The Joystick Is The Root of All Evil 292
Waab writes "David Yoo, of the Parsons School of Design has taken some time out of his busy schedule to put together one of the funniest sites I've seen all year, Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence. With articles like "EverQuest: A Threat to Society?" and "America's Army: A New Low" (articles currently offline "due to editing"), MAVAV gives worried parents one more senseless cause to rally round. Even Tycho and Gabe love it."
Re:Wow that is good... (Score:2, Interesting)
I loved how teachers would say to me. "You are so smart, look how well you do on your tests, if you just turned in some homework you could have straight \"A\"s."
Re:M.A.V.V. is a parody right? (Score:5, Interesting)
Articles like:
"Videogame Networks or Online Training Camps?"
"Videogame and Tobacco Companies: Frightening Similarities. Secret Industry Report Revealed"
One thing that seemed to point to the contrary was:
"MAVAV (pronounced may-vav) is a new organization run by a group of worried parents..."
Organization:
MAVAV
David Yoo
172 E. 7th
New York, NY 10009
US
Phone: 646-245-8414
Email: contact@mavav.org
project page (Score:5, Interesting)
David calls me the inspiration for his final project, as we both visit the same IRC channel. The inspiration came from my petition [216.239.37.100] (cached because petitiononline.com has seemingly removed my petition) to rename the LOTR movie "The Two Towers" to something else. Of course, it was a joke. However, I'm still receiving responses to this day thanks to a site [twotowersprotest.org] another friend of mine set up and which I wrote the FAQ for.
Congratulations, David, on another successful internet hoax!
Facts? (Score:3, Interesting)
Fact: Health studies have found that even those casual gamers suffer from low self-esteem and self-pride compared to their athletic and more socially accepted peers in their same age group. Young gamers were found to be more likely to become lifetime gaming addicts and becoming
social outcasts.
How often are gamers (let's expand a bit and call them "nerds") compared to "their athletic and more socially accepted peers"? Did these people ever notice that there have always been nerds who are less athletic and less socially accepted, even before video games? Is it so surprising that these nerds turned to a different outlet? Just the fact that they think it's better to be athletic and "socially accepted" shows how skewed this site really is.
Fact: Hardcore gaming not only leads to videogame addiction and abrupt lifestyle changes, but to crime and felony as well. Hardcore gamers never buy computer videogames. Instead, downloading illegally copied videogames or "warez" is the only method acceptable by the underground. Buying a legit copy is grounds for abandonment by community groups. You may not be buying your child videogames, but they can illegally obtain them off the internet.
I'm sure many of us at some point have download an illegal "warez" program at one time or other. Does that mean we don't buy games? No. Long ago I had a warez version of Half-Life, but then (shortly thereafter) when I realized how great a game it was, I bought it. It's just like any other piracy: not as big a deal as those industry execs make it out to be. And what is this "underground" they talk about that only accepts people with warez? The only underground I can think of (but maybe I'm wrong) is--surprise--the warez scene. In any case, if you're in a clan or something, nobody can tell if you're using a legal copy (just like, presumably, nobody can tell if everyone else is using an illegal copy). Completely spurious. Oh, and kids can get video games illegally? So can parents. What are you going to do, turn off the internet?
Scrolling down to the bottom of the page, it also makes that age-old claim of the link between violence in video games and real-world violence. I won't even get into that here, but it's interesting to note that even though they claim "new research" supports them, they don't actually say where this information comes from, or even what the so-called link is. There are some forthcoming articles that might address this. But they're not biased are they?
What Does This Have To Do With Fun? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:M.A.V.V. is a parody right? (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a difference, albeit a pretty subtle one. The family friendly crusaders talk about the harm done by violence but without exception attempt to control sex instead.
This was certainly the case with Mary Whitehouse who was the 'keep sex and violence off TV' harpie in the UK. The porn site whitehouse.com is actually named after her, not the building on Penn Ave.
The anti-sex crusaders talk about violence because that is something most parents are worried about, they don't want their brat beating up the other kids. Violence on TV is a reasonable thing to be concerned about when you are dealing with 12 year olds.
Once talk turns to censorship however violence is completely forgotten, the real issue is controlling all access to sexual material, especially material that suggests its ok to be gay or sleep arround or generally have fun in ways not authorized by the social mores.
That is why people will put more effort into controling images of violence on TV than stopping violence. If it was really about violence those people would be upset at the idea of bombing civilians in Iraq etc. But its not about violence, never was, its about sex and their inability to handle their own sexual hangups (like being caught in flagrente delicto with Gary Hart!)
Of course the problem with hoaxes like these is that they can end up being used as political ammunition. It does not matter to the censorship brigade, they have no qualms about using material they know to be bogus. The infamous CMU 'cyberporn' study was used to prove that the Internet was full of porn in Congress long after it had been proved to be faked.
The US started the Vietnam war as a result of a hoax, the infamous 'Battle of Tonkin Bay' that never was. LBJ used that as causus belli even though he knew at the time it was fake.
Confirmed hoax (Score:2, Interesting)
December 30, 2002 Final Project: MAVAV.org
My MAVAV.org (Mothers Against Videogame Addiction And Violence) satire/parody/hoax web page was a success.
A summary and documentation can be found here [parsons.edu].
And, apparently [parsons.edu], this isnt the first hoax site done by David Yoo.