Videogames Are Created By Satan
It's a little difficult to tell where the line between hyperbole and seriousness is, but in this piece on The Orange County Register, Marla Jo Fisher begins her story declaring, "I truly believe that video games were created by Satan to turn otherwise normal children into his drooling, glassy-eyed stooges."
Describing herself as the "Frumpy Middleaged Mom" Mademoiselle Fisher proudly declares that her home is the only one on the block that has no video games. And no piece of anti-video game fear propaganda is complete without mention of everyone's favorite piece of hyperbole, Grand Theft Auto:
My kids do play games, outdoors in the fresh air, where they're building their muscles and hopefully a lifetime habit of fitness.What are the kids who play "Grand Theft Auto" learning? How to be carjackers? How to be pursued by police?
Those are skills I really want my children to acquire.
As a young gay adult with little to no predisposition towards having children of my own, I really wish more parents would do their jobs rather than legislate morality on the rest of the world. Grand Theft Auto is rated M, for mature, meaning that no child under the age of 17 should be playing it in the first place. The ESRB was instituted to do the business of rating games so that parents could responsibly check what content is inside titles their children want to buy and purchase or avoid them responsibly. Children should not be playing video games rated for adults. This is, to me, a pretty simple concept, but somehow instead of parents actually... you know, parenting... they would rather pitch fits and try and stamp out the existence of something all together instead of monitoring what their children do. There's no sense of personal responsibility anymore and I, for one, am increasingly aggravated being made to parent the children of strangers because they won't do it themselves.
My own proselytizing aside, Frumpy Middleaged Mom wrote a followup article in response to Internet Criticism reaffirming her position. Games aren't created by Satan, they're the work of Voldemort. Oh brother.
mixvio
Posted to Miscellany on 7 January 2010
· Comments (8)
Other stuff like this: frumpy middleaged mom, legislation, orange county register, silly parents
People are so quick to discard videogames as a learning tool. Thanks to my fair amounts playing videogames I'm currently able to read three languages and talk two fluidly. But as always these irresponsible parents always want blame the videogames for their own irresponsibility. As a gamer, uncle and maybe one day father, I know how to control what my children play and these kind of people should really start seeing beneath their own stupidity.
BTW....Voldemort?....REALLY?....Jebus!!!
To be fair, there is no law whatsoever that can't be traced back to an attempt to instill in people what the lawmaker thought was moral and immoral.
That said, I did just leave a comment on the original story where I start the Lord's prayer because the woman idealizes a family that she saw... on television.
Legislating morality is the bread and butter of people that think like this. They really are incapable of seeing the irony inherent in trying to "free" people via outlawing their freedom to do things that the self-proclaimed defenders of children disagree with.
Is it possible that she's a poe?
I admire her concern, and at least she's following her own advice it seems.
But like everything, moderation is best. Blaming the video games themselves gets us nowhere and is what makes many parents feel so helpless to start doing their job.
She could have gotten her point across a lot better by simply advocating more parental intervention instead of pointlessly wailing against an entire pastime.
mixvio, who said anything about legislation or forcing morality on others? That woman isn't doing or talking about either. You're lumping everyone who dislikes video games into one giant sludge heap.
Pardon? In both of the articles she wrote she has a clearly antagonistic attitude towards the worthlessness of video games, and makes many hyperbolic and insulting generalizations about anyone who engages in them.
Did you actually read any of her articles? This isn't "disliking video games," it's cultivating it into an artform, and I haven't lumped anyone into anything.