I originally started this project, because I was tired of video games being blamed for social ills, and I wanted to show that if anything, they can enrich people’s lives, not degrade them.  This past weekend, there were not one, but two mass shootings, within a span of 24 hours.  Once again, we’ve got politicians (specifically, Republican, Kevin McCarthy) blaming video games, instead of the obvious problem that it’s easier to get a gun than a driver’s license.  Or a passport.  Or a liquor license for a restaurant.  Or…you get the point.  But it’s easier to blame video games–and do nothing about the problem–than it is to pull away from the teat of gun lobby donations and actually try to fix things.  Which brings us to today’s word.

guile, noun –  manipulative cunning, deceit, duplicity

Learned from:  Street Fighter II  (Arcade, and pretty much every console released since the ’90s)

Developed by Capcom

Published by Capcom (1991)

Looking back, I have to wonder if it was an intentional move on Capcom’s part, to name one of the American characters in Street Fighter II after a term that essentially means “untrustworthy”.  Guile is an Air Force major, best known for his sonic boom ranged attack.  He’s a character I never gravitated toward, but he’s got his fans.

…and I’m finding it hard to stay on-topic with game-Guile, as opposed to why I chose the word guile this time around.  I try not to be overly political on here, but I can’t ignore this subject–it’s the reason this blog exists, after all.  Numerous studies have been conducted on whether video games lead to real-life violence, and the results keep coming back the same: they don’t.

But those studies appeal to logic, which the politicians and public figures who keep pushing for making video games a scapegoat don’t care about.  They care about emotional appeals, because when objective reality fails you, what else do you have?  I mean, who cares if all the evidence shows that violent themes in games are about as “dangerous” as violent themes in movies, or rock music, or D&D, or “provocative” literature–little Billy turned to a life of crime, because he played Grand Theft Auto!  So, fine.  Let’s go with a personal anecdote, designed to pluck at the heartstrings, and lull to sleep the mind’s critical thinking faculties.  I’m good at games; I can play this one, too.

I’ve been gaming since I was about five years old, when I got a hand-me-down Intellivision from one of my cousins.  Primitive though it is by today’s standards, there were still plenty of games that included depictions of violence: from killing other humanoid-looking programs with frisbees in Tron: Deadly Discs, to fighting monsters in Tower of Doom, to punching out other human players in Boxing, I was exposed to virtual violence young.  And it never really stopped.  From the bare-knuckle brawls of Street Fighter II, to the spine-ripping finishing moves of Mortal Kombat; from blowing away demons with a shotgun in the original Doom, to feeding them their own hearts in the 2016 remake; from 20-player kill streaks online in Unreal Tournament 2004, to endless nights murdering people to protect checkpoints in Overwatch, I have bathed in enough virtual blood to fill an ocean, and taken enough virtual lives (both AI and from human players) to build a mountain range.  By the “reasoning” of people like Kevin McCarthy, after decades of constant exposure to this, I should be one of history’s greatest monsters.

I have never even thrown a punch at someone.

I was bullied throughout most of my school-age years, because I was the quiet, pale, skinny kid with terrible social anxiety, who preferred to be left alone with books.  I don’t want to get into the details of my home life at that time, but suffice it to say that it wasn’t a walk in the park either, and contributed strongly to my anxiety and awkwardness at school.  Looking back through the lens of recent history, I’d be considered a prime candidate to shoot up my school.

And after Columbine happened, that’s exactly how people started to treat me.  Here I was, the spitting image of one of the pale, skinny, loner kids who liked violent video games, and killed a bunch of their classmates.  Almost overnight, the bullying stopped.  People who noticed me in the hall tended to move out of the way.  I’m pretty sure even some of the teachers were looking at me differently.  You might think this would’ve come as something of a relief, but it didn’t.  In some ways, it was worse than what came before, because I was no longer being called names out in the open–instead, people were thinking much worse things about me, and my imagination was left to fill the void of everything they weren’t saying.

So, I just kept on going more or less as I normally did, but even less sure of how to go about interacting with the people around me.  Being a source of fear for everyone around you is only empowering to a sociopath; when it happened to me, it stung in a way I didn’t know was possible.

The fact that nothing has changed, either in legislation or in the common narrative in the twenty years–TWENTY YEARS–that followed stings even worse.  My virtual body counts have risen to countless numbers, across hundreds of games, and I’ve still never physically harmed a soul.  As these mass shootings keep happening (and keep happening, and keep happening…) at schools, movie theaters, festivals, night clubs, and on, and on, I’ve found my sense of shock and horror is steadily turning to frustration and incredulity.  Because for more than half my life, something I love has repeatedly been named as a scapegoat, because those in power are too cowardly, lazy, and complacent to confront the actual problem, and people keep dying because nothing is being done.  The common thread in all these killings isn’t video games, any more than previous atrocities were the result of violent movies, or D&D, or any other convenient counterculture pariah du jour.  The common thread is unstable people having easy access to guns–often with modifications that serve no defensible purpose aside from the intent to commit mass murder.  It’s not rocket science, you unconscionable, Congressional fuckwits.

This is Guile.  Guile is a major in the Air Force who fights terrorists with his bare fists, and has theme music that goes with everything.  Guile doesn’t actually exist, but he still manages to somehow be a better American and human being than the useless, craven shitbag “representatives” we have in Congress, who refuse to actually do anything to keep their citizens safe.  Be like Guile.  Stand up for what’s right, in whatever way you can.  Even if it’s just through an exasperated post on a blog with double-digit followers.