Posted on 03/12/2018 9:09:08 PM PDT by fluorescence
Donald Trump’s claim, in the aftermath of the Florida school shooting, that these events are the result of violent video games, resurrects old arguments about whether young people emulate the games they play. The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) recent decision to consider video game addiction an official illness shows comparable concern. However, these responses demonstrate anxiety about the right things for the wrong reasons.
Gaming cultures are connected to violence – but should be considered in terms of the rise of far right political discourse and the prominence of “alt-right” misogyny and racism. While Trump is firmly on the right and the WHO may embody normative centrism, there is an aspect of gaming that should worry the progressive left.
The white male supremacy in gaming has been discussed in the context of the harassment campaign Gamergate and via the link between Trump and gamer message board threads on the 4chan website. Yet it’s not simply that many gamers are right wing, or that the right recruits gamers, but that the logic and pleasure of gaming itself has served and continues to serve the political right.
Games are ideological constructions which push a set of values on the user. Like television and film, they often support the ideologies of their context: in the Bush years, American games endorsed aggressive foreign policy; since Brexit, British games advocate isolationism or nostalgia for empire – and the prominence of anti-Islam games in the 2000s tells it all.
However, video games have at least two unique features compared to other media.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Thank you, Anita Sarkesian. We wouldn’t exist without you.
And yet they overlook hate-filled, sexist, violent racist genocide rap music.
Because their democrat constituents listen to that hate crap.
Liberalism really, really is a mental disorder.
I know some FReepers say you should read an article before commenting but I’m not going to on this one, for this article is BS to the extreme, and its sad if anyone believes this crap.
Tell that to Ms.Pac-Man.
It is an interesting thesis. I suspect it has a certain merit.
Television and movies are watched passively. They teach people to be observers, not participants. Television has coincided with the rise of the left in the West.
But digital media is not passive, it is active, rather like freerepublic. Gamers are not passive recipients of messages, but active participants in the game.
That is exactly the opposite of what TV taught.
Thanks to the tireless dissing of the left by President Trump we’re all living rent free in their heads. They really think we’re all demon scum from hell!
Wow the author could not be more wrong.
Anyone that has ever spent even a modicum of time visiting online gaming message boards will see the left/right split is at best 30/70 or 20/80 in favor of leftist ideologies.
They may see right wing boogie men everywhere but gamers are sure not right wing.
But you have to take in to consideration that many speaking for the left are forum spies.
This certainly must be leading young men towards becoming neo-reactionary medievalists!
I really want to play Grand Theft Tranny 5.
The alt-right spin is just liberal vindictiveness. They just want pussy-hat games and LGBTYQYZ indoctrination. I do believe all the violence is creating sociopaths. Just my opinion.
Gamers were culturally left for a long time, mostly because of indoctrination.
Then Gamergate came along, and they found themselves under attack just because of their hobbies and what they enjoyed, being called sexist pigs through no fault of their own.
That soured a LOT of them to the left.
CNN Claims Russian Anti-Hillary Video Game Influenced Election, Prompting Mockery
Breitbart | March 12, 2018 | Charlie Nash
Posted on 03/12/2018 3:35:41 PM PDT by EdnaMode
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3639198/posts
Of the games I can remember ...
S.P.E.C.T.R.E. is one of the best first person shooters ever. Made from a Russian perspective, you find yourself battling NATO troops. Doesn’t sound too right-wing, does it?
One of the most popular games ever, Skyrim, allows you to fight against the empire or fight with the empire, your choice. That’s hardly right wing.
The Fallout series feature survival in a nuclear wasteland. Is survival only a right wing thing?
Another popular title is Bioshock, where George Washington is featured as a bigoted, loony right winger. This doesn’t do much for the author’s narrative.
We may have to go meta, outside individual games to make any sense of the article’s conclusion. Action games feature fighting against various forces and oppressors. Compared to the leftist belief that all cultures, forces, and oppressors are equal, fighting successfully rewards white male supremacy, the only group incapable of being oppressed, the meme goes. The left would shout kumbaya as the mutant wolves eat the player and end the game.
Maybe video games look right wing because to win the game, the player has to do something, and that’s incompatible with being a ward of the state.
And billiards is a racist game because you use white ball to knock the colored balls off the table.
These clowns see racism everwhere.
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