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Dirty Dozen- The Most Dangerous Toys of 2001
An anonymous reader pointed us to The Dirty Dozen
which lists the most dangerous toys for children. #1 on the list is Metal Gear Solid 2 (which I finished this weekend and highly recommend)
Also making the cut are Gundam and Dragonball Zaction figures (nothing scarier then Bulma on a bad hair day I guess), Super Street Fighter II and Doom. Of course the specific version of doom they classify as one of the most dangerous toys of 2001 is the Game Boy Advanced port, and I gotta agree with them on the GBA thing, those things are dangerous. Play for more then 30 minutes, and you go blind.
gotta love parents who can't watch their kids and rely on websites, rating systems, and the government to choose what their children do.
ah, modern family is so loving and caring with modern technology.
Runnin' On Empty
They're arguable trying. Here's a link to their testimony to Congress. They're apparently trying to get Congressional support so that action figure tie-ins from M-rated video games don't get marketed to children.
They've gone from "inform" to "lobby", in my opinion.
There is a school of thought that says that playing violent video games such as Quake 3 or Mortal Combat actually is theraputic because it allows kids to channel their frustrations and aggressions in a harmless way instead of going berzerk in real life and taking things out on their friends, families, pets, etc. Growing up today is not the same as it was 20 years ago, or even ten. Lots of kids want to find some way to release, and these "violent" games just might be the most harmless way.
We've got a culture where a Republican-dominated media glorifies implements of death (guns) every chance they get, and to make matters worse, Hollywood (which really should know better) seems to prefer big-budget "blockbusters" with lots of explosions and maimings, bludgeonings, etc. Not only that, but our increasingly capitalist ways are causing kids to become more competitive and cutthroat and agressive -- not that there's anything wrong with that, but we have to realize that it doesn't come without a price. If kids can get some harmless cathartic release from playing a video game or two, then I don't see what the problem is.
Why do we need another organization to further classify these products? It's as if they're telling parents, "We know you let your 10 year old kids play 'M' rated games, but these ones are really bad so you should think twice."
If the rating is so meaningless in the first place, then why have it at all? Doesn't it all come back to good parenting?
I went through alternating phases when I was a kid of being the bully, being bullied. It would have been nice to have been able to say, "Hey, how about a Quake 3: Deathmatch at my place", instead of getting whomped on by football players.
:-)
Pooking at the site's main page, that is exactly what they are talking about. sorry, /.er reading MORE than the article here.
I have yet to see any well-controlled study linking violent toys/games with violent behavious later in life.
Personally, I don't really need a study to tell me shat I can see from my own thoughts. When Doom first came out, I could get really drawn into the game, and I could easily see how somebody with less maturity than myself could get really freaked out by what went on in the game. I was about 25 at the time, and I would NEVER let a child of mine anywhere near similar games. True, the article is about action figures (mostly), but I think violence can still affect kids.
Somewhere I have a picture of (I believe) the police chief of Chicago back in the fifties watching as his mayor takes a sledge hammer to a pinball machine. For Slashdot readers too young to have seen one, a pinball machine was a mechanical device involving a steel ball, some solenoid actuated bumpers, a couple of electro-mechanical paddles and lots of gaudy paint. It was a photo op for the city's campaign to rid themselves of this corrupting and desensitizing influence. Since the city had just finished collecting and destroying ten large numbers of machines taken from independant operators, they most certainly felt just as strongly about pinball's influence as you do about violence/porn/horror.
Washington DC has the most restrictive handgun possesion laws of any city in the US, also one of the highest rates of violent crimes.
Virgina, right across the river has fairly lax gun control and very little violent crimes.
When are you going to realize that criminals don't want people to be armed? It's pretty simple really, criminals like their victims uinarmed and easy. Bernard Goetz, one guy with a gun, cut the rate of violent crime on NYC subways by 40% in the days after he shot 5 kids trying to rob him. Suddenly criminals were confronted with the possibility of armed "victims" imagine if NYC allowed licensed concealed carry!
I'm not too convinced that action toys alone will lead to violent behavior. A friend of mine grew up Amish, where there is no tech or 'dangerous toys'. The Amish are strict pacifists. However, without being taught or influenced to do so, give an Amish boy a stick and he will turn it into a weapon (then get switched for doing so). Cops and robbers, cowboys and indians are normal for little boys, which I wouldn't classify as violent. A chainsaw to the head - now that is violent. What I think is 'dirty' about these toys is the marketing: "Hey kids - here's the action figure, now go plan that 'M' rated game!" I have worked in marketing and this is diliberate (see also movie marketing).
Another key to understanding why violent games for kids is bad is this: whatever we spend time doing influences us. Spend a week playing Doom, then contemplate on the nature of life. Spend a different week in Paris with your loved one, then see what your outlook on life is like. Read slashdot all week and your brain turns to ... We can influence ourselves and others just by what we choose to do. This influence feeds us to do more of the same, and even think about things differently. For kids, this is 10x as true. But they don't 'feed' themselves - their parents do. Or the TV or computer or ... Most parents don't think this way, but that is a parent's job: feed the kids and clean up their s--t. That's how it all starts, and that's how it should continue - with ideas, activities, and morals.
As for the reasearch, you can try this:
1) Play Quake, Diablo, (_____) for 6 hours.
2) Stop immediately when 6 hours is done.
3) Get up and write a love poem to your amore.
4) Post it here, because he/she certainly won't want to see it and we could use a good laugh.
