I have to say that, as a fan of Max Payne, Unreal Tournament and Halo, I've always be skeptical of the purported adverse effects of video-game play: it's a game, get over it. However, after watching some of those clips, I was shaken. Seriously. Shooting the cops was bad enough - right in your face, and so realistic - but when that guy got stabbed in the neck... *shudder* How could a nine-year-old do that, say a hundred times, and not be f***ed up? It turned my stomach... Zoomed in, the gurgling... Anyone know which game that was? I guess I've been out of the scene longer than I thought.
I agree with the importance of self-expression. I remember the rage I had as a kid. From the time my younger brother came on the scene, I was a hellion. Wrestling wasn't enough for me: I'd jump on his head if I could. Obviously I didn't act out as much as a young man, but that was almost worse. The rage was there, inside, threatening to consume me at times. I'd wander the streets just praying someone would say something, give me a look... And I wasn't a big kid! But I felt big - huge! - with the rage. How could anyone stand against it?
My point is that I was on a razor's edge. If I'd fallen in with the wrong crowd, had trouble in school, who knows where I'd be today. As the media teacher was saying, if I'd known that someone out there cared about what I had to say, even if I had to struggle for the words, that would've made all the difference in the world. As it was, when I was a bit older, I found that Kurt Cobain gave voice to the words I couldn't find, that maybe he understood where I was. You can imagine the turn I took in 1994.
If I'd had an outlet, expressed myself in some form, as opposed to bottling it up, I never would've got to that point, so I echo Benjamin's words, Jenn's great piece: pick up a guitar, a pen, and speak.
