What I am refering to here is an odd moral situation that does not hurt anyone. NOT actual harmful content that depecits genuenly problamtic things or activiely harms people. I will never defend anything that causes harm. This is mostly lighthearted rant about people who are fans of more alt/dark/gothic media and the ideas around that.
I'm glad you asked. I mean, general content and media critics that somehow turn into moral issues. Like... Look, on one hand I get it. I am too, a nerd. I like Fallout: New Vegas and F:NV fans are almost rightfully sterotyped as elitist weirdos who will bring it up for no reason at all. I get it. I like ficition a lot. It's something my entire fucking blog is built on.
But. There is a massive difference between making harmless arguements on ficition, and making character assesments on ficition. One, is usual nerd chats and the other... Look, it's kinda stupid.
I am aware this has already happened. Namely, I am thinking of the Satanic Panic, but it's as stupid as it were back than as it is now. I don't think it is logical in the freaking slightest.
A lot of examples. Of the top of my head, a true crime case where the killer drew Hotline Miami Fan art. Now, that is fine to mention. I mean... True Crime has it's own issues, but usually the presenters do try to give a charater describtion of the people involved. But what really confused me was the odd moral assesment made by the presenter and the commentors.
Namely, they argued that such a violent interest, Hotline Miami, was a sign that the killer was already morally corrupted and... What? I am... You aren't a psychologist, nor a criminal investigator. Such and arugment is coming from no where but one rather bias situation that already makes it unrealiable.
I will say, I do not blame these commentors/the presentor, as this was clearly their first time seeing or hearing about Hotline Miami. And if I described the base idea of the game, yeah... It sounds like a gorefest and not much all. And I don't think I should have to argue that it's really not and it's a deep piece of media, because... Why? Why is it vital to morally defend everything you consume?
Now, now. Hear me out. Look. Hotline Miami is a game I have played. Hell, it's not even the edgiest game I have played. I am no stranger to the darker media half of gaming and literture, if that makes sense. For clarity I have played, Hatred, Postal 2, Grand Theft Auto librity City-5, Numerous COD games, SWAT 4 and so on. All of which include either violence, crime or some varing level of problematic content.
So, it is fair to argue that I am a baised source. I am the type of person who doesn't really see the problem with gore or violence or video games that allow you to be rather evil. But, I still thing a fair discussion should include both points, no?
And in my personal opinion, a distinction between media and reality must be made. Stories that have dark content can be glorifing or denocning or just exploring it in general. And even if content is glorifing bad behaviour and outlawing of the content does not help.
Of course. You see, people are actually a little bit more resilient than we give them credit for as if they encounter propaganda it is not an immediate case of them being brainwashed. As a matter of fact, hiding said propaganda from them is can be more harmful as it makes them more likely to not have arguemtns against the propaganda or more used to only good faith arguments.
Most propaganda is based on playing on the human emotions rather than logic. You can not fix human emotions, but you can teach people how to use logic instead. If you just told people to denounce everything coming from one group or side, you are setting them up for failure. You need to teach them how to logically read things and come to their own conclusions.
As a matter of fact, teaching people to be able to analyse bad ideas and see why it is bad and harmful is better as it allows them to spot the bad ideas in another set of clothing persay. If you were a sheep and I explain what a wolf looked like but not how it acted, if you saw a wolf is sheeps clothing you'd never spot it as a wolf.
The same carries over to glorification. If say, we want people to freely choose a religion, so we wanted to reduce the glorification of Christianity, that wouldn't help. As inveitably, a Christian will mention something positive about Christianity and that would be wildly new to people. Same with violence.
Take horror movies for example. Back in the day, children were seen as innocence that could not be twisted out of that. So, some brillent horror creators did twist children into the symbol of horror. As a result that idea spread like wildfire and now evil children is a common enough trope that non-horror fans likely konw about it.
The real solution is not outright denoucing and removeal and limitation of such themes, but rather deeper discussions on how it effects people, what people get from it, why some people like or can stand it, why some people can't and what that should mean for everyone.
Yesn't. I want people to unmistify darkenss. The darkness people believe is what makes people evil is not some dark demon that can infect a "normal" person and twist them into the devil. It's an inherent human trait. It is the more selfish aspects of oneself. Which isn't inherently bad, if dealt with properly. A person with not darkness would not be healthy, a person with just darkness would also not be healty. It's balence which helps. It's a certain level of still treating yourself but drawing a line at harming either yourself or others.