You may also want to look at the Surgeon General's Report on Youth Violence. Plenty of references and research if you really want to dig.
And whether or not you think shielding kids from violence is right or wrong, it's NOT your decision. It's the parent's decision. This web site simply lets parents share their finds. If I was Jane Clueless I might not know that Shadow Cat wasn't just another K'nex toy, but I might want to know that it fires missiles.
Something else for you breeding types to consider is that kids do take notice of their parents approvals and disapprovals. If Mom & Dad consistently say "No" to violent games, Junior does pick up on that. He may rebel and go seek those violent games out on his own, but that's part of growing up too. Deep down, though, he does learn that mom considers violence wrong. What he chooses to do with that knowledge makes him his own individual.
All in all, it's just another "Move along, nothing to see here" kind of story, (other than a kind of cool shopping list.)
John
John
This is a lame list made by idiotic fundamentalist Christians (they're called the Lion and the Lamb, for crying out loud)
I know it's fun to jerk the knee and all, but do you have any evidence that this is a Christian organization other the the mentioning of two animals in their name?
From my (albeit brief) perusal of the site I get the impression that they're just a bunch of whiney soccer moms who don't want their kids to have any fun that involves violence, because they're sure that violence is never the answer.
A large pile of steaming shit, to be sure, but if their motivation is religous they're hiding it well.
I'm not, but I won't flame you. Please, no one else flame for so crazy a reason.
Exactly. If half the effort these people spent on web page design was put into teching kids about ethics and the consequences of their actions, the world would be a happier place.
Political correctness can often be incorrect in reality. I have played various first-person shooters, often deathmatches with my cousins, and it is just fun, not turning me into a psychopath. If anything it causes more friendship because we entertain each other with our funniest jokes. I wouldn't dream about taking a flame thrower to anyone in real life.
End parental neglect; teach people ethics!
I wrote the lionlamb people this email about ssf2tr..
Hi there,
I would like to make a couple of points regarding your Dirty Dozen entry for Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo Revival.
From the DD list:
'The "special moves" involved in playing this game have names such as "psycho crusher," "devil reverse," "head press" and "somersault skull diver," according to the directions.'
You've listed the special move names for a single character, who (as far as the game story goes) happens to be the evil dictator that the street fighters are trying to overthrow. It only makes sense that an evil character would have evil move names. Note that other characters have nonsensical special moves like "crazy buffalo", "yoga flame", "final atomic buster", "mexican typhoon", etc.
'Children who play the game hear characters say things like, "My fists will have your blood on them" or, "You are not a true warrior!"'
Children who play the game do not hear such things. No one hears them. You've listed a couple of quotes that are printed on the screen if the player loses a match to two certain characters.
'One version, called "survival mode," requires children to kill 100 people without stopping.'
Nothing in the manual or the game itself ask children (or anyone else) to kill their opponents. It's a martial arts tournament. When you defeat a character, the game says "K.O." which means knockout, not "they're dead".
Now, given all of these points, I still might not give this game to a first grader for christmas. However, by making the game sound worse than it is, and by making inaccurate, inflammatory comments like "the children hear things like 'my fists have your blood on them'", you are hurting the integrity of the Dirty Dozen list. The whole point is so that parents can make informed decisions about what toys they should or should not be considering this christmas.
I encourage you to make revisions to the SSF2TR entry so that parents can see the whole picture. (ie including the silly move names, removing the "children hear" bit, and change killing to knockout.)
BTW: I agree that knocking out an opponent is still violent - there's just no need to trump it up to killing.
As an experiment, have you ever tried to escape marketing? I mean really tried? As an adult, I walk through life with advertising filters on. I ignore billboards as much as possible, I use a junkbuster proxy, and I skip commercials on my ReplayTV. I suspect most of us adults do.
Does my kid? No, he watches the commercials as intently as the programs (and sometimes moreso.) He hasn't finished growing up yet. He hasn't learned that life is too short to pay attention to advertisements yet (a lesson I'm trying very hard to impart.)
When we encounter age-inappropriate commercials while watching TV, we talk about them. We explain why mom and/or dad thinks that commercial is for something "bad" (the WWF cage match sh!t keeps running through my mind.) My son wrote a letter to the local movie theatre after they had a preview for an R movie (some movie trailer featuring large, loud explosions and mostly naked women) as a preview during Shrek. It bothered him that they were scaring the "little" kids (he was 12 at the time, and taking a civics class where they were supposed to write a letter of action to someone.) But he did something about it.
So, what is a parent to do? If that parent is truly trying to keep their kid from not being exposed to whatever, then what are the options? You and I both agree that this is both the right AND the responsibility of the parent. But now that parent can't take their child to a G or PG movie because the trailers are inappropriate (and unavoidable!)
I guess my point here is, as parents, my wife and I made the choices we could, but there is no escaping all marketing.
Oh, and I also agree with you that legislation isn't the answer. But I have to say that I think that these people have the right to let the manufacturers of these toys know how they feel. They also have the right to let Congress know how they feel. My kid at least wrote a letter. You don't have to sit on your ass. You can get a petition going and you can go out there and lobby right next to Hasbro's lobbyist, if you like. That is, if you think it's important that your kid needs to have every opportunity to watch commercials for the WWF wrestler with the "rip-your-head-off-and-crap-down-your-neck" action. You can even sit there at your computer and click off a letter to your congressman. Or you can just go back to your bookmarks and surf for free pr0n and goat sex.
I thought so.
Maybe that's why this non-story was posted to YRO.
John
John