Would young men be rioting in the streets if they didn’t have video games to pacify them?
Hear me out.
We are seeing record levels of young men unemployed and living with their parents: The future for them is bleak. Saddled with college debt, they can barely get a job that pays miimum wage, while living independently is forever out of reach.
I feel like at other points of history, there would be more social unrest, but things are exceedingly calm given the economics.
I was watching a video by Healthy Gamer, a gamer bro-turned psychiatrist. He points out that video games are very addictive and seductive because they MIMIC accomplishment. You can grind to get to the next level, you can gain new skills, you are continually put on a treadmill of constant progress. It’s very satisfying in a hollow way, satisfying in a way that might make you forget that society has nothing to offer you but debt and homelessness after you followed all the rules.
Are video games weapons of mass distraction, the metaphysical equivalent of a million Christians being fed to a million lions every day?
Actually, I was thinking of the port of Ceuta and how so many young men, unable to find work in Morocco, are trying their damn best to migrate out and here in the US people are just happy playing Helldivers or whatever all day long.
So apologies for phrasing. I’ll update my title. [Edit: Original title was “…would the world be on fire?”]
No worries, I just wanted to say that college debt and living with our parents etc. is not necessarily an experience you will make in others places of the world like you do in the US.
About morocco - a lot of the north African states (also Lybia) are the gate to Europe also for people from the sahel zone, west Africa etc. We held them dependent for decades, their misery and high unemployment rates are directly connected with European colonialism. I am not sure if unemployment in Morocco and the US can be compared. I think the video game idea is very oversimplified for a rather complex problem.
Well, to cursorily dismiss this theory, I would need to know that video game penetration is pretty much the same globally. I can’t quickly find stats on it that would reflect black market gaming, and I’d further want to know what kind of games and console generation. Soul Calibur 2 is pretty damn good, but it’s not THAT good. Maybe you need to have certain gen console with online features to really keep the revolution at bay.
I’d also not want to dismiss the psychological hold video games have on the minds of some young men; gamer gate was a politically impactful movement.
And, yes, I’m aware colonialism is a huge problem and I am definitely not a fan of it.
But you’re saying traffic FROM Moroco might actually be traffic THROUGH Moroco?
I would think it is not the same globally. Video games and consoles are a privilege many people in the global south cannot cannot afford most of the time.
However I would dismiss your theory because it too monocausal. Also I get the feeling your are projecting from yourself to others, as video games may play a huge role in your life. I am 30+ and while I grew up with video games, they were not as widespread as today, so maybe I just don’t know shit.
I just looked it up, it seems they were morrocon men in the majority, some women from Algeria.
It’s more a thought experiement, hyperbolically phrased. If you want to be more REASONABLE (yawn), we can ask, “What role do videogames play in squelching social unrest?”
I haven’t really played video games for several years myself, but I do know they can offer substantial psychological rewards for people who have no other engagements with society, and having worked with some younger people in retail, video games were a huge part of their life.
And twitch is definitely a thing.