The problem is when people look at those who fall to their darkness and assume that that is a unique issue. That only some people are capible of evil when that is wildly false.
But the problem is we make evil this odd thing. This thing that only some people or some groups have in them. This sickness people are born with and that no one can really heal from. If someone is evil it must have been because of something being wrong with them, right? Because we can't accept the idea that you and I are just as capible of evil as someone else.
That's why people need to somewhat work on being a good person. Of course, I doubt everyone has as violent impulses, but most people still need to reel themselves in. To not say something rude, or harsh or to not do something because it might hurt someone else. That is the same fundimental aspects as the darkness I was refering to above.
Everything! If propaganda is not something to be hidden, biased media should not be hidden either. Destroying history or propaganda doesn't make wiser people. It doesn't allow the bad people to rat themselves out. The only logical solution, to me at least, is to creat a less hostile environment to understand people.
Take Call of Duty for example. Removing military shooters doesn't solve the problem of people wanting to join the military. However having people who have military experience talk about their experiences would have a better chance at allowing people to have a more real view of the military. That is not something removing COD would do, as than recruitors would just use movies, or songs, or comic books or if there's no media they'll just lie.
The idea of limiting media is a well meaning one, but it's solving a symptom not the actuall problem. Many people play violent video games and never commit a crime. Perhaps it's not the video games. Perhaps funneling energy towards limiting the games it a waste of resources when we need to understand why people actually do these crimes and how to protect others from them.
Yes, no, kind off... Some media is bad, everyone agrees on that. There was general outrage over Cuties for depicting minors in a sexual manner for a reason. Honestly most of the debate was not if it is okay to depcite minors in such a manner but more on the limits of creative freedom and media censorship and so on. However, I do believe that there is many factor to take into account for more nuanced situations.
For example, some romance stories do depict toxic relationships. However I am not entirely certain that there is a way to just remove all of that from the romance genre. Most romance/or Ero, stories are writte for gratification, as a result different people have different interests. So, inveitably, something toxic will be depicted. THe question is how does one seperate reality from ficition and how does one control how media would be percieved?
For example, if I write a horror story with a toxic relationship, I can not garentee that no one will misread it as romance. My case in point, Alex Mayers and Obessession. Namely, many people argued that Alex Mayers watched the movie wrong. And, look, I haven't watched Obessession, but the point is mostly, how much can an authour/film maker/game dev/ect control how the audience intereacts with their media.
Another point is, authours aren't entirely free from bias. It is impossible to see any work of art that is not biased in some manner of speaking as humans are biased. If I want to write a story and it's about someone getting a pet cat, if I like cats I'll write it differently to other people. The challenging part is I am not certain if removing the authours biases is better or worse. On one hand, authours should not be biased, on the other hand, it does lend to a better writting/reading experience. I am biased to describing sounds, so my writing tends to have vivid audio describtions. Of course, bad bias is always bad, but small biases can also count as bad.
and furthermore, media is also viewed from a biased audioence. Take, Mouthwashing for example. To some people it was too obscure what happened to Anya or how Curly messed up while to others it was too bluntly obvious to have been anything short of Curly being cruel. But again, that is difficult to argue as the audience themselves are biased in this reading. Namely, I don't read people well, so I mildly understood the Curly was just stupid argument. But that isn't an entirely fair reading of the text and the Anya was blunt enough argument also holds water.
I think, what I am trying to say, is it is great that we found a problem. Unfortunately I don't have a solution for said problem. We can not remove all bias from story telling and story consuming as it is impossible. An authour might make bad media, yes. But an audience might also misunderstand media. And trying to just remove all of that would kinda ruin the point of media, as it is an inherent human flaw I doubt we can fix entirely.
Media is a Rorschach test as it shows how a person thinks. not by what media they consume but by how they consume it. But even that doesn't mean you can psycho-analyse someone for not watching or playing something the "right way". You learn very surface level information from it. For example, someone who romantises an abusive relationship can be doing it because they don't know it's abusive, they are abusive, they are a vicitim or any number of possibilities or reasons. So just looking at something is tricky when it's not illegally harmful material.
