RSS
Home
Video game-related tragedy represents an attitude shift?
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
In case you haven't heard, there was an incident last week involving a young Florida teen, Michael Brewer.
Brewer, 15, had borrowed $40 from Matthew Bent to purchase a video game. Calling in the debt, Bent attempted to steal a bicycle belonging to Brewer's father, estimated at a value of $500. Brewer called the police, and Bent was arrested on the scene and later released.
Calling Brewer a 'snitch,' Bent gathered a few friends, doused him in rubbing alcohol, and set him on fire. He dove into a nearby pool, dousing the flames, but still received 2nd degree burns on most of his body.
It's disgusting; it's terrible. It marks a serious moral deficit in American youth to be capable of causing such anguish to another person.
Yet there is something surprising about the news coverage of the tragedy. A perusal of several stories reveals no suggestion of video games as the culprit. Surprisingly, not even anyone like Jack Thompson has weighed in.
Often times it seems that games play the scapegoat to any tragic situation. After all, it is no secret that media can have a profound effect on people, especially children, but whether or not said media can drive people to action (in particular illegal or horrific) is a subject of research and debate.
Most likely, it is the heinous nature of the crime and the disturbing violence it represents. When cruelty on such a level is perpetrated, it seems to speak more towards the level of depravity of the individuals involved. It gets hard to suggest that teens, who are usually aware of what fire is and what burns feel like, would not realize what would happen from a distorted sense of reality. It's too concrete. Too directly horrific to easily blame on a single circumstance.
The sad reality is that the motivations in all crimes and tragedies are most likely all too complex to nail down to one key figure, especially those of a more serious nature. Hopefully, as time goes on the realization will come (encouraged by media) that complexity of personal characteristics and situations of the people are really what causes these situations to arise, not something they saw/played.
It is said that Brewer will recover, though he will likely remain in the hospital for several months and on medication for as much as an entire year. There is a donation fund for his recovery; information can be found here.
Related Articles:
Comments
