Head's up that I'm seeing increasing online chatter blaming the Charlie Kirk assassination on video games. 1990s-era Boomer takes on video games from people who have never held a controller are back on the menu.
I first noticed it in this Michael Savage column:
Even more disturbing, Savage warned, is the way violent rhetoric online merges with role-playing in video games until players can no longer separate fantasy from reality. “Many of these games are about fighting an oppressive fascist government. So the kid playing becomes the hero taking on fascists — then one day he carries that mindset into real life. And suddenly Charlie Kirk is a ‘fascist’ who must be eliminated.”
At the time, I dismissed it as an out-of-touch and uninformed opinion from an elderly man who didn't grow up around video games the same way the generations of men after him did. Unfortunately for us, however, there are people who listen to these uninformed talking heads. Those people are now parroting back the same "it's those darn video games that are making the kids violent" nonsense in comment sections all over the internet.
For better or for worse, video gaming is far more mainstream than it was in the 1990s. Anti-gaming arguments aren't going to have much sticking power against now multiple generations of gamers. Plus there probably isn't much interest at Steam or Sony or Microsoft on cracking down on anything that isn't porn. I'm not going to doom about it. But still, head's up.
hear me out
at this point actually do thing video game consumption is partially to blame, but it's not nearly the full story.
The far left has convinced itself of a world that is not real. it's the product of the hyperbole being thrown around. "Trump is literally Hitler", "the Republicans are fascists", erc. etc. it's been thrown around so much, that people are starting to believe the hyperbole.
now apply this to someone who consumes way too much social media, plays way too many video games, watches way too much tv, and simply doesn't live in the real world. in their games they fight oppressive regimes all the time, killing their enemies. ""I am living in an oppressive regime, so why aren't I killing my enemies in real life?" This fantasy world is reinforced by the social media echo chamber, the video games, and isolation/indoctrination they get from college campuses. If nothing pulls them out, they will eventually be too far gone like Kirk's murder.
of course, the solution isn't to ban video games, social media, and college campuses (God I wish), it's to identify and intervene on antisocial behavior.