Another interesting thing is some people argue that not showing fictional characters empathy is also a sign of someone being just bad. Which... Look, that is a confusing issue. Namely, as there is, oh, so many factors involved.
A interesting example of this is Elfen Leid. Elfen Leid is an anime which is dark and many watchers have claimed has scarred them... I am somewhat ashamed to say I found most of it kinda... funny.
I don't know why, but most of the story took me out of it's world because my brain kept remembering that someone, somewhere had to write down this story, someone else had to draw it, than animate it, and voice act it and time it, and clean it up, and edit it and... It stopped being tradgic to me, because it was somewhat funny that all of these peole tried to make such a dark story that is fictional. I guess my point is different people react to different things differently.
For me atleast, I can be empathic to characters until it break my suspension of disblief and than I just find it funny because this is just a group of people whose job it is to write and make something. This isn't real. Nothing is real. This is some grimdark story that sounds like what a creepypasta kid would describe and than it's not sad or horrible anymore.
Maybe, I am incredibly unempathic and sadisitc or whatever, but I feel like some people have differing level of suspension of disblief. I just loose my immersion when a story is nothing but beating up on character for fucking hours. Because to an extant, this is fiction. If this happend to a real human being, it would be horrible but I know that after this is over with, everyone just goes home... you know? It's like how some peopel get scared by movie monsters and others don't.
So, to an extent, I don't get why shooting someone in a video game could be seen as as bad as doing that IRL. I know that pixels on the screen. I understand that the game dev's programmed that NPC to stand there and do what ever he's doing. He doesn't go home to a family. He doesn't even have a name really, just a rank. He isn't a real flesh and blood human so my empathy is more limited. I won't cry over a random ficition character I have no care for.
Allow me a counter example. Bloodbourne's Doll (or the Plain Doll). I love her. I will refer to her as an actual person. I once hit her by accident and felt genunely bad about it like she was a real person, or doll, with human feelings who could actually be hurt. I literally never skip her dialogue so I'm not being rude and cutting her off. I also use a bow gesture as I leave to say goodbye to her. But why did she gave me emotions but no one in Elfen Leid did? My current working theory is because she is in a world I am willing to become immersed within. I feel like the world of Bloodbourne is more real to me. THe challenge is, you can't always just assume what worlds people are immersed on sight, if that makes sense?
You could argue I don't have empathy because of Elfen Leid or you could argue I have empathy because of Bloodbourne, but the only real difference is which character I am willing to play pretend is real. I can't believe the pixels in Hotline Miami is anymore a real breathing person that any other game I've played, but civilians in SWAT 4 are real to me. But I feel neither would be entirely fair to make as an assesment as again, I am painfully aware of the ficitional status of these characters.
Dumb question. Have you guys role played before? It's my bread and butter. I grew up playing pretend with my brother, so it's second nature to me. Even when I write I more or less just role play as a character and let them dictate the plot. Now, role play is... ineteresting.
Of course, one could argue that people use role play as a sort of power fantasy but that is not the only use of role playing out there. One on hand, again, people can be using role playing for exploration of them selves, curiousity, to get into the minds of characters or just to enjoy a story.
My brother was running a one-shot. In this one shot I was playing a theif. A sterotypical DnD rogue. In real life I would never steal and I don't like lying and I thing justice is the most beautiful system out there, but my character Raylien is not me. She would steal, she thinks theift is beautiful because she's not me, I am not her.
My video game characters arn't always just an avater for me in the game world. My Fallout New Vegas character isn't me. So is it fair to judge how I play them as my own moral code? I would likely never shoot someone, but my F:NV characters would. I would likely not eat a radroach, but they would. IRL I hate the legion, but is it not more interesting to think what would lead a person to join them? you know?
I would agree that bad people might roleplaye there more base desires, but that is not a continuous manner of flagging them.
These methods aren't bad... but they're not being used correctly. A bad person being fasinated by darker things is possible. but that connection can only be made after the person has proved themselves as bad. Else, you get false flags.
Yes, a murder might by knives, but not everyone with a knife plans on killing someone with it. They might be chefs, or collectors, or butchers, or blacksmithes and so on. Same with media. Some bad people might like dark media but than assuming all bad people like dark media is a jump as it's based on limited evidence.
