Blame the kids, not the games.
Jan 29 '00
Ever since the Columbine incident, an all-out war seems to have been declared on games, with parents stating that their children are being convinced that violence is the answer to your problems. Unfortunately, almost every other form of media has, at one time or another, been blamed for society's problems. From comic books to heavy metal, from radio to TV, almost every type of entertainment media has been accused of corrupting the world. Video games are the latest scapegoats.
People get on TV and say that their child was an innocent little angel until he got a hold of Doom. That's more than likely not true. Psychos are psychos, and it's more likely that peer pressure and the need to be accepted by their classmates drove them off the deep end than a few deathmatches. The Columbine killers, for example, were unpopular, and had probably been so their entire life. I doubt many people went out of their way to pick on them, but they somehow got it in their minds that everyone was constantly making fun of them. They snapped, and killed a lot of innocent people. But it wasn't because of Quake, it was because they were simply insane.
While I'd like to avoid playing the blame game, I must ask where the parents were. People seem to have accepted the idea that parents don't interfere with their teenage childrens' lives, so hardly anyone has (to my knowledge) gotten on TV and asked the parents why they hadn't noticed the shotguns on their child's bed.
It's odd that while people seem to agree that teenagers shouldn't allow parents enter their room, they don't seem to understand that being an unpopular guy can drive the more mentally unstable to suicide, or, even worse, to murder. Teenage life is not some episode of "The Real World" on MTV, and, for many, it's not "the best four years of your life". It can be downright hellish if you can't cope.
I seem to have digressed a bit, but no matter. The two murderers from Columbine were mentally unstable, unable to cope with their lives. Had their parents noticed the guns, and had they asked their son about them, the tragedy could have been avoided. Unfortunately, they didn't.
Don't let that fool you, though. The killers knew that they were doing. They were going to kill people because they were paranoid, and believed that all those people were out to get them. Insane, yes, illogical, yes. But they were going to get revenge for what they believed were crimes against them, and they knew that people would die by their hands.
The point I'm trying to make is that those who commit acts of such horrendous violence are basically unable to cope with life, but they still knew what they were doing. The games they play might even have acted as stress relievers for them. You could blame the parents for their ineptitude at raising a teenager, you could blame society for creating such a rift between the "cool" and "uncool". You could blame Doom. But the people to blame are the people who committed the acts, no matter what influences they may have had. The two Columbine shooters knew perfectly well what they were doing, insane though their motives may have been. They were madmen, but they were not dumb.
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Epinions.com ID:
novak_83
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Location: Pekin, IL
Reviews written: 14
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