms, or at least acceptable. Dungeons & Dragons doesn’t lead to satanic cults, and who doesn’t like a good bicycle ride? Even though comic books and music are still sometimes blamed for crazy people doing crazy things (just ask Marilyn Manson), we’ve come to understand that sometimes people are just weird, no matter what their taste in entertainment is.
What do you guys think of GamePro’s expose? Will video games come through their time in the fire? What new trend will take over as the lead cause of the impending armageddon? I’m guessing either The Jersey Shore or Justin Bieber. Hit me!
Source- GamePro
Fuck the police.
Oh for God’s sake. This proves these people are idiots and it will die down soon enough.
A well written article by GamePro, I must say and very funny looking at it now that attitudes have changed. I can’t help but think though, that comics would have had a far greater popularity and less of a social stigma attatched to them if they hadn’t descended into child-only-content.
I bought my first comic ever in December last year (Y: The Last Man) because, at 18, who reads comics? I just decided “screw what my friends think” and bought it. Damn good writing on par with novels. I wish I’d been into them for much longer so I wouldn’t have missed out these interesting comics I hear about on Fresh Ink. G4 podcasts ftw! : D
Hopefully the shite called music at present will face the same scrutiny. I would like to experience music other than rave and pop on the radio for once.
I haven’t read GamePro’s article yet. I’m sitting at my desk and that site is blocked (though for some reason GamerSushi works, must be too low profile!) However, from how it sounds, I’ve been trying to make this argument for years. For a while, every time Kotaku put up an article about the latest shooting/stabbing blamed on video games, I’d comment on how today it’s video games, but it used to be movies and rock and roll (and I guess bicycles?) that took the blame. This happened so much that I eventually stopped visiting Kotaku. Not only that, but video games’ days as scapegoat are nearing an end. There’s more and more people jumping off the bandwagon of blaming games, and I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but the day is near when blame will shift elsewhere…maybe blogs.
However, I think the video gaming community enjoys the attention, thus why Kotaku always posts new stories and people complain about the outrage of it all. It makes us feel like someone’s paying attention, and we pretend to be put upon. There was a time when serious gamers were outcasts, but there’s plenty of us now, and we shouldn’t feel like we need the attention.