This is a 4 part series where I examine two opposing narratives about video game violence. The first is the claim that video games are "training people to become mass shooters" and the second is the claim that video game violence has no effect on players because they are fantasy and anyone enjoying a game can meaningfully separate fantasy from reality.
Both of these claims are, in my opinion, not accurately representing video game violence, but instead are narratives built to deflect attention away from the more serious issues at hand, namely the easy access to firearms in the US and gaming culture's historically uncomfortable relationship with real world politics which has resulted in the culture becoming a convenient space for radicalization into the far right, particularly in the early to mid-2010s.
This series covers a number of related subtopics, and each video will cover the following topics:
in the Introduction, I lay out the basic arguments I'm making, discuss what cultural narratives are and why it's important to promote healthy skepticism of cultural narratives, and also tie the history of violent game controversies to my own experience as a child who was a social outcast who got invested in violent games as part of my alienation from peers, becoming the stereotype of the "columbine shooter" and dealing with the repercussions of being viewed that way as a child.
In Part 1, I will discuss the history of violent game controversies, starting with Mortal Kombat and ending with the Grand Theft Auto series, trying to showcase in detail how the stigma against violent games manifested in mainstream media and in US politics, in an effort to refute the narratives being promoted about how "games make people violent."
In Part 2, I will discuss more plausible causes behind why mass shootings occur, looking at the role that access to firearms, political ideology, personal and interpersonal issues in the lives of shooters, and other sociological factors play in the increase in prevalence of mass shootings since the turn of the 21st century and especially into the 2010's and onward.
In Part 3, I'll discuss the political meanings of violence in video games and how when we assess video games as a text we can identify the ways in which games use violence to appeal to the political sympathies of their core audience. Through this, I'll examine some examples of popular video games that showcase how the political sympathies of violent games gradually shifted towards more and more right wing political perspectives, thus culturally setting the stage for gaming as a space to become a pipeline for radicalization.
In Part 4, I'll address the effects that violent content in games might be having on gaming as a culture and on players, such that games could help lead to events such as the rise of gamergate and the alt-right movements. I'll argue that mass shooters, although not motivated by video games, reflect the ideological sympathies of the historical cultural space of gaming and also fit the key demographics of those the games are marketed to. In other words, I'll argue that gaming as an industry has profited off of emboldening the personal and political beliefs that give rise to mass shooters and the cultural spaces they occupy prior to the act of massacre.
Time-stamps for this video:
0:00 - Disclaimer
2:30 - Introduction
13:26 - Pre-amble: People used to think I was going to become a school shooter
21:38 - Narratives
26:10 - Thesis and Outline
Patreon link: / malmroseprojects
27 июл 2024
