Stop Blaming Media For Everything

It bothers the hell out of me when certain pieces of media are blamed for events that take place with no good reason. Whether someone hurts themselves or someone else, many times pieces of media are attacked for the stupidest reasons. There have been multiple times where multiple people lose their lives and then it's blamed on music or video games or television. Which makes me so furious I can't even stress it because by doing so, you're taking the attention away from both the victims and the people actually responsible. I have a few examples.

Back in 1990, a heavy-metal band called Judas Priest was sued after two young men killed themselves after listening to their music. There have been conspiracy theories that their music has subliminal messages, but the fact that this actually happened is mind-boggling. If these two individuals were led to kill themselves so easily, it would've happened eventually if they didn't get help. The lives lost that day had nothing to do with the music by Judas Priest. These were clearly two people struggling with crazy mental health issues, and their families were so broken that they went after the creators of the music they listened to the day of. One can only imagine what these families were thinking at the time, but going after the members of the band is criminal.

The very first entry of the Mario Party series was released in the early 90's for the Nintendo 64. Three of the mini games consisted of spinning the joystick as fast as possible. Whoever was able to spin the joystick the fastest won. What if I told you that the mini games mentioned caused Nintendo to be sued for over 80-million-dollars? Obviously gamers are always trying to become the best at the game they play, so over time people started using their palm rather than their thumb to spin around the joystick faster. But doing this so aggressively actually caused their skin to tear off. Many children started using this strategy and this caused parents to start going after Nintendo. Now, is it so odd to ask how this is Nintendo's fault? If you play a game so intensely to the point of tearing your own skin off, that's your mistake. No one was forced to play the game in a way for so long that it injured them. If the creator of soccer/football was alive today and someone won the game by murdering the other team's goalie, you wouldn't sue the creator of the game. It's a simple mini game that people took so seriously that they hurt themselves, so the fact that Nintendo lost that much money is ridiculous.

Grand Theft Auto has been blamed for murders more than killers, weapons and politicians have at this point. There have been endless stories of someone playing GTA and then committing a crime, and the mainstream media blames the game. But isn't that utterly stupid? It's similar to when Judas Priest was blamed for suicides, if these people were so comfortable committing these crimes it would've happened eventually. There was even a story blaming Grand Theft Auto when an 8-year-old shot his grandmother after playing the game. This video game isn't for children! Why aren't we blaming the guardians of this kid? Obviously kids will play any game they want, but it couldn't have been hard to stop a small 8-year-old kid from playing an 80-dollar video game.

I've had a love for media my entire life. I love social media, I love film, I love gaming, I love music. These are all forms of art that people have utilized to make insanely brilliant pieces of work. Some are more graphic and disturbing than others but those types of media aren't meant for someone who can't handle it. The Judas Priest story is one of the craziest because the fact that those lawsuits went through opens the door to a lot more trouble. So many musicians talk about depression, suicide and other troubling themes, so who knows who the next artist to be sued will be after another troubled teen's passing. There are flaws in literally everything, but what we have managed to create is so amazing that there's no way you can say the bad outweighs the good.

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