The Waves and Throughs of "Video Games Cause Violence"-Type Thinking - And it's instances in the past, present, and possibly future

[Iwasamwillbe]

Apologies if this kind of thread was made before.

Throughout the 80s to the late 2000s, fundies were warning us about how video games caused violence, how rock music was a series of magic mind waves sent from the Devil to destroy morality and societal cohesion itself, how Harry Potter and Dungeons and Dragons invited children to study the dark arts, how this thing or that was a product of occult Satanism, etc.

Nowadays, we have wokists, leftists, and Marxists of all stripes telling us how edgy jokes in videos is a "pipeline" to "alt-right fascism", how common literary tropes are proof of institutional racism/sexism, how a show not including every "minority" or "marginalized group", and then not in a completely positive light, is a sign of its creator's bigotry, how we should raceflip/gender-swap/change the sexual orientation of established characters for "representation" purposes and if you don't like that you're a bigot, how this thing or that was a product of cryto-Nazism or whatever the fuck, etc.

One of the primary common denominators in this whole thing is the "think of the children" rhetoric, as well as the notion that media is magic that can convince or influence people towards literally any conceivable thing or position, but I'm certain there's more to it than that.

I'm struggling to think of a term for this kind of thinking. I also wonder what will be considered the next evil youth-corrupting media that will destroy society in the future.

 

[Meat Target]

Moral panic? Purity spiraling? Horseshoe Theory?

 

[FluffyTehFennekin]

Satanic Panic 2: leftist boogaloo

 

[Iwasamwillbe]

Moral panic? Purity spiraling? Horseshoe Theory?

I need something more specific, one that incorporates the "media is magic" type thinking that is universally involved in these hysterical screeds against the supposed hidden forces of evil that are corrupting the young and innocent.

 

[Syaoran Li]

I need something more specific, one that incorporates the "media is magic" type thinking that is universally involved in these hysterical screeds against the supposed hidden forces of evil that are corrupting the young and innocent.

Moral panic is the most apt term, I'd say.

 

[Iwasamwillbe]

Moral panic is the most apt term, I'd say.

Would you say "media panic" is a better term for what I'm describing?

 

[Syaoran Li]

Would you say "media panic" is a better term for what I'm describing?

I think it would, as moral panic is a bit more broad.

Media panics often overlap with wider moral panics, of course.

 

[Lemmingwise]

How rock music were magic mind waves sent from the Devil to destroy morality

If you remove the magic angle, this one is true though.

Henry Ford specifically created country music as a counterweight to jazz music and what he considered the immorality that was teid to it.

--

Similarly, SJW's aren't wrong in that comedy, pepe's and anonymous discussion online are all gateways to alt-right ideas. The thing is that most people are non-combatants and thus will defend something just on the basis that they like it, with no regard what influence that subculture has on the wider culture, because most people simply don't care very much about that.

So people will defend rock music because they like it, and turn a blind eye towards all the unhealthy things involved. Similarly people will defend comedy and pepe's and turn a blind eye towards the political revolution that it may contribute towards.

--

And finally, make no mistake, media and media control is incredibly powerful. It may not always be able to change how you think about something (though even if they shift your opinion 10% that is pretty meaningful), it's also that it controls WHAT you think about. If there are 10 things to cover in any given day and room to display 3 of those prominently, then it can choose to hide the true headlines that are bad for whatever political motives of the editor and display the ones that are good for whatever causes he or she believes in or is guided to believe in from higher up.

In 2017 was one moment where on MSNBC they attacked Trump for tweeting: "He could control exactly what people think. And that is our job!"

 

[Jonah Hill poster]

The problems of the 1990’s are now being exacerbated into the 2020’s.
Only difference is that social media and A.I. are now forcing people to be politically correct, while siding with the same corporations that end using and drying up consumers for money.

Video games, in this case, are just the scapegoat for not fixing the serious problems in the households.

 

[Lemmingwise]

I also wonder what will be considered the next evil youth-corrupting media that will destroy society in the future.

Easy. Whichever media will be most influential. You have to consider that media is influential. Then if you want to control it or influence it, you have to create in people the fear for the influence that you don't want it to have. This is purely done through fear mongering.

Whenever you have two sides, one will be on the attack, and fearmonger. The other will attack the first for fearmongering.

Your impulse to worry about moral busybodies yapping about evil youth-corrupting media is in practice not really different. You also fear that they will influence/control the medium. And this idea of non-control or non-influence and wanting people to be left alone to make and consume whatever they want is just a fantasy that can only exist briefly, while the type of influence / control corresponds with your own beliefs about the world.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Video games are a special target for authoritarians because it's a medium with a lot of powerful potential, it's essentially what all of human art has been building towards, being able to create a world that you can feel like you've stepped into and can interact with.

The freedom inherent in the media is exactly why it's seen as such a threat to authoritarians.

 

[Red Hood]

how Harry Potter and Dungeons and Dragons invited children to study the dark arts

To be fair to the busybody moms and evangelists people practicing neopagan/witchcraft shit has either increased or become more visible since about the mid 90's. See the witchblr thread for more on that autismo.

 

[I Love Beef]

Video games are a special target for authoritarians because it's a medium with a lot of powerful potential, it's essentially what all of human art has been building towards, being able to create a world that you can feel like you've stepped into and can interact with.

The freedom inherent in the media is exactly why it's seen as such a threat to authoritarians.

That and the fact that the more shady sides of government will bitch and whine about something new until it neatly fits into its agenda. Remember that both Democrats and Republicans were equally asshurt over video games until the proliferation of more "modern military setting" FPSes like Halo and Call of Duty post 9/11. About as much as America's Army is a kick ass game and I have my faith in America's Finest, the war machine and the corporate overlords will control what they fear and will destroy what they cannot control. Perhaps it's an explaination why dangerhairs want "muh representation" so bad; they want a piece of that pie.

(pssst faggotferret I am over here)

 

[ZombiefiedFerret]

That and the fact that the more shady sides of government will bitch and whine about something new until it neatly fits into its agenda. Remember that both Democrats and Republicans were equally asshurt over video games until the proliferation of more "modern military setting" FPSes like Halo and Call of Duty post 9/11. About as much as America's Army is a kick ass game and I have my faith in America's Finest, the war machine and the corporate overlords will control what they fear and will destroy what they cannot control. Perhaps it's an explaination why dangerhairs want "muh representation" so bad; they want a piece of that pie.

(pssst faggotferret I am over here)

@ me pussy.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I'm pretty sure that the main reason video game violence is pushed in the last decades is due to Hollywood being envious of it being a bigger market than their shitty blockbusters.