Who's dumb? The Sun Chain's dumb

[thebitterguy]

Well, in the wake of The Dawson College shootings people have, as normal, started to seek easy scapegoats to make themselves feel better. After the whole Goth thing got chucked out for being retarded ("Have you ever met a Goth?" someone remarked on the CBC), they once again turned to video games. Oh, man. Jack Thompsonmust be masturbating like a FIEND right now.

Naturally, the Sun chain's columnists proved they have the ability to seek righteousness at the drop of a hat, facts be damned. I think cargoweasel's comparison of them to Fox News is more apt than I'd assumed (oh, God! They have their own TV channel!). Maybe if they had more video game advertisers they would be more level headed.

For all the latest, btw, checkout gamepolitics or GP's website.

Comments

[normanrafferty.livejournal.com]

Or what...?

Or here is your very own spaceship?

Or here is a million dollars?

[thebitterguy]

Or I obviously forgot to put in GP's website.

Feh. It's Sunday.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Annoying as all get out, agreed.

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

It's getting harder and harder to demonize and scapegoat folks like this -- not the least of which because as time has gone on they have gotten fairly savvy at defending themselves, and the media are still trotting out the same lame old attacks.

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

I was thinking the same thing... it's only the tabloids and rags (read by too many people, sadly) that are emphasising the video game and goth angle. I think people understand that an awful lot of people play video games, and that the number of those who go on to commit violent crimes is not statistically significant, nor is causality implied in the direction they're thinking of.

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

Don't worry too much. The shootings were pretty much ignored down here. I didn't see anything about it except a couple brief blog mentions, the blogs moved back to discussions of Bush in short order. Americans don't really believe that Canadians exist, let alone shoot each other over video games. Jack Thompson probably hasn't heard that there were shootings, and only would have got traction over them if they had occurred a hundred miles south of where they did.

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

...It was the top headline on CNN.com for two days at least. I don't think there's a separate Canadian CNN feed.

[uniquecrash5.livejournal.com]

Oh, Jack knows. He reads and they covered it. He's alone interested in being an attention whore in the US though, so I doubt he'd mention it extensively. ()

[uniquecrash5.livejournal.com]

Fuggin' html. Gamepolitics.com. It's also an LJ community: gamepolitics

[thebitterguy]

Yeah, but he'll have another 'case' to add to his list.

[uniquecrash5.livejournal.com]

Maybe if they had more video game advertisers they would be more level headed.

That's actually a highly significant point, methinks. Seriously, I wish I could figure out a way to get the right people thinking that.

[thebitterguy]

If there was a double video game section in papers every weekend, and video game ads took up 14% of cable ad space, I'll bet the'd be real hesistant to suggest any connections. Because the one thing every reporter hates is to alienate the advertisters.

[terminal-pariah.livejournal.com]

These people don't realize just how many students play video games. If games had any influence whatsoever, there would be school shootings every other day.

I was ostracized in high school, and I'll say it: there were a few times where I would have loved to go on a rampage. But I didn't. So-called "parent" groups could do a lot more to prevent school violence by working on a real problem, like bullying.

[thebitterguy]

Agreed on all points. I never wanted to rampage, personally, butBullying seems like a much better expenditure of concerned parents resources.