The Joystick Is The Root of All Evil

Waab writes "David Yoo, of the Parsons School of Design has taken some time out of his busy schedule to put together one of the funniest sites I've seen all year, Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence. With articles like "EverQuest: A Threat to Society?" and "America's Army: A New Low" (articles currently offline "due to editing"), MAVAV gives worried parents one more senseless cause to rally round. Even Tycho and Gabe love it."

Comments

Almost Correct

[Rayonic]

Actually, only the Atari 5200 Joystick is the root of all evil.

I kinda fell for it.

[alexmogil]

I called his last week at the number he left at his domain registration. I didn't believe it, but I also wanted to prove to myself I didn't believe it.

He was pretty stunned that anyone could call by the tone in his voice.

He stuttered. He kinda laughed.

"I was told not to, uhm, tell anyone about that information."
Oh, so you don't know who the founder is, or what their contact info is?
"No, I only set it up for them."
You don't have an email address with which I can get in contact with them?
"No, I dont have any inform... I can't give it out."
Will they be disclosing any of that information on their web site?
"I don't know. I think so."

So again, I guess I fell for it a bit, but I had a good laugh, too. Some of the article titles were hilarious.

My Joystick Is the Root of All Evil?

[hkhanna]

I thought only my ex-girlfriend thought that.

Another EFF cause in the offing!

[Tsar]

Who are these enemies of free speech? The Kids Against Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence website has now been taken offline, due to MAVAV's freedom-quashing use of the DMCA. I have come to the sad conclusion that all this hatred, injustice and bigotry will only stop when we frag these MAVAV mothers. Where's my BFG9000?

Feel the force of Parody

[Bonker]

For every site that parodies stupidity like this, the actions that the real intolerants take will be seen and treated with less seriousness. Compare this site to the OLGAnon web boards started by Elizabeth Wooley, mother of a suicided gamer. She blames Everquest for her son's death. Everyone else blames his obvious mental problems. Accordingly, she has a great deal of trouble with people from other EQ message boards who come to hers to try to flame and spam her into non-existance.

The most successfull of those trolls, however, and the ones that do the most damage to Liz's crusade of self-victimization and responsibility avoidance are those that parody the 'real' posters who frequent the site.

Not only do those parody posts make everyone laugh at the people who don't seem to have the ability to take responsibility for their own actions, they make the site less credible as a whole.

Re:Feel the force of Parody

[PD]

I want everyone to wake up and realize the damage that the Internet can do to their lives. I am a former Internet addict, and after I lost 15 jobs, my house, my car, my dogs, and my immortal soul, I realized what I had done and just stopped. I used to spend more than 20 hours a day surfing the OLGAnon website, reloading it repetitively, looking for new news. I don't know why I did it, but there you go. I hope my story can save another concerned person from destroying their lives with the Internet. It doesn't take a game like Everquest to lead you to the road of futility and destruction. A busybody mother who knows too much HTML for her own good can be just as deadly.

Re:M.A.V.V. is a parody right?

[miltimj]

Clues that it is a parody:

Articles like:
"Videogame Networks or Online Training Camps?"
"Videogame and Tobacco Companies: Frightening Similarities. Secret Industry Report Revealed"

One thing that seemed to point to the contrary was:
"MAVAV (pronounced may-vav) is a new organization run by a group of worried parents..." ...though a whois query turns up:

Organization:
MAVAV
David Yoo
172 E. 7th
New York, NY 10009
US
Phone: 646-245-8414
Email: contact@mavav.org

project page

[Klerck]

You can find his project page here where he has graphs from his hit counter among other things.

David calls me the inspiration for his final project, as we both visit the same IRC channel. The inspiration came from my petition (cached because petitiononline.com has seemingly removed my petition) to rename the LOTR movie "The Two Towers" to something else. Of course, it was a joke. However, I'm still receiving responses to this day thanks to a site another friend of mine set up and which I wrote the FAQ for.

Congratulations, David, on another successful internet hoax!

Yep, it's a hoax.

[Lokatana]

The person who assigned this project might get in a bit of trouble, but, From the project page:

December 16, 2002 Final Assignment
Assignment:
Your final project is going to be making a fully functional hoax. The work must:

- exist in the public realm
- be advertised, exposed or introduced to strangers
- be fully documented, strategies include images, movies, sound recording, and interviews
- employ the element of craft (they will be judged on both ambition & effort)
- be fully functional. For example, if the project is a website, you must register the domain name. There should be no connection to this class or to Parsons.

Think hard about why people make hoaxes. I want you not to just have "fun" tricking people, but think about a message or idea you want to convey. What are the strategies for bringing people in? What is your overall message?

Your aim should be to create work which is subtle and effective.

In addition to creating the work, you will be asked to write 3 or more pages documenting your strategy in creating the work. Keep this in mind as you work.

Good parodies...

[PenguinX]

All good parodies bring to light something that is "wrong" while suggesting corrective action. Usually that corrective action is absurd and this is why it is a parody. The parody that comes to mind (from a literature standpoint) is Johnathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal", and while his is a little more grizly the real meaning of the paper comes out crystal clear. I suspect that a lot of people on slashdot may be shocked and sort of disgusted at this parody - but there is a very real problem with video game abuse (not the video games or the industry) these days.

I knew someone, let's just call him Joe Geek. He'd wake up at 3am every day, play EverCrack until he leaves his home for work at 8:52am (of course Joe is supposed to be at work at 9am). Then Joe would stumble in to work and do little for a few hours while checking the boards... then a few hours of hard core work while dosing on caffiene and nicotine to keep awake until he left early at 4:25. The moment he got back to his house he would play until he passed out around 1am. Then his 3am alarm would go off and he'd start it all over again. After a few months of this he looked like a crystal meth freak and had to be torn away from the game.

Addiction and abuse are real no matter what the thing that is being abused is. Personally I think this is a good parody.

Re:M.A.V.V. is a parody right?

[Zeinfeld]

It is a parody, and a pretty funny one. The ironic part is, if you truely beileved in the cause, you wouldn't be able to tell the diffrence.

There is a difference, albeit a pretty subtle one. The family friendly crusaders talk about the harm done by violence but without exception attempt to control sex instead.

This was certainly the case with Mary Whitehouse who was the 'keep sex and violence off TV' harpie in the UK. The porn site whitehouse.com is actually named after her, not the building on Penn Ave.

The anti-sex crusaders talk about violence because that is something most parents are worried about, they don't want their brat beating up the other kids. Violence on TV is a reasonable thing to be concerned about when you are dealing with 12 year olds.

Once talk turns to censorship however violence is completely forgotten, the real issue is controlling all access to sexual material, especially material that suggests its ok to be gay or sleep arround or generally have fun in ways not authorized by the social mores.

That is why people will put more effort into controling images of violence on TV than stopping violence. If it was really about violence those people would be upset at the idea of bombing civilians in Iraq etc. But its not about violence, never was, its about sex and their inability to handle their own sexual hangups (like being caught in flagrente delicto with Gary Hart!)

Of course the problem with hoaxes like these is that they can end up being used as political ammunition. It does not matter to the censorship brigade, they have no qualms about using material they know to be bogus. The infamous CMU 'cyberporn' study was used to prove that the Internet was full of porn in Congress long after it had been proved to be faked.

The US started the Vietnam war as a result of a hoax, the infamous 'Battle of Tonkin Bay' that never was. LBJ used that as causus belli even though he knew at the time it was fake.