A man with a black trench coat whose shooting rampage in a Montreal college killed one person and wounded 19 others before he was slain by police said on a blog in his name that he liked to play a role-playing Internet game about the Columbine shootings. —Montreal gunman liked ‘Columbine’ game (Yahoo! | AP)
Of course it must have been the video game that caused this horrible tragedy. And to think — he blogged about it, too!
The mainstream media coverage of Columbine was only reporting and reflecting on something that was there already, right? Only video games and things people write in their online profiles can cause people to snap like that.
Damn those games! Damn those blogs! They’re ruining society!
Kimveer Gill’s vampirefreaks gallery also includes a shot of his favorite movie poster (The Corpse Bride), and alcohol; his profile (what the mainstream media seem to be calling a blog) includes the following shout-out to Quentin Tarantino: “Keep making those kick ass movies man, you rock.”
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Many people have committed crimes after writing about them in their private diaries, but only those diaries that happen to be posted online for others to read can be found by journalists looking for a "scary media caused this tragedy" angle. So that kind of a story tends to reinforce the fears that many people have about technology.
I agree, that Columbine game is creepy, but it's hardly a high-tech simulation.
As an author of horror fiction, I am the last person to claim entertainment media causes violence. Yet I feel compelled to point out that none of your counter-examples are set in a high school with gunfire in the hallways (like the 'columbine' game). Surely that particular content must signify something relevant?
Good point. What if the kid had stayed up watching a Gilligan's Island marathon?
The local news here in Eau Claire had a similar "blame the games" moment the other night. A local teen stayed for up almost 24 hours playing games and then fell asleep behind the wheel of a car and drove into the side of a house. Naturally, what was the focus of the TV piece? "Video games, are they killing our children?" or something like that. If the kid had stayed up reading for 24 hours, would they have blamed books?