This comes just 2 months after the WHO declared “gaming disorder” a new form of disease. Add this to a gun-crazy society and you have, well, what could go wrong? The Supreme Court has ruled that computer games are protected speech, and guns protected by the second amendment. The question of when this next happens is not even a matter of when, because the answer is “soon”.
Asked fo comment, the same Republicans suing to take away your health insurance said, “Guns aren’t the problem. Mental health is the problem.”
So basically their argument is that once any activity becomes a big public (and potentially financial) deal it’s inevitable that disgruntled people will shoot one another over it.
I guess it’s just the white male culture of violence.
Here’s a little hint esports event planners-don’t hold tournaments in states that have extremely loose gun laws.
More Security! More Security! America’s ongoing battle cry. Cowards in Congress, idiots on the streets.
The road to hell is paved with donations to the NRA…
How about we call it the American culture of violence? Plenty of violence to go around. It’s not just saved for white males.
I hear you, and I get the cynicism. But I think there’s a grain of truth here.
I think about the way Michael Jackson’s extraordinary fame – nearly unprecedented at the time – seemed to have a strong, negative effect on his mental health, especially since it started at such a young age. And I see the ever-growing lens of global media repeatedly focusing its terrible glare on one brittle individual after another. I think we’re being willfully ignorant if we refuse to acknowledge that some people are not equipped to cope with that.
And while some people actively seek that lens out, it is foisted upon others, and there is precious little they can do to rid themselves of it except wait for the public to move on.
So that’s one thing. The other thing is that e-sports is unusual in that solitary people can climb pretty high up in that world from the comfort and privacy of their own home, and then when they finally find themselves in a live event they are immediately confronted with the full force of that publicity all at once. There’s no “testing the waters,” no way to prepare, no way to discover on a small scale and in a safe place whether oneself is really up to the task.
I don’t think we should be surprised that the intersection of these two uniquely modern problems is bad. I think we should remind ourselves that people can become caught up very rapidly and by surprise in larger currents that they’re not prepared for. And that includes both well-adjusted people with the best intentions as well as fragile, damaged, and – yes – angry and violent people.
The fact that there are no safeguards for the well-being of people caught up in either trend has the consequence that everybody is served badly.
ETA: I also want to say that I think the absence of traditional coaches in the e-sport world is notable. I’ve always felt that one of the important things a good coach does is handle the players’ psychology. A good coach helps you get pumped and focused so you can win. A good coach also helps prepare players for the possibility of defeat, both generally and during an event that is starting to head south. A coach helps the players manage the nasty emotions that are born in the agony of defeat, reminding them there is dignity in having played well, having been beaten fairly by a better team, reminding them there will be more bites at the apple.
The showmanship and drama of sporting events is always at pains to portray each contest as the most important and decisive, ever. That’s for the fans. A good coach uses their position of authority and trust to help competitors maintain an even keel in the face of all that bullshit.
I don’t think there’s really a “little league” for e-sports, and most people who play have no coaches.
Let’s be honest. It’s not just “white” males. It’s the human male culture of violence. Has been in most of history. Armies everywhere and everywhen have depended on it - from prehistory to the Homeric tales to most religious fairy tales to the German Wehrmacht, the Taliban, Isis - and all the American armed “services” (which are hardly all white).