Hunting and Fishing: Video Games and Violence.

does it send a powerful message to a
child when their parents sit them down in front of a videogame that includes hunting hunting animals for meat and when the parents say to them this is something normal and natural and healthy and good yes I actually want to live in Animal Crossing and it is one of two games that I can say I legitimately became obsessed with to the point where I was like shirking responsibilities to the point where I had to actually stop myself playing the game because it was just not it was not it's not a good habit to have you know it wasn't good for me I mean it was crazy like I was I was playing it so much I was I got the voice chat and everything so I was going to like these little like eight-year-olds Islands and like talking to them and like their mom from Sacramento or whatever oh man it just it got real sad I actually want to live in Animal Crossing you know I don't think the game would ever mmm like with the game ever have it so that you're like catching pigs or something I mean I know there's obviously like a size issue there but doesn't that feel different than just taking a net and catching some you know little butterfly or you know using a fishing hook to just reel in a carp or whatever I can't help but laugh because all I think of is me playing breath of the wild and mercilessly destroying all of these adorable like much more you know realistic looking still not super realistic but you know what I mean all of these adorable animals like for their meat I don't know it just I can't help but laugh because we're talking about like the cutest most innocuous little game I actually want to live in Animal Crossing when I grew up and I'm talking about my childhood here not even my teenage years I really noticed the difference between the hysteria amongst parents about the influence of black American culture African American culture as opposed to white American culture and at that time they were both about equally noxious so there was this tremendous concern amongst parents that watching rap music videos and listening to rap music would normalize the behavior of fighting over a girl with knives and guns settling a dispute through violence much the same themes that one hears in country music has to say you know glorifying the role of the outlaw and criminal again something that might be familiar to you from the Wild West in movies and TV shows and in country music and you know there seemed to be a strange lack of concern that listening to what was going on at that time in white Western rock and roll music guitar based music might normalize a life of getting drunk doing drugs chasing women or in some cases even just a life of living for nothing but beer and whatever poultry sensual indulgence says this life had to offer you all of these parental concerns sincere or insincere racist or not are built on the underlying assumption that exposure to media entails normalization of air here on YouTube I now see many many African American men coming on camera and saying honestly yes the were influenced growing up by hip-hop movies they saw hip hop music they listened to hip-hop role models and what would be mysterious about this you know in the same way that white people can talk about within various strata culture whether it be reading the biography of Napoleon as a child or what they saw in video games movies music or cartoons why would it be in any case mysterious or hard to prove that people consciously model their behavior on examples that they find in popular media and in some cases they're models that they may seek out in popular media okay does it send a powerful message to a child when their parents sit them down in front of a video game that includes hunting hunting animals for meat and when the parents say to them this is something normal and natural and healthy and good yes I mean what can I tell you I think it would influence a child much less to see the brutal reality of what hunting really is than to see the sort of glorified antiseptic you know digitally designed simulated version of it in these video games when I was a child it's not worth telling the whole story I once accidentally caught a frog I really genuinely did not want to catch this one I once accidentally caught a fish too and I ran to my father really concerned and freaked out I didn't want to kill this animal wasn't trying to catch a fish I was just playing in the water how I got well what the hell what am I supposed to do with this you know and my father didn't really have any patience for heads but you know to actually see a fish whether trapped in a basket or on a wire or what-have-you and to see the brutality of what it means to kill an animal different children respond to that in different ways to see the stream line simulated version of this where you just you know you get an extra thousand points added to your score or an animal crossing another thousand bells where you're rewarded in a monetary sense in the game that it's just Bing Bing Bing you know this is just presented as something positive and entertaining and wonderful and wholesome and good in a time when fewer and fewer people actually are involved with hunting fewer and fewer people are involved with fishing even in a country like Japan you can do a survey ask both adults and children what percentage of you actually engaged in hunting or fishing in the last year it's now a tiny tiny percentage of people who really engage in those activities but huge numbers of people engage in this digitally simulated world that normalizes and reaffirms these values and really does in a sense glorify them saying that it's presented in a way that's abstract and cute and harmless doesn't make the problem better it makes it worse in the same sense presenting the life of an outlaw whether it be a Wild West outlaw or a hip-hop outlaw to me makes no difference whether they be black or white whether it be in South America or Europe or North America presenting that in a way that makes it seem fun and fancy free and without consequence in the same way when you take out the blood and the agony and the gore when you take the gravity there are these ethical decisions doesn't doesn't make the effect on children more harmless on the contrary I think there's a really solid argument that it makes it makes it more harmful when you look back at your own life I don't think it's difficult to see the movies and videogames and even perhaps songs that influenced you as a child what's difficult to do is to take responsibility for the decision you made in choosing that song choosing that videogame choosing that movie or why it was you respond to that theme right on a shallow level within my own life why did I gravitate towards hip-hop music and why did I reject Axl Rose you know the white western guitar music at the time that in terms of the schoolyard most of my friends and most of the children I knew or white and listen to guitar rock music and I reject it why I may not have an answer for the reason why right why did I find certain role models and certain lessons in the history of the world and not others it's very very hard to get take responsibility for that when you look back your own childhood because of course you were thinking and acting with the mind of a child and what's easy to do when we look back is to ask ourselves recriminate and regretting why didn't my parents provide me with something better why was it that so many hours of my life were spent with Mario Brothers or animal crossing or GI Joe or transformers or spider-man or Superman why was it that these were the powerful influences in my life or maybe for you it was boy bands New Kids on the Block arpan I'm not so great with these cultural references you know maybe it was Britney Spears I've known both males and females who were powerfully influenced by Britney Spears and when they look back they can attest to that they can reflect on the influence this had in their lives what they can't do is tell you why what they're left doing is regretting that someone some parent some teacher some older brother didn't explain to them what was wrong with this didn't explain them the ways in which this was unreal or really would give them a warped distorted misleading sense of reality what they're left doing is regretting that they weren't provided with something better whether as a role model or simply as a sense of entertainment because exposure to all of this stuff whether we choose it for ourselves or not is indeed normalizing [Music]