You have got to be shitting me. No, seriously, where’s the “gotcha ya” at the end of the report? I cannot believe, for a second, that any pedophile/pervert anywhere, in the whole world, has ever used this and been successful. This rant, courtesy of Tycho of Penny Arcade, sums up the complete lunacy of the report:
Seriously, this is going too fucking far. I hate, hate, hate with a burning passion both “scare reports,” and anti-video game reports, (partly because the latter is almost always a form of the former,) and here we have yet a new way to attack video games. It’s no longer just the games that are bad, the gaming unit itself is bad and must be evil.
And the parents were complete morons. They didn’t think to read the manual? What?! Well, gee, maybe if you did like you were supposed to, you would have realized that yes, it has wireless chat capabilities and you should inform your child of the same thing you should be informing them about life in general:
DON’T TALK TO STRANGERS!!!
Christ, I learned that in kindergarten! And for how many years have we been told to tell our kids the same thing about the internet? Don’t chat with someone unless you know who it is, and never give out your real name/address/school/etc…
Christ on a fucking Keebler Club cracker with smoked Gouda.
One time I saw one of those scare tactic news reports. It was talking about how kids love to go shoot up the crack (or do you smoke crack? You smoke it, right? I honestly don’t know. Whichever). Anyway. The reporter goes, “Now, kids as young as 8 are doing crack and they use code names for it. The most popular is ’ Playing Baseball.’ So if your child says they are going to play baseball, you’ll know what’s really going on!”
For fuck’s sake. I can’t imagine how many kids got in trouble and called out for doing crack because of that stupid report.
What’s the deal with “gotcha ya?” Shouldn’t it just be “gotcha?” Or possibly “gotchya” or “got ya?” “Gotcha ya” makes no sense. Am I missing something?
Provoking fear in the viewers, unfortunately, is a surefire way to keep them in front of the tube so they watch all those commercials and keep the sponsors happy.
Well fuck them! I refuse to be cowed by my idiot box. Any time shit like that comes on, I change the channel or turn off the tube. As a result, my perspective on life has drastically improved in recent months.
I’m starting to sympathize with Elvis for shooting his TV set. It seems mighty tempting sometimes.
"Stay tuned to find out how your child may be in EXTREME DANGER RIGHT THIS INSTANT!!! But first a word from out spon-- KA-BOOM!
Well, in any case, let me say I wholeheartedly agree with the OP (and the Penny Arcade comic.) Scare tactics in the media are subtly condescending and insulting to my intelligence, and as a video game programmer it bothers me that this medium in particular has gotten such a bad reputation. People are just prone to fear new technologies I guess.
Three media buttons exist: Off; sex; and panic. Sexual predators get both of the non-off ones. I’m surprised that the weather doesn’t focus on how a predator could be hiding behind the snowbank right now! Snow is a sexual danger!
One local news just had a report on how people will meet for sex in the bathrooms of public parks, having hooked up with others of their ilk on Craigslist. The reporters actually stood in front of the bathrooms at local parks to report on this NEW TREND THAT COULD BE DANGEROUS TO YOUR FAMILY!! A few days later they reported back that the local GBLT community did not receive their report well, but they defended the report by reminding us that YOUR FAMILY COULD BE IN DANGER OF SEEING SOMETHING YOU REALLY DON’T WANT TO SEE!!
I have no idea. I was just commenting on the assertion that one hand had to be operating the gearbox, necessitating his use of his erection to type out the messages. The whole thing is silly, as you point out.