Because let's take me as an example. I'd say I like dark media in general. I like dakr things. I have written, role played, enjoyed, fucked up characters. I have researched plenty of things about dark history, canniblism, murder theift and crime. I find gun interesting. But when a real world person cries I get really fucking panicked. Is it fair to argue I have limited or no empathy because of fictional media or because of my real world behaviour? Because, I won't argue I have empathy, as I am too much of a biased source to argue in favour of myself, but I will argue that real actions have more proof of how someone is. Anyone can talk big about being caring and cool and awesome but reality is not fiction, not many people put their money where their mouth is in reality.
What I am more or less saying is. It is understandable to distance yourself from certain media, of course, but making moral judgements on media and nothing else is rather risky and will invenitably lead to false flags.
Of course. Of course somewhere in the world someone will watch a movie about, say, why abuse is bad and come away with the opposite belief. Hell, somewhere in the world an authour would write a story about why abuse is good actually. And that is bad, and something that we should be upset exists.
But unfortunately, I doubt there is a solution to it for a few reasons:
Namely, who can we trust not to be a biased watch dog. Say we had a story about a cute dog, but the person in charge of media censorship doesn't like dogs, so they ban the book. With censorship on the basis of moralty we have to run numerous circles in debates of what moral system to use, how much the stories can be altered and what that even means for the authour and readers in order to even get started. The modern level of censorship is enough if not a tad bit lenient.
Hotline Miami is not a triple-A game and thus does not have the same rigourous systems those games have for avoiding harmful content. It is also somewhat easily available to most pc/laptop/console gamers who know where to look. If we wanted to censor games for example, ones like Hotline Miami will slip through the cracks. A great example of this is when Steam tried to remove porn games and the games where just mass downloaded before being pirated.
I don't know if this needs a further explaination, but yeah. I can't barge into your house and force you to play a game a certain way.
Yes, no, depends on what you mean by pointless. On one hand, it is. Bad people will bad people. If someone really wanted to do something they will find a way to do it. it is impossible to create a world without evil at this point. It is good to strive for that, but it is impossible.
But in the same breath, the fact that people are concerned about this, shows that it is not an entirely pointless endeover. While we will never get rid of bad or harmful content the pressure around not having said content is helpful in limiting it's pressence somewhat. For every horrible or harmful piece of media which gets it's creator arrested one less bad person is on the streets producing. You know?
And it depends because that depends on your end goal. I am more pessimestic and firmly believe not much is going to get better, but it is clear effort is being made to help prevent harmful media from being public or made or legal. Which is good.
I have a theory. Media is made by humans based on the human experience. In other words, because humans have darkness, more selfish traits or more accurately more human desires and interests, our media depicts it. It's not the other way around where media inplants said traits, its more like humans interested in said traits explore and create media related to them.
If I find cars interesting, I will write about cars. If I find the questions of what makes humans able to fall for more morally questionable actions/ideals/beliefs, I will write about it and people also interested in it will consume that media.
As a matter of fact, our inciting incident also includes this. People are facisnated by what makes "a killer" per say. Hence true crime being a popular genre. Of course, why people consume it varries but the concept is the same. Not everyone who listens to true crime want to be a killer, they may be curious, reseraching for their own ficition, worried about their safety and so on.
If I removed all true crime from the internet, it won't remove the curiosity. It won't prevent it from being some fascinating quary people have. Why would it? These people didn't end up on true crime podcasts without their intial interest at the very least.
This also works backwards. People who prefer lighthearted and fluffy content likely are interested in that already. No one watches and readily engages with something unless there's a reason. Some of course do hate watch content, but it's still a reason.
Look, I don't entirely blame people who look at darker media and assume things about the fans of said media. Again, humans are going to human and assume things. It is likely to happen, and it's not like being a nerd is something to adamently defend. But it is also something that I suppose fasinated me. It's a very, interesting feeling to be on the receiveing side of it, at least on such a topic. I mean, I'm not going to get honestly hurt if someone gets mad at me for playing a video game, frustrated yes, but I don't partcially care that much.
I do however care enough to write a god knows how long blog post on it. Namely, because I love morals and ethics and thinking through systems. I love systems and would not mind finding a fix all system, but until than, I will settle of analysing and ranting about random ones.