The sky is falling!

So, there’s this show called Skins on MTV. It’s based off of the British series of the same name (we like to do that a lot). It is a teenage drama written and staring teenagers. The show deals with “common” teenage issues like sex, drugs, death, mental illness, and dysfunctional families. The “racy” depictions of sex have caused some controversy as most actors are underage, but I think older actors are used in those instances. Mostly, the controversy surrounding this show is that is shows teenagers having sex, doing drugs, etc.

I.e., what teenagers already do. Some claim that this may encourage teens to do the same as the show portrays little to no consequences for their actions.

Horse’s Ass.

How many times have we been down this road? Something happens on TV, in a movie, in a video game, in a book, and it’s going to cause teens/kids to imitate it. I am so sick of this believe that we need to protect kids, I mean TEENS, from themselves. “We can’t show teens what teens are doing or else they may do them! We must shelter them!”

 

This reminds me of what I read about the Senate video game hearings in 1994. Did they know what a video game was or any of the specific games they were complaining about? If I told you that an argument against video games is that when you lose in a game you “die” and therefore it hurts kid’s self esteem, you would think that was stupid, right? Not according to Marilyn Droz, who is currently the Vice President of the National Coalition on Television Violence. Basically, video games are murder simulators. She basically used the plot summary of the movie Toys as her point.

Most famous of these panic-inducing idiots is ex-Lawyer Jack Thompson. This man thought The Sims should be banned because it showed graphical depictions of sex and genitalia (it doesn’t, unless you find and download custom content, not made by the game designers, in which you have to pay for it and be over 18). He blamed the Beltway sniper on video games with no proof whatsoever (He blamed Halo). Before the shooter was identified, he blamed Counter-Strike for Virginia Tech (FYI, no games were found in the shooter's room). Thankfully, there is justice in the world and this man was disbarred for his many frivolous lawsuits against video games. He has since appealed his disbarment claiming he was disbarred for his Christian beliefs.

Again, Horse’s Ass.

How about that case about the six-year-old who drove his mother’s car to school, crashing it in the process? Clearly it was Grand Theft Auto’s fault. Why? The kid said he learned to drive from playing the game!

Take a look at these two images:

How the hell do you learn to drive by using a PlayStation controller? Of course most news articles like to pepper their stories with references to GTA. “Were not saying it made him do it, but…” Maybe it was the fact he had deadbeat parents. Maybe it was the father’s fault for leaving him and his four-year-old brother alone with their mother, AGAINST COURT ORDERS! The mother must have done something wrong in the past to not be allowed to be with her own children alone. Also, she didn’t even think of getting up and making sure the kids were fed and on the school bus. “Screw the kids! I need my sleep!” I found at least one story in which there were no references to video games. Thank you!

You know, we are really lucky to be living in this day and age. The concept that “Video games will ruin the world” has started to die out, just like all the complaints about sex and violence in movies and TV. I'm actually surprised by how no one blamed video games for the Tucson shootings.

In response to Virginia Tech, someone did have some common sense:

Not every video gamer goes out and murders 33 people on the college campus though.  There's more to this than that... it may desensitize people, but it doesn't turn everybody into mass murderers...

People have a tough time accepting a relatively simple explanation for something of this scale.  But how many people are playing video games out there? How many millions of people play video games…?

If you start blaming the video games, you may as well demand video game control…You have here a sick individual, an evil individual who committed a random act.  But if you want to start blaming the video games, this guy was this or that, weeeeell, then you've gotta maybe talk about banning them…

Do you know who said that? Rush Limbaugh. He said something I actually agree with.

Can we stop finding boogeymen to blame all of our problems on? Who are we going to blame next?

Canada?