Fuck you, CNN

Today I'm going to break the promise I made to myself when I entered college, where I promised myself that I wouldn't talk about politics. Many people don't know this, but I was extremely close to being a political science major, instead of an engineer. But I've realized that its impossible for any one person to change the world at the magnitude that is required for an actual difference to be made. Therefore, my new goal is to change the world in small amounts, to the best of my ability. That's why I organize events- because I want to reach as many people as possible and make them happy. I've been ignoring some of the bigger problems in society simply because I know there is nothing I can do about them.

However, in some cases, the violation is so egregious, and it hits so close to home, that its impossible for me to ignore.

As an avid redditor, I have always questioned if what goes on at CNN actually counts as "news reporting", but that's a story for another day. However, when CNN included this in their 24/7 reporting of the Connecticut shooting, it went a little too far.

I'm not going to talk about the particulars of the shooting, or how you should react to it. You've heard enough of this from various facebook statuses, some of them involving falsified quotes attributed to Morgan Freeman. Of course I feel for the victims and their families, but readers of this blog don't need to hear that for the millionth time. What I want to talk about is the "video games cause shooting sprees" thing that is brought up every time something like this comes on the news.

Like I've said: almost everyone is some sort of gamer. You don't have to be a hardcore Call of Duty player or a StarCraft pro to be a gamer; it includes almost everyone, even people who play Farmville or Tetris Friends. So its easy for reporters to dig up a copy of, for example, Grand Theft Auto, which has sold over 160 million copies, in any arbitrary home. But when you find a copy of this game in the home of a serial killer, suddenly the conclusion is that the game causes irrational, destructive behavior. Going back to an analogy I have used previously, you can probably also find a sandwich, or materials for making sandwiches, in a serial killer's home. But nobody would dare make the conclusion that sandwiches cause irrational, destructive behavior.

Why do video games take the blame? Well, some of them involve depictions of killing enemy forces, and this desensitizes people to death. Apparently, having the ability to destroy pixels on a screen immediately translates into having the will to shoot 6-year olds at point-blank range. Having the ability to properly execute a 1-1-1 (I don't know what race the guy plays, but I'm going to just assume he's Terran because Terrans tend to hate the world) immediately translates into being able to mow down classrooms of innocent people.

I don't see the logic here. Personally, I have difficulty even killing flies, and I'm sure I've "killed" over a million computer representations of anthropomorphic creatures.

Of course, my reaction to this particular case was a little different; I didn't know that people actually still played StarCraft. But regardless, StarCraft is a game that is in about 1 in 50 households in the United States; its not exactly uncommon.

This narrative is old and its something that we've all heard a million times. And it doesn't work. People buy it, but it doesn't result in meaningful policy change. You will never be able to ban video games, even "violent" ones. We won't let you do that. So here's a hint: next time some dumbass decides to shoot up a school, try looking at his mental health records rather than what's on his Steam account. Maybe then you can enact meaningful policy change that actually saves people. The problem is not video games; the problem is the lack of mental healthcare (well, healthcare in general) in this country. How long are people going to ignore this problem?

But in this case, I have no choice but to accuse CNN of intentionally misrepresenting data, throwing millions of ordinary people under the proverbial bus in order to fit a convenient narrative. So yeah- fuck CNN.