Politics. It's a minefield. One thing I'd hope all of you reading this will agree upon is that video games are not to blame for the mass shootings in the US over the weekend.
Inevitably, that hasn't stopped Donald Trump promising to end the "glorification of violence" offered by "gruesome and grisly video games".
"It is too easy today for troubled youth to surround themselves with a culture that celebrates violence," uttered the gruesome and grisly president, who quite probably has never played a video game in his life, and has no evidence whatsoever suggesting that shooter Patrick Cruisius was inspired by games, violent or otherwise.
"We must stop or substantially reduce this, and it has to begin immediately," Trump huffed, in the hollow, meaningless, way that he does.
It's not the first time he's used this decades-old scapegoat to shirk responsibility for his own rhetoric, views and support for the NRA.
Following the 2018 Florida school shooting in which 17 died, Trump rambled: "We have to do something about maybe what they are seeing and how they are seeing it. I'm hearing more and more people say the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people's thoughts."
The irony, of course, is that while video games themselves may not be to blame for mass shootings perpetrated by young, disenfranchised, white men... it was gamer culture which helped Trump get elected to a platform in which he could galvanise and stir up the white supremacy which led directly to many of these shootings.
And that's a fact. More and more people are saying that Donald Trump really shaped young people's thoughts.
Inevitably, that hasn't stopped Donald Trump promising to end the "glorification of violence" offered by "gruesome and grisly video games".
"It is too easy today for troubled youth to surround themselves with a culture that celebrates violence," uttered the gruesome and grisly president, who quite probably has never played a video game in his life, and has no evidence whatsoever suggesting that shooter Patrick Cruisius was inspired by games, violent or otherwise.
"We must stop or substantially reduce this, and it has to begin immediately," Trump huffed, in the hollow, meaningless, way that he does.
It's not the first time he's used this decades-old scapegoat to shirk responsibility for his own rhetoric, views and support for the NRA.
Following the 2018 Florida school shooting in which 17 died, Trump rambled: "We have to do something about maybe what they are seeing and how they are seeing it. I'm hearing more and more people say the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people's thoughts."
The irony, of course, is that while video games themselves may not be to blame for mass shootings perpetrated by young, disenfranchised, white men... it was gamer culture which helped Trump get elected to a platform in which he could galvanise and stir up the white supremacy which led directly to many of these shootings.
And that's a fact. More and more people are saying that Donald Trump really shaped young people's thoughts.
BANNON GUNS
Before he ran right-wing news outlet Breitbart, before he orchestrated Trump's election campaign, Steve Bannon was a minor figure in the entertainment industry.
He produced a number of movies, made documentaries, and in 2006 joined the board of Internet Gaming Entertainment, a platform for trading items and in-game currency through World of Warcraft. In short: low-paid Chinese workers would grind their way through the game, earning gold and buying items, so that players didn't have to slog. It was a virtual sweat shop.
The service only lasted a year or two before IGE had to rebrand, following a class action lawsuit, brought about by a player who accused it of "substantially impairing" his World of Warcraft experience, and Blizzard shut down IGE's accounts. It was revealed later that IGE had been stealing the identities of US citizen to create WoW accounts.
By which point, though, Bannon had seen enough. He'd studied the World of Warcraft community, and saw the raw potential in it.
"These guys, these rootless white males, had monster power," he once stated. If video games are a power fantasy, then Bannon hypothesised that gamers were a force just waiting to be given power for real.
Bannon was also quoted as saying: "You can activate that army. They come in through Gamergate, or whatever, and then get turned onto politics and Trump.”
And that's what Bannon did, using Breitbart to stoke the fires of the 2014 Gamergate movement, recruiting foot soldiers, giving the awful Milo Yiannopoulos a voice, and - despite him having no interest in video games - promoting him to a sort of Gamergate figurehead, mobilising a troll army, legitimising their beliefs, and giving those rootless, white males, the sort of monster power they could only dream of.
He played them, exploiting their vulnerability, lighting the touch paper on their anger, and standing back. They gave him what he wanted, and for the first time in their lives, he helped them feel that they mattered.
Before he ran right-wing news outlet Breitbart, before he orchestrated Trump's election campaign, Steve Bannon was a minor figure in the entertainment industry.
