Just wondering… When did ‘good parenting’ stop and ‘video games’ start? I just read ANOTHER news article about how video games made this kid shoot his friend.
Since when do video games raise kids? How does a CD go out and buy a gun, get some ammo, and leave it in a sock drawer? I didn’t know CDs could pass a five day waiting period. When do video games leave their kids at home unattended? Oh, they don’t! Fuckers.
Uhhh . . . welcome to the 80s, my friend.
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Practically since video games were invented. Parents expect the t.v. or the video games to keep their kids out of their hair while they clean house, cook dinner, write out bills, etc. I blame it on inattentive parenting. Parents need to spend more time with their kids.
I think that’s the point of the rant. Video games don’t raise kids. Parents do, and some parents suck at it.
Video games can’t raise children, parents can and choose not to. And then something awful happens and the parents refuse to accept their own failures. Hence, blaming the influences that they allowed, their money supported, and that they left unchecked. Games are just games, its parents that raise children. And children that do actions. (I’m not real big on the blame the parents movement either. I like personal responsibility.)
How weird that I opened this thread right when I was checking Penny Arcade.
remember…
Columbine was all Marilyn Manson’s fault…
Damn! That didn’t work. All I wanted was “Just wondering… When did ‘good parenting’ stop and ‘video games’ start?” Then I would have replied “Probably in 1978, when kids robbed stores just to get money to play Space Invaders.”
Mods, delete my first post.
Ahh Christmas, that joyous time of year.
The time of year when we think about getting gifts for our family friends and loved ones. And since we’re getting gifts consumer advicate groups realize we will be buying stuff so its time to CRAM AN ASSLOAD OF PROPAGANDA DOWN OUR THROATS.
I hate guns, I hate violence and I hate the idea of killing another human being. But at the same time I’d like to entertain the idea that I’d fight and maybe kill to save my family, friends or even to save the life of a strange.
I grew up playing RPGs, reading fantasy novels, reading Lovecraft. I love horror movies. I grew up playing video games, I mudded for years (horridly addicted to them actually) and yes I play incredably violent FPS (first person shooters) and other video games that have demonic images on em [for godsake if you can’t blow up the devil who can you blow up].
I’m also an AIDS/HIV/SIV researcher and contribute to charities, I’m moderatly socially well adjusted (who the hell is well adjusted nowadays? I know I have my problems and I’m working to be a nice, kind human being… Just some days I’m evil, and its fun)and have a lot of good friends. (yeah I need to lose some weight, but if oyu can’t guess by now I’m a lazy lazy bastard)
Each year around x-mas time we start getting all of these half-assed news reports blaming video games (in the 80’s it was RPGs) for violence and suicides. Yeah during the year when some large news event happens involving someone under the age of 18 you hear about it. But never more than x-mas time. Ya wanna know why?
tangent
The groups making these statements are see an opening and are using public suport for their own interests. How many of these groups warning against violent video games are have religious affiliations? A lot of the anti-RPG groups from the 80’s that became the anti-video game lobbies had em. (lets see how well a teenager holds up to the pressure his parents place on him for playing a stupid RPG that they feel is satanic when all of his friends play it and the child and his friends know they are doing nothing evil or satanic just having a good time. How long will it be before being torn between his friends and his parents that the kid will snap.)
I remember in elementary school, I used to brig RPG manuals to school (we’re talking like 2 and 3rd grade here) and reading them in class and trying to figure out adventures to have my friends go through. Luckilly my teacher was smart enough to realize that at least I was interested in reading, and reading at a higher level than a lot of my class and using higher level thinking and mentioned to my parents that I need to spend more time focusing on class rather than getting a hair up her ass.
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Thats a tangent however.
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Simply put, x-mas is a time for people to buy gifts. What do kids want? Video games. What do video game makers want? Parent to buy their video game. Kids want violent video games, so how do you get parents to buy your non violent video game? (Hrrm give money to one of these groups which is agains violent video games?)
BTW, anyone ever heard anything bad about Wolfenstein 3D when it came out? I don’t remember hearing anyone complaining about how killing Nazi’s was bad. They may have said it was violent, but there wasn’t much of a stink about it. However you turn the skins from Nazi to demon and OH BOY ITS CORRUPTING THE YOUTH OF AMERICA. Its kinda hard to proclaim in the western world that its bad to kill nazis… Which I secretly belive is the reason why wolf 3D was made that way.
Yes, we all know it was the dreaded video game that left the gun out where the kids could get their mitts on it…
So it’s the parent’s fault because they had a gun in their house? Something had to happen to make this kid think that it was o.k. to go get that gun and shoot his friend and I don’t think it was the parents unless he comes from a violent home or something. You can only blame the parents for so much and I don’t blame parents for having a gun in their house. I blame parents who don’t pay attention to their kids, who don’t spend time with their kids, who don’t talk to their kids, and who don’t teach their kids that guns aren’t fucking toys and you don’t use them to kill people just because they piss you off or tease you or whatever the fuck the reason was. The only time you point a gun at someone is in self defense.
