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comment by not_damn_dirty-ape
not_damn_dirty-ape  ·  3152 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Is media encouraging death threats? [Re: Kimmel vs 'Gamers']

It's not 'overly dramatic' entertainment contributing to death threats, it's just anonymity. The goal of an artist to to make the viewer experience the most amount of emotion that they can. Therefore, overly dramatic content is made and is the most popular. Take a Schwarzenegger action movie from the 80's or markiplier playing a video game, the viewer reacts positively then goes about their day. It's art. It doesn't change the viewer in the long run. They feel an emotion and move on. This has been true of every other art form in human existence and every a new one is created people say that it will create violent behavior.

The real problem is that violent behavior has been shown. Or the equivalent for the internet. The internet is a simultaneous giant leap forward and leap back for humans. On one hand any human in the world can form a community with other like-minded individuals, on the other, humans evolved to form communitis of 30 to 50, not 7 billion. Laws are written by the government to make everybody get along but the internet doesn't have laws or a government. So shit like this can happen to Jimmy Kimmel, Justine Sacco, or the guy that shot cecil the lion. This is a major problem that should and probably will get better over time. But for right now we have to try not to be a snowflake in the avalanche.

IMO PewDiePie makes people smarter. I've been treating this book as gospel and I think it ring especially true for let's plays. They seem like the combination of the best parts of what the author thinks about video games and reality tv.