scapegoats for the destruction of the universe...

Its the end of the world as we know it. At least thats what R.E.M. has rightfully said. This is a particularly astute assumption considering all the wars and rising gas prices. Yet suprisingly Congress has had time to have hearings to determine who is to blame for all of this. Its not global warming or insurgent evil doers or 21st century American imperialism. No. They have determined that the culprit is VIDEO GAMES. (cue sinister music)

Older generations have always been quick to put fault on youth culture for all the problems of the world. Teens in partciular are unjustifyably panned for been lazy slackers with their transistor car radios, rock and roll, vhs videos and rap music. Whatever new comes around, no doubt it has been critiqued for taking American society away from some unknown golden age time when everything was much simpler. Afterall, video did kill the radio star.

And blaming video games is nothing new. For practically as long as they have been in existence, gaming has recieved countless attention for being the cause of nearly EVERY problem with culture. Obesity in America? Its probably because kids sit in front of their tellys all day playing FIFA World Cup instead of actually playing soccer outside. Falling grades at school? No dobut due to our deemphasis in reading with all of those other distractions of cable television, high speed internet connections and shockingly, videogames. Over the years, video games have been turned into the scapegoat for our short attention spans, lack of work ethic, apathy, low turn out at sporting events and falling box office turnouts.


A recent NPR story that aired on Morning Edition caught my attention when it reported about one more way video games have crushed our society's hopes and dreams: the low attendance at national parks. Supposedly there might be a correlation between attendance dipping around the same time that videogames began to seep into the mainstream. Nevermind, that such things as shorter summer vacations and rising gas prices might have something to do with it. But just because there is correlation, as the story points out, does not neccessarily mean that there is direct causality. But in the other NPR blog, Mixed Signals, Uri Berliner pointed out:

But wasn't it just a few years ago that the big concern for national parks was too many visitors? Self-proclaimed stewards of nature were complaining that RV-driving families with too much gear and noisy, logo-clad kids were clogging up the parks. Now it sounds like some of those same people are fretting that the kids aren't around.

However, this congressional videogame hearing has not suprisingly proven to be fairly ridiculous. Those on the panel criticized the gratuitous violence while also trying to prove their hipness on the videogame circuit. The most recent Press Start podcast, under the alt.NPR banner, discusses violence in video games with brilliant accuracy and fun analysis. They say the main greivance most people have had over the years is the violence of the video games being a cause of violence in real life. It seems that according to many, the games reality of violence without implied consequence will confuse and influence people to enact these fantasies in school shooting and street violence. It didnt help that the killers behind Columbine tragedy were known as fans of gaming and stylized violent films like The Matrix. Meanwhile incumbant Senator Joseph Lieberman is still fighting Hollywood for these things.

Ironically games such as Medal of Honor are left out of the limelight because they depict 'moral killing' for heroic wars against Germans while the obvious scapegoat, Grand Theft Auto inspire people to rape, maim and kill the nearest Bentley driver. So what is the difference? Why are people tipping over cars and throwing mail boxes through storefront windows? These blurred line between reality and fantasy might be confusing to underprivaledged and broken homes according to Rep Joseph Pitts (R- Pennsylvania). Sadly, by that he probably means poor black people. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart jumped all over this in this in amazing fashion, catching on to the racist undertones of the congressman's claims.



When it all comes down to it, the Press Start guys, Rob Holt, Kyle Orland & Ralph Cooper say it is really up to the parents to instill some semblance of 'parenting' when dealing with their children's gaming. That is, making sure they know which games their kids are playing, what the content of the game is before buying it for their children and how long they are playing. But more importantly, it should be up to the parents to bestow some wisdom about real life consequences of violence and crime and oh... I dont know, tell them not to kill people. But then we would have to explain why we are fighting wars in other countries and why that killing is okay. I think THAT might confuse them.

So while Congress and the videogame lobbyists (yes there are lobbyists for everything apparantly) argue over what games are best for the underprivaledged children (probably Tetris, but I'm old school) perhaps instead they should spend more time looking into what is the cause of the lower class. Sadly, though I think they might come to blame terrorists, tree-hugging pro-choice advocates and tornados. Its the end of the world as we know it. But, when it comes to video games, I feel fine.