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THE GREAT SCAPEGOAT: VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES

6/8/2019

23 Comments

 
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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.
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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. 
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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.
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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. 
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23 Comments
Martin Wright
6/8/2019 10:11:26 am

Presumably the US military will therefore stop using videogames, and specifically FPSs, as a recruit tool then?

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Picston Shottle
6/8/2019 11:51:59 am

If you take Trump and his divisive politics out of the picture you’re still left with the biggest problem America has: guns. You could have the the most perfect President ever, beloved by the left and the right, but if you still have a heavily armed populace you’ll still have mass shootings; somehow large swathes of America fails to acknowledge the direct correlation between having guns and using them to kill people, and not having them and people not being killed by them.

Most of the Western world is being polarized - we’re in the midst of a New World Order being birthed; it’s a rejection of what was put in place after WWII, and Trump is just a symptom of that. Is Boris actually any better or worse than Trump? How about Oban? Salvini? And let’s not forget good ‘ol Nigel and Yaxley-Lennon! They’re all bigoted, far right buffoons, but people listen to them, and take them seriously, and that scares me for what comes next. I don’t want my daughter, who’s half Hispanic (and I have a half Chinese nephew), growing up in a world that is dominated by white supremacists who yearn for a world we left behind 70 years ago.

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CdrJameson
6/8/2019 12:00:42 pm

By engaging with this stupid argument you've already lost - you've become distracted and you're fighting the wrong battle.

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Mr Biffo
6/8/2019 12:25:50 pm

Lost what?

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CdrJameson
6/8/2019 01:59:49 pm

Spare car keys

RichardM
6/8/2019 12:26:29 pm

Alarming stuff about Bannon... what saddens me is that even if Trump is ejected in 2020 by the Democrats, the alt-right isn’t going to go away. What’s it going to take? As much as I’d love to bring the kids to Florida and Disney in a year or two, I am genuinely concerned for their safety in the USA. What a world to be bringing them up in.

Anyway. Saw a chart of videogame revenue per capita vs mass shooting deaths on Twitter earlier: no correlation at all, what a surprise!

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Steve Perrin link
6/8/2019 10:03:09 pm

This is a tough one.

Yes there are mass shootings in America and they seem frequent what with how they are reported in the news, But to be honest, the chances of one happening are very, very slim.

I've been to Florida many, many times over the years. Got to be at least 15 visits over the last 20 odd years. Every time I have ever been out there, I felt extremely safe and more so than here in the UK. IT;s hard to describe unless you've experienced it, but it just feels so different out there, it feels safer.

We have guns here in the UK too and one day, you could be in ASDA doing a weekly shop when a gunman walks in and starts shooting the place up. The difference between here and the US is that we don't have that gun culture that the US has. We don't believe a centuries old piece of paper is still relevant today.

But don't pass up the chance of going to Florida just because of a story like this. It really is an amazing place and the only regret I have with it is that I can never experience it for the first time again.

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RichardM
6/8/2019 11:29:55 pm

Yeah, I was being a bit dramatic. I imagine the baddies would have a hard time getting us at Disney World! The real impediment to going is one child who goes into paroxysms of terror when confronted by someone in a costume... Maybe it would be a fun trip after all?

Serious Barnes
6/8/2019 12:36:57 pm

I don't disagree with anything you've said here Biffo. It's a misdirection tactic and that's all it is in this instance.

That said, as I've aged, my opinion on the overall healthyness of violence in videogames has changed. And I speak as someone who virtually murdered a lot of people back in the 90s and has yet to murder anyone real.

I don't think we have any way of accurately measuring the impact that repeated portrayal of violence in videogames has on a human psyche over time. But I don't think that's an argument for anything goes. Indeed I'd argue for the use of caution.

I'm aware that violence has been a staple of other mediums since stories began being told, from cave paintings onwards, however I do think that videogames are unique in that they are the only medium that rewards the audience for taking violent action - progression often depends on it. Again, we simply don't know what that does over time. Maybe nothing. Maybe something. Maybe its all to intricately woven into a fabric of other influences we'll never be able to untangle it.

I worry about the 'entertainmentisation' of war, particularly historical wars and especially now graphics are so realistic. I worry about the confusion of a brain that is witnessing the horror of war at the same time as receiving a dopamine hit for being an active part of it.

I'm not saying people can't tell the difference between reality and fiction. I'm not suggesting games players are more likely to be violent in real life. I think you probably have to be a bit messed up in the first place to be so influenced.

But the reality is that most of us, particularly in the western world, are extremely insulated from any real violence. Most of us have never been in a war. In the UK, most of us will never have held or fired a gun. Most of us have never seen a dead body, or killed an animal bigger than a worm using a weapon. Yet we think we have an idea of what it's like, and if our ideas are informed by a medium that cannot convey the visceral horror of it (because the consequences of violence in games are so comparatively miniscule), then it's not ridiculous to be concerned about the lessons we're learning from videogames. It's too easy to just shout "scapegoat" every time violence in games is raised as a talking point. It deserves serious consideration.

