Right, so lets get to the proper end of this first. Today’s article is a response to the story written in the Evening Standard (a British newspaper) sometime last week about the London riots. The sub-headline read “Children as young as ten, inspired by video games, among the looters.“ Well, of course this got all kind of gaming news sites riled up about the affair! Pitchforks and torches raised by all! Pitorches in fact!
While this is based on a “claim” made by an officer, I’m a bit disappointed in the news media (ok, I shouldn’t be so surprised, but I thought foreign news was a bit more level headed) for just posting inflammatory nonsense. The fact of the matter is, videogames are the new scape goat of global society. The cause of all social ills. “What’s this? Civil unrest? Murders? Vandalism? Theft? Obviously this is a new development in global society! We were such civil people until these video games corrupted our youth!” Right, get over it media!
I will say this, the newspaper reprinted the edition with a new sub-headline “Children as young as ten hunted by police after riots across city.“ Guess outside pressure forced them to change (so says another article… see source). Good move, but the newspaper shouldn’t have to change its position because of community outrage. There shouldn’t be any outrage to begin with. How hard is it to be objective? Lol, I guess hard cause I can’t objectively read any news from any source. They spin so much BS into it. Ah well… still, I’m glad they had the good sense to retract that statement.
(I apologize in advance for the following statement) For the record, the original statement said GTA was to blame, though I think we all know what kind of game is more likely to cause rioting in the streets…
Ah… sorry bout that, please don’t hate! Also… I have no idea what British newscasters look like… just assumed they all have monocles. XD
Source: CVG
OOOOOOOOOOOK! That’s that for this segment of Tooned News. Hope you’ve enjoyed. In my head, I’d take some hot headlines involving the new core direction of CC “gaming and geeking”, so along those lines. I was inspired by reading lots of news articles and having comic ideas popping into my head. So why not make a comic and toss in my 2 copper? Not really sure where to go with these… Maybe a weekly thing? More? Color? B&W? idk… What say you good people of the interweblands?
Loading ... Loading ... Loading ...
But wait if u call right now ull get stupid love songs from the sixtys
…as interpreted by Burt Bacharach!
Fact: All London TV shows had mandatory tea in them. And everyone wears a monocle.
Also, I’m back in WoW. Kinda.
I knew it! don’t forget the wingtip collars and bow ties. a very important part of the traditional dress. XD
welcome back bro!
Bring it on, m8! Sounds like fun :D
>) thanks! here’s hoping! guess my next step is to start advertising this site more. ick!
noooooooooo! there is alredy the daily blink and nobody reads it, i only know of it beacause it is on the “webcomics based on warcraft” wikipedia list.
eh, it would make for another interesting set of rants at least. and I’m sure Daily Blink gets a heck of a lot more traffic than this one. but I guess it’s all in how you swing the ads. spend money to make money I suppose.
i havent played the latest FIFA, but im sure it doesnt have any rioting on it, cant say the same for any GTA game. i know you apologized in advance for that statement, but still i think you just dont like football, this yankees and their american rugby.
actually, I like “football” the most. I played soccer quite a bit when i was younger. darn good at it too! >)
I really wonder when media/society is going to stop blaming computer games/videos/board games/pen & paper rpg/larp/etc for violent behaviour; the medial discussions about it here in swe is getting quite boring by now - besides, it’s always the same discussion, they just keep shifting the blame to whatever new thing it is that youngsters is doing without ever getting to the source of the problem. Sure, if a young and impressionable person is watching too much violence or play games where anti-social behaviour goes unpunished (or even is promoted), of course they are going to be influenced by it. But it’s important to realize that it’s still the parents’ responsibility to not give violent games to a too young kid but instead teach them good values so that they won’t get the impression that it’s a good idea to smack other people irl.
As you said - video games is just a scapegoat. I believe that quite many people just don’t want to realize that humans are pretty violent by nature and need to be taught how to behave in a civilized society; mainly due to that such realization would generally make them feel bad about themselves (like “gosh, maybe it was a bad idea to let my 10 year old play GTA, maybe I’m to blame for some of the violence”).
I think it may have been Lakha Lama (although I may remember wrong) that was asked if killing someone in a violent computer game gave bad karma, to which he replied that “do whatever you need to do in order to not harm real people, as long as you know the difference it’s most likely okay”…
When you get down to the real nitty gritty…. it all comes down to genetics and parenting. See, some people are (according to research) predisposed to be desensitized to violence. Like a serial killer’s mind is wired differently. That’s why they say when kids start killing puppies and stuff, it’s going to be a big problem later. Anyways, the other end of the spectrum is the parenting. Some studies show that games do NOT cause violence when played by their appropriate rating level ages. However, they cause a brief spike in aggression that subsides shortly after. Same effect as movies and such. BUT, if the kids are playing MA games, the effect can be more profound and if exposed repeatedly and for long periods of time (says the study) they “could” have longer lasting or “permanent” changes to their empathy and aggression. So… don’t let little kids play Mortal Kombat and you’re fine.
Of course, there really isn’t a lot of study in this field… you’d think there would be more given the amount of ill will towards it. So as far as the validity of these, well, who knows. But logic dictates that it mostly resides on the parents to… ya know… parent their children.
Videogames are the new shiny toy in the global market, so they’ll be getting the rotten end of the stick for a while… or at least until the next thing comes along. Then we can just blame those pesky holodecks for all of society’s problems.
lol! And that’s why I love those Llamas!
great points altogether, yoou just gained a brand new reader.
Whaat might you suggest about your put up that you just made a few
days in the past? Any certain?
my page … grateful
I’ve read a few just right stuff here. Definitely value bookmarking for
revisiting. I wonder how much effort you set to make the sort of magnificent informative web site.