Taranis sent me a link this morning because he knows how angry I get when anyone tries to link video games to some evil in society. I’ve read article after article about the “link” between video games and violence, for example. Well, this article by Sandy Brundage ties the “subculture” of video games to drug abuse.

I think the very word “subculture” is somewhat degrading to begin with. Just call us subhuman and be done with it. My basic caveat to this whole arguement tying video games to anything is this: they fail to prove it would be different/better in the absence of video games.

If video games cause teenage violence, then show me the statistic that teens that don’t play video games are less violent. Oh, that’s right, they don’t collect those statistics. Not all teens play video games, so are they more open to world peace, happiness, and singing Cumbayah? No one can say because those that “study” the issue are trying to say one causes the other, so they look for the statistics to back that point.

In this case of tying video games to drug use, Sandy Brundage opens with a story of “Tom” taking drugs at a 3-day LAN party. I’ve been to LAN parties. I’ve seen no drugs at a most of them, and seen a few at some of them. But I’d bet all $12.48 of my life savings that those people would be using drugs regardless of playing video games. If they weren’t partaking of the ganja there, they would be at home, or at the movies, or at a party.

In fact, Brundage nearly proves my point:

Before the 1960s, few people could have anticipated concert halls filled with stoned fans chanting for Jimi Hendrix, or movie theaters packed with people settling in with a tab of acid instead of popcorn to watch “Easy Rider” or “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Television in the 1980s spawned drinking games in college dormitories. Now drugs are on the computer gaming scene, a natural and not all that surprising step as gaming matures into a mainstream cultural force.

What is she saying? That there are people that take drugs regardless of what they are doing, and at some point some of them became gamers. Just because A and B sometimes happen together does not mean A causes B. If they think it does, they have to prove that B never happens without A first.

I’ve been following this non-issue for a long time, and teen violence can not be tied to just video games, or drugs or monkey spanking. Need for Speed was a very popular video game for awhile, but I don’t recall news reports of 13-year-olds stealing their parents cars and going 210 on Route 66. Is it because kids are smarter than slugs and know the difference betwixt games and reality? Again, I’d bet my $12.48 life savings that kids know the difference between shooting flying, orange, headless demons in Quake and real life.

This issue percolates to the surface from time to time, and when it does I often quote Dick Cavett. He was speaking of another issue but the thought is the same and it sums up the arguement perfectly.

There’s so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?

–Dick Cavett, mocking the TV-violence debate.

Odd Todd lost his job. This is his story.

It was just a matter of time until someone figured out how to bring the snotty melodrama of Daytime Soaps to the web. Enter I Can Still Tell Your Wife, Bill. At first, the site seems the work of some cast-off mistress, but as you dig further, there appears some text asking you to “Sign-up for a Membership and watch this story unfold!”

I don’t know whether to be amazed or disgusted by this. As a person who loves new narrative structures this is exciting. But as a person who has some class and taste, I find it unfortunate that what could be a great new narrative possibility is wasted on this melodramatic trash.

Having said that, I am intrigued. I guess now we have web sites that are fictional but mirror the reality shows we see on TV. So, a fictional reality show: is it fiction, is it metafiction, is it a spoof, or something totally new?

I think back to the Blair Witch website when this blurring of reality and fiction was done to great ends. However, after viewing the sign-up page where the company “Yarnbird, Interactive Storytelling” claims they found this content on some cast-off webservers they bought, I see that it takes quite a bit of work to pull off a ruse such as this. With the Blair Witch site, the “found object” device was novel backed up by plenty of “evidence.” Here, they seem to hope everyone are a bunch of suckers. Wouldn’t you not put a logo that says “Interactive Storytelling” on the site if you wanted people to believe that you really just “found” this stuff?

After doing a little investigating, I found this page in Google’s Cache where Yarnbird Interactive is advertising for actors for their series “What Heather Knows?” So, maybe I should try out and become famous, lord knows this website won’t make me famous.

Again, I’m intrigued but I don’t see myself bucking up $12.95 even though they give you a DVD of the story at the end.