I’d like a link to that article if you have it broccoli!
The new wolfenstine even gets around that. They have nazi zombies! Next comes the nazies raising demons from hell.
Um, no.
It was their fault, however, that they were lax with their guns, and did not educate their children about it, or left the gun in a place where small children had access to it, loaded, etc etc.
I don’t think any of it has to do with the video games, television programs, movies, books, RPG’s (being a long time gamer, that’s a major sore point for me), or anything else.
It’s bad parents needing a scapegoat. There aren’t many people any more who are honest enough, when they screw up, to say, “Yes, I fucked up. I take responsibility.” No, it’s got to be someone else’s fault. If people spent half the time doing what they were responsible for doing instead of looking for someone to blame about it…well, that’s another tirade, for a different time. But it all starts at home, which is something said parents would conveniently like to forget.
I was brought up in a home with guns, was taught to respect them, and at an appropriate age, to use them. My husband is a police officer, and has multiple guns around the house, of necessity. His children have been taught that same respect for guns, and they know what the guns can do. He puts them away as a matter of course, but on the rare occasions that he does not, they’re left strictly alone. They’re not even an item of curiosity.
As far as games/movies/etc. go, we watch what they do; we listen to the music if we’ve got questions. Although we’re pretty liberal, and the kids are extremely sensible (the eldest particularly), we don’t hesitate to draw the line if we don’t like particular lyrics, or, in the case of the youngest, if a program seems to be affecting his behavior adversely.
(We’ve got no problems with either of them playing Diablo, for example, nor would we care if either showed an interest in AD&D or whatever. We wouldn’t let them onto a MUD (not that they’ve shown interest) simply because we’ve seen too many teens being immature and spoiling the game for other people. Being reasonably well mannered and intelligent, they probably wouldn’t…but that’s beside the point. Dragonball Z did get canned for the youngest because he would try, on occasion, to mimic the smart-ass way the kids acted on the program. After a belt to the butt reminded him that neither his father nor I were the brainless prats of parents portrayed on the program, nor would we accept that type of behavior, the program got canned until such time as he could recognize that that was not a good role model for behavior. BTW, he’s 12, and fresh to us from a mom who didn’t bother to follow-through nor monitor what he did at her home. He’ll come around. But how many parents actually turn off the TV when it means that they have to make sure the kid has something to do for an hour?)
What hacks me off about the concept of the video games/RPG’s/tv shows/movies/internet websites etc. being blamed for all this is that inevitably, the move comes to censor these things for all, thus hurting those of us with the initiative to get off our rumps and not only pay attention to what our children are doing, but teach them manners and respect as well. To which I say, ballocks and bullshit. Don’t punish everyone just because some people are too damn lazy to raise the children they brought into this world.
I have an idea!
Let’s all deny that the world is a complicated, bewildering place and believe that complex and horrifying situations can be ascribed to simplistic black/white causes.
Why didn’t some one else think of that?
Oh wait, broccoli already did. Nevermind, stop the presses.
I was raised on such quality titles as Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter 2, 3, Turbo, i don’t fucking know there were too many of those things anyway, and also such classics as Spy Hunter and 10 Yard Fight (that game SUCKED ASS) . . . As such, I respectfully disagree; I always find myself upper-cutting my enemies into a pit of spikes, throwing fireballs instead of using that ever-complex “communication” to deal with my problems, and driving too fast over the oil slick and never quite making it to the boat part (which was just like the damn car part, but bluer) . . .
I guess the point is, I hate people. Please assume that since I’m generation Y or whatever the hell I’m being called, and that I happened to see some boobies on Revenge of the Nerds while 8 years old because my parents thought I was able to handle such things rationally (and b/c that movie was a riot), that I am totally incapable of handling myself in a normal manner and discerning what is right from that which is unthinkable. That sort of ready-made excuse is just begging to be abused. That’s freaking wonderful - no chance that this isn’t a binary world, that maybe there’s no “one or zero” reason for why animate, self-aware beings do stupid shit . . .
Spy Hunter is a “classic?” Fuck me gently with a chainsaw. Here, sonny, let me check your diaper . . .
classic 80’s, maybe?
Well, it’s not like there’s a competency test you have to pass before you become a parent… most people who suck at being parents don’t find out until years after it’s way too late to do anything about it.
Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2001/11/30/state1142EST0068.DTL
thegrimspectreofdeath Let’s imagine a world where we don’t have a scapegoat for everything. Go piss up a rope. I’m done with you.
Ethilrist That’s kinda my point. You need a license to drive a car. You gotta have a license for a gun. You need a license to before you get married. Yet, have all the kids you want! I guess kids are easier to control than guns or cars, and more tame to manage than a marriage.
Now before more people jump on my ass [sub](not that most of you have, but I’ve noticed a large part of this BBQ pit equates to someone being annoyed at something and saying it out loud, and then 50 people telling them they’re an asshole for having an opinion)[/sub] I am not saying that you should have to get a license to have kids. I’m just tired of people needing to blame everything but themselves. So few people in this country take responsibility for their actions… it’s just annoying.