Violent forms of entertainment such as movies and video games allow us to experience a unique form of entertainment, satisfying our inner desire for violence, without any impact on the real world. Video games are a particularly special form of violent entertainment as they allow the user to cause whatever violence they desire and bask in the gore. Some have begun to speculate that the frequent consumption of such violence will eventually lead to increased aggression and violence, and blame video games as being the number one cause of the recent influx of violence. Such speculation often ignores the contributions of other variables, such as the mental well being, abuse and prior criminal records of the perpetrator, and often blames video games
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As part of their fantasy to combat bullying, they assembled what they called “The Trench-Coat Mafia” (Kass, 179). This imaginary group, in their minds, would wear dark trench coats and possess powerful military grade weaponry which would protect their friends from bullies. Perhaps Harris summarized the group best, “The business is basically to kill people who anger our clients [bullying victims].” (Kass, 181). This sounds horrifying and while it is imaginary, no teenagers should be thinking of creating a business which kills people, no matter what kind of bullying or abuse said people may inflict upon them. It is evident that at this time both Klebold and Harris were already suffering from some mental condition which forced their lack of understanding between what is right and what is wrong. They did not want to resolve their issues with bullies through diplomacy or communication, instead wanting to inflict direct and brutal pain on their bullies to get revenge. Anyone who feels this way should be considered a danger to society, and that is something that the school or their parents should have caught, and it would probably be the thing that would have prevented the massacre, rather than video …show more content…
Whereas the journalists should have probably focused on the mentality and actions which paralleled the massacre, “less than 1% of news stories focused on the responsibility and moral character of the perpetrators themselves” (Ferguson 471). Following the shooting, establishment and mainstream media such as the New York Times and CNN cited “media violence (such as the game Doom) and other pop culture elements (such as the Gothic subculture) as the second most often discussed cause of the Columbine shooting” (Ferguson 471). It should seem quite silly that the news media was able to get away with this kind of journalism. To them, the causes of the massacre were video games and trench coats, at least that’s what one would believe as that is basically everything that the media reported on in relation to this story. It is unacceptable and almost disgusting that the media chose to frame the massacre as being caused almost exclusively by video games, and it can even be stated that the media chose to frame the massacre in this manner in order to profit greedily off of the deaths of Columbine
As part of their fantasy to combat bullying, they assembled what they called “The Trench-Coat Mafia” (Kass, 179). This imaginary group, in their minds, would wear dark trench coats and possess powerful military grade weaponry which would protect their friends from bullies. Perhaps Harris summarized the group best, “The business is basically to kill people who anger our clients [bullying victims].” (Kass, 181). This sounds horrifying and while it is imaginary, no teenagers should be thinking of creating a business which kills people, no matter what kind of bullying or abuse said people may inflict upon them. It is evident that at this time both Klebold and Harris were already suffering from some mental condition which forced their lack of understanding between what is right and what is wrong. They did not want to resolve their issues with bullies through diplomacy or communication, instead wanting to inflict direct and brutal pain on their bullies to get revenge. Anyone who feels this way should be considered a danger to society, and that is something that the school or their parents should have caught, and it would probably be the thing that would have prevented the massacre, rather than video …show more content…
Whereas the journalists should have probably focused on the mentality and actions which paralleled the massacre, “less than 1% of news stories focused on the responsibility and moral character of the perpetrators themselves” (Ferguson 471). Following the shooting, establishment and mainstream media such as the New York Times and CNN cited “media violence (such as the game Doom) and other pop culture elements (such as the Gothic subculture) as the second most often discussed cause of the Columbine shooting” (Ferguson 471). It should seem quite silly that the news media was able to get away with this kind of journalism. To them, the causes of the massacre were video games and trench coats, at least that’s what one would believe as that is basically everything that the media reported on in relation to this story. It is unacceptable and almost disgusting that the media chose to frame the massacre as being caused almost exclusively by video games, and it can even be stated that the media chose to frame the massacre in this manner in order to profit greedily off of the deaths of Columbine