School Shootings, Gaming and Online Extremism: What Parents Need to Know
A yoga teacher in my community who is also a somatic psychologist posted a question on her Facebook page asking other parents of middle school kids if anyone had succeeded in NOT getting a mobile phone for their child, and sharing her concern about video games as well. Her question started quite a conversation online. The STEM school shooting in Highlands Ranch, Colorado had just happened, and I decided to weigh in to share with more parents what I believe is critical information to help them respond adaptively to the threat of online violence and to the ongoing school shooting crisis.
I urged my friend on Facebook to hold the line with her son in middle school over his demand for a cell phone; early introduction of violent video gaming in preteen years (ages 10-13) increases the risk of addiction, known as Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) in the DSM-5, by age 15-16. Also with 5G, the risk of EMF radiation from cell phones only increased for children and teens. I urged her to apply the precautionary principle and play it safe with her preteen and hold the line on violent video gaming which 5G enables for mobile. Personally, I believe age 16 is appropriate to introduce violent video war gaming, the age when teens are allowed to drive a car. Because there is a similarity in driving a car on roads and playing violent video games online: both of these technolgies come with serious risks if used inappropriately, without safety guidelines.
In 2009, I published an article titled “The Writing on the Screen: A Mediation on the VA Tech Shooting Spree” on age-appropriate use of computer games in the international journal Semiotica that is referenced by game designers and cultural theorists of electronic media to this day. Currently I’m writing a book entitled Why Teens Shoot: Holistic Violence Assessment, Prevention and Recovery. I’ve been tracking the school shooting spree crisis for over a decade now, and want to share some key insights.
The problem is not just electronic games that invite players to shoot human-like avatars and see it as a game, which over time desensitizes teens to watching violence. That’s one real problem, and along with the risk of early addiction, reason enough for any parent to be concerned. But there’s another problem: online games are haunted by a network of hate mongering, alt right, white supremacist trolls that hang out in gaming chatrooms, giving them access to your teen. Online extremist discourse not only attracts at-risk teens with a propensity towards violence and eggs them on, it also creates teens at risk of violence by inundating them, inculcating them and conditioning them to become accustomed to virtual bullying and displays of hyper-violent masculinity. For everyone involved, online bullying and hate-mongering may be virtual, but the emotions, cognitions and somatic behaviors it evokes are real. For young players with a history of trauma, or with mental health challenges, or neurological developmental challenges, the risks are even greater.
For cultural theorists out there reading this, I’m referring to the fact that in nature, there is no separation between the biological and informational stratum. In other words, natural chains of encoding do not respect the social language games we play about how safe it is to have 150 million Americans playing video games, 2.3 billion on the planet, most of which teach people to be in the subject position of an active shooter. It’s a game we are playing with ourselves when we think doing so is safe. What we know about developmental somatic psychology tells us we are playing with fire when we think this way.
Here’s what I think every parent of middle and high school students should know about the connection between violent video games and school shooters, so they can make the best decision about appropriate use for their children.
The PewDiePie connection
Both the Churchchrist shooter in New Zealand, Brenton Tarrant, and the California Synagogue shooter, John Earnest, included the popular meme #subscribetoPewDiePie in their racist, violent hate-filled “manifestos” posted on 8chan’s user-generated message boards. Today, I read in the news that one of the STEM school shooters, Devon Erickson, followed PewDiePie on Facebook.
It’s important for parents to know what the PewDiePie (rhymes with cutiepie) meme is, and what it has come to represent. Because if your child plays video games, or wants to learn how to play video games, the odds are high he will eventually find his way to PewDiePie’s YouTube videos and the PewDiePie hashtag. Why is that? Because PewDiePie has over 95 million subscribers. And PewDiePie’s videos have been viewed over 21 billion times. That’s not a typo. Over 21 billion views according to Trackalytics as of May 7, 2019—the day of the STEM school shooting. While the media may want to blame PewDiePie for the social violence happening off line, it’s more complicated than that.