He produced a number of movies, made documentaries, and in 2006 joined the board of Internet Gaming Entertainment, a platform for trading items and in-game currency through World of Warcraft. In short: low-paid Chinese workers would grind their way through the game, earning gold and buying items, so that players didn't have to slog. It was a virtual sweat shop.
The service only lasted a year or two before IGE had to rebrand, following a class action lawsuit, brought about by a player who accused it of "substantially impairing" his World of Warcraft experience, and Blizzard shut down IGE's accounts. It was revealed later that IGE had been stealing the identities of US citizen to create WoW accounts.
By which point, though, Bannon had seen enough. He'd studied the World of Warcraft community, and saw the raw potential in it.
"These guys, these rootless white males, had monster power," he once stated. If video games are a power fantasy, then Bannon hypothesised that gamers were a force just waiting to be given power for real.
Bannon was also quoted as saying: "You can activate that army. They come in through Gamergate, or whatever, and then get turned onto politics and Trump.”
And that's what Bannon did, using Breitbart to stoke the fires of the 2014 Gamergate movement, recruiting foot soldiers, giving the awful Milo Yiannopoulos a voice, and - despite him having no interest in video games - promoting him to a sort of Gamergate figurehead, mobilising a troll army, legitimising their beliefs, and giving those rootless, white males, the sort of monster power they could only dream of.
He played them, exploiting their vulnerability, lighting the touch paper on their anger, and standing back. They gave him what he wanted, and for the first time in their lives, he helped them feel that they mattered.
ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER
Gamergate, though we perhaps didn't realise it at the time, was just the beginning. What Bannon learned from it led directly to Trump being elected president, which led directly to the El Paso shooting at the weekend, if not the Ohio massacre too.
Shortly before the shooting, Patrick Crusius posted his 16,000-word manifesto on the message board 8Chan. It was full of racist rhetoric directed towards Hispanics; the third time in a year that a shooter had posted on 8Chan prior to going on a rampage.
Before the attack on a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March, the shooter shared a link to his 74-page manifesto, full of Nazi symbolism, white nationalism, and - in one passage - support for Donald Trump, who he viewed as "A symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose."
In April, the shooter responsible for the attack on the Poway Synagogue in California, posted on 8Chan shortly before the shooting, blaming Jews for "white genocide". Confusingly, he cited the Christchurch attack as an inspiration, but condemned Donald Trump for being a "Pro-Zionist traitor".
Either way, Trump was an inspiration.
The common thread here is, of course, 8chan. Started as a response to heavy moderation of the 4Chan board where Gamergate began, 8chan swiftly became an unmoderated, "free-speech friendly", playground for extreme views and conspiracy theories... and the place where mass-murderers go to justify their actions.
As of writing, 8chan is unavailable, after Cloudflare - an internet company which has previously come under pressure for offering services to far-right websites such as neo-Nazi blog The Daily Stormer - withdrew its support.
Gamergate, though we perhaps didn't realise it at the time, was just the beginning. What Bannon learned from it led directly to Trump being elected president, which led directly to the El Paso shooting at the weekend, if not the Ohio massacre too.
Shortly before the shooting, Patrick Crusius posted his 16,000-word manifesto on the message board 8Chan. It was full of racist rhetoric directed towards Hispanics; the third time in a year that a shooter had posted on 8Chan prior to going on a rampage.
Before the attack on a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March, the shooter shared a link to his 74-page manifesto, full of Nazi symbolism, white nationalism, and - in one passage - support for Donald Trump, who he viewed as "A symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose."
In April, the shooter responsible for the attack on the Poway Synagogue in California, posted on 8Chan shortly before the shooting, blaming Jews for "white genocide". Confusingly, he cited the Christchurch attack as an inspiration, but condemned Donald Trump for being a "Pro-Zionist traitor".
Either way, Trump was an inspiration.
The common thread here is, of course, 8chan. Started as a response to heavy moderation of the 4Chan board where Gamergate began, 8chan swiftly became an unmoderated, "free-speech friendly", playground for extreme views and conspiracy theories... and the place where mass-murderers go to justify their actions.
As of writing, 8chan is unavailable, after Cloudflare - an internet company which has previously come under pressure for offering services to far-right websites such as neo-Nazi blog The Daily Stormer - withdrew its support.