Again, I don't believe for a second Trump has any genuine interest in opening a debate about it. And I don't think you're wrong to say the shootings in the US over the last couple of days have more direct causes than videogame violence. But I am increasingly of the opinion that a lack of direct experience of real violence and an overload of indirect experience of simulated violence is a problem that humanity is at some point going to have to reckon with.

That's it. That's all I have to say.

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Mr Biffo
6/8/2019 12:42:05 pm

Oh, sure. I'm not advocating for an "anything goes" approach at all, and I do sometimes worry about the nature of violence in games and films and TV. I mostly make the choice not to play or watch anything that's extremely violent for the sake of it. But I guess that discussion wasn't really the intention of writing this article. It was more exploring the irony behind Trump speaking out against violent games.

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colincidence link
6/8/2019 12:46:49 pm

The Christchurch shooter intentionally streamed his spree as if a FPS; the Columbine kids planned out their assault in DOOM. Tony Hawk's games increased interest in skateboarding. Video games have a cultural influence and it's worth assessing... But it's not the conversation for now. Trump has invoked it as misdirection from the rhetoric and culture that has led to the shooters' outlooks, as it's a culture he's been instrumental to.

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RichardM
6/8/2019 01:49:13 pm

I don’t think it’s reasonable to say Klebold and Harris planned the massacre in DOOM. They made some WADs, yes, but nobody has ever conclusively seen a WAD of Columbine High School. Nor is it even possible to make a 1:1 replica of any multiple floor building in the original DOOM engine.

As per Frank Zappa: 'I wrote a song about dental floss, but did anyone's teeth get cleaner?’

colincidence link
6/8/2019 02:28:25 pm

My apologies; it's a while since I read up on Columbine and DOOM.

Burt the Bashful
6/8/2019 01:02:30 pm

I like how an article that discusses trump ends with a big pic of Fat Sow!

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Mr Bass
6/8/2019 02:48:59 pm

Mr Biffo, thank you very much for writing this piece. It's a far cry away from the usual wonderful so-left-of-field-its-on-a-housing-estate humour you use, and ever so more poignant and effective for it. You are echoing the thoughts and opinions vast majority of people who are of sane (?) mind, even those of us who read/watch/consume Digi on a regular basis. By doing so, albeit inadvertently, you are helping to reinforce the feeling of justification we all share when we stand in befuffled, horrified amazement at the sheer nerve of that orangutang-skinned pussy-grabbing maniac the Americans call President.

The fact his surname is another word used to describe passing wind reflects the noxious emissions he comes out with on a daily basis.

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twallops
6/8/2019 07:47:35 pm

"it was gamer culture which helped Trump get elected" and that's where I stopped reading this garbage. And bringing up Gamergate in 2019, lol. Go back to writing Sooty episodes sir.

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colincidence link
6/8/2019 08:38:46 pm

If you'd continued reading you might have learned things.

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RichardM
6/8/2019 08:58:37 pm

I love that writing Sooty somehow invalidates everything else you ever write. He didn’t say much, I suppose! If only twallops was similarly afflicted...

Mr Bass
6/8/2019 09:52:18 pm

It would be helpful / reduce the level of perceived douchiness on your part, if you could back your criticisms up with at least some logical arguments and - I shudder to think - some actual documentary evidence to back up your points. Just dissing a point isn't disproving it, rather enabling it to become all the more valid...

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Smilin' Peter
6/8/2019 08:04:29 pm

Violent video games are available across most of the developed world. But only one country in the developed world suffers mass shootings on a depressingly regular basis.

There have now been 251 mass shootings in the USA in 2019. And we are only just into August.

I am not suggesting that Americans are all depraved gun nuts. But I am suggesting that perhaps the causes of this kind of violence lie elsewhere.

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Stringfellow Hawke
6/8/2019 09:15:36 pm

The Great Scapegoat: Gamergate

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Matt
7/8/2019 01:51:58 pm

Hmmm. My seven year old boy, and his mates, thinks guns are cool, due to fortnite. Now I've banned him from it (cue peer issues) and he doesnt live in an environment where he has access to a catapult, let alone a Heckler and Koch VP9, and he has two parents who can explain the world in hopefully coherent terms.

Plenty of kids across the planet dont have those safeguards. Do games fetishise guns, and violence? Yes. Solely responsible? Hell no. But the industry is taking next to no responsibility on this, and they will be an easy target.

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Adam
8/8/2019 05:08:58 pm

True fact - Steve Bannon makes loads of money from sales of Seinfeld repeats. There's no justice in the world...

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