WHERE WE'RE AT
And so here we are. Donald Trump biting the hand that feeds him - promising to put an end to violent video games - but it's all just lip-service.
I mean, he won't lift a finger. He's not actually going to do anything. For political purposes, he just needs somebody to blame right now. It's an attempt to deflect attention; a tactic that Trump excels at. He isn't one to take responsibility for his actions, or the actions of those who brought him to power. Just as those in Gamergate movement blamed everyone else for how they were feeling, so Trump projects his own brittle insecurities and fragility onto others.
It would be nice to think that the Ohio and El Paso shootings will represent a shift, that things will change, that they'll represent an endpoint, but they won't. It doesn't feel like we're there yet. Things will move on, there'll be other shootings, 8chan - or something similar - will pop up again elsewhere. For as long as there are those in power who legitimise their racism, their anger, their determination to own the Libs, who can make them feel like they're having an affect on the world, this cycle will continue.
Donald Trump may have condemned White Supremacy and racism after the weekend, but his supporters will read between the lines, often oblivious to their own engrained racism and rage, or justifying it by smirking: "Well, he has to say that..."
They know that Donald Trump is their man.
Video games are in no way responsible for what happened at the weekend, but the extremes of "gamer" culture are. Thanks to Steve Bannon's insight, Gamergate, and right-wing meme culture, provided the political template for Trump's rise; the conspiracies theories about gaming media, the attacks on minority groups and women... they were the testing ground for what came next; Trump, the all-powerful embodiment of the profoundly disempowered, a gestalt figurehead for the impotent and furious.
A sexual harasser who has never had to answer for the consequences of his actions, who verbally abuses others, a thin-skinned, weak, white man, who simply happens to be the most powerful person on the planet, with a platform that allows him to put Latino kids in cages, who tells dark-skinned political rivals to "Go back" to where they came from, who dehumanises immigrants, calling them "animals", rapists and criminals, who delegitimises the truth... who blames everyone but himself.
Who was paraphrased in the El Paso shooter's manifesto, who called his planned attack a “response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas”.
So, yeah, you can blame video games if you want, but it has about as much credibility as blaming Scooby Doo after your pitbull breaks free of its leash, and eats a baby.
And so here we are. Donald Trump biting the hand that feeds him - promising to put an end to violent video games - but it's all just lip-service.
I mean, he won't lift a finger. He's not actually going to do anything. For political purposes, he just needs somebody to blame right now. It's an attempt to deflect attention; a tactic that Trump excels at. He isn't one to take responsibility for his actions, or the actions of those who brought him to power. Just as those in Gamergate movement blamed everyone else for how they were feeling, so Trump projects his own brittle insecurities and fragility onto others.
It would be nice to think that the Ohio and El Paso shootings will represent a shift, that things will change, that they'll represent an endpoint, but they won't. It doesn't feel like we're there yet. Things will move on, there'll be other shootings, 8chan - or something similar - will pop up again elsewhere. For as long as there are those in power who legitimise their racism, their anger, their determination to own the Libs, who can make them feel like they're having an affect on the world, this cycle will continue.
Donald Trump may have condemned White Supremacy and racism after the weekend, but his supporters will read between the lines, often oblivious to their own engrained racism and rage, or justifying it by smirking: "Well, he has to say that..."
They know that Donald Trump is their man.
Video games are in no way responsible for what happened at the weekend, but the extremes of "gamer" culture are. Thanks to Steve Bannon's insight, Gamergate, and right-wing meme culture, provided the political template for Trump's rise; the conspiracies theories about gaming media, the attacks on minority groups and women... they were the testing ground for what came next; Trump, the all-powerful embodiment of the profoundly disempowered, a gestalt figurehead for the impotent and furious.
A sexual harasser who has never had to answer for the consequences of his actions, who verbally abuses others, a thin-skinned, weak, white man, who simply happens to be the most powerful person on the planet, with a platform that allows him to put Latino kids in cages, who tells dark-skinned political rivals to "Go back" to where they came from, who dehumanises immigrants, calling them "animals", rapists and criminals, who delegitimises the truth... who blames everyone but himself.
Who was paraphrased in the El Paso shooter's manifesto, who called his planned attack a “response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas”.
So, yeah, you can blame video games if you want, but it has about as much credibility as blaming Scooby Doo after your pitbull breaks free of its leash, and eats a baby.
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