PewDiePie in real life is Felix Kjellberg, a 29 year-old Swedish video gamer and YouTuber best known for his Let’s Play commentaries about popular video games. In 2016, he was YouTube’s top earner, pulling in $15 million. His online avatar is offensive, in-your-face, snide and often amoral. Some of his videos were anti-Semitic enough that he was dropped by Disney’s Maker Studios in 2017, causing YouTube’s Preferred ad platform to sever commercial ties. PewDiePie's response was characteristically narcissistic, calling out “old school media” for their attempt to “decrease my influence and my economic worth.” The notoriety hasn’t hurt his YouTube ratings. But we have to wonder if PewDiePie himself is being played by troll farms that helped. him get those gargantuan viewing stats. We have to ask, is PewDiePie real? Or is Kjellberg and his online avatar being played? And if so, by whom? And to what purpose?
8chan and the Dark Web
What is PewDiePie’s connection to 8chan? 8chan is a user-generated message board on the Dark Web overrun not only with people posting child pornography and stolen credit card information, but also with internet trolls that attack and harass people by posting personal information online and spewing alt-right, white supremacist and misogynist discourse designed to sow social and political discord in both online and on-the-ground communities.
Because of PewDiePie’s vast online reach, trolls surround him and his social media hashtags like fleas on a dog. By parasitically trolling PewDiePie's followers and viewers, trolls have access to the minds and psyches of hundreds of millions of vulnerable, impressionable teens and young adults—some of whom, like the Churchchrist and San Diego synagogue shooters, became “radicalized” into fascist ideology that would later leave their families, neighbors and friends shocked and mystified at their sudden murderous behavior.
8chan’s troll-infested webnest spun off from the popular 4chan gaming message board platform over Gamergate—an orchestrated attack on women in the gaming community who were pushing back on misogynist and violent discourse on 4chan. Troll attacks were violent and relentless, threatening outspoken women game developers like Brianna Wu with rape and even murder, including doxxing her address to make those threats real on the ground. The FBI was called, but Wu said they didn’t take the threats seriously, and they haven't stopped. When 4chan admin tried to set boundaries early in the GamerGate troll war, 8chan took off as the alt-right space on the Dark Web for unbridled hate speech masquerading as free speech. To this day, women are targeted as well as progressive, liberal culture in general. 8chan trolls like to disrupt ethnic, racial and gender diversity—a cultural core value of democracy.
How do You Know if a Video Game is Safe for your Child?
Let’s look at the popular multiplayer game Fortnite as an example, because the yoga teacher in my community who shared her concern on Facebook shared that her son sometimes went into a rage when she tried to limit his time on Fortnite. A sign that he was becoming addicted to online gaming.
The game maker says Fortnite is appropriate for players 13 and older. But Fortnite is one popular multiplayer online game I would NOT recommend for middle school children or even freshman high school teens. Not only because the killing in the game is killing humans and not monsters, but also because, like many of these games, the online chat platform allows random strangers to talk to your child. Some of these strangers are other gamers, but a shocking number are trolls looking for somebody to harass, bully, disorient and confuse. If that’s not enough to make a parent concerned, recall the Churchchrist shooter in New Zealand named Fortnite in his 8chan manifesto as one of the video games he played.
Take a look at these online resources for parents about Fortnite and other popular shooter games. If your child is younger than 13 and playing Fortnite, be very concerned, because Fortnite is a gateway game for preteens into even more violent first-person shooter war games.
If your son rages when you try to limit his time playing a video game, that's a red flag that he’s becoming addicted. On the gaming side of the equation, there are multiple problems. It's not just the violence that he becomes desensitized to, it’s not just the somatic training to shoot that’s developmentally, emotionally and morally inappropriate for teens or pre-teens, and it’s not just that violent war games are traumatizing in themselves because adrenaline driven players are trained to shoot multiple human-like targets fast under stress. It's also that the game is programmed with somatic-emotional feedback loops designed to dole out dopamine hits to keep players playing, increasing the risk of addiction. Being able to talk to your child or teen about the problem of gaming addiction is a good sign. Not being able to talk about it is a warning sign.
In one emotionally honest video interview, Dylan Klebold’s mother (her son, one of the Columbine shooters, was addicted to the game Doom) describes the moment she realized she had ‘lost’ her son the year before his shooting spree. It was on Mother’s Day, which he had forgotten, and out of desperation she pushed her son against the refrigerator in the kitchen, pressing him to talk to her, because she knew he had shut her out. He wasn’t talking to her anymore. This is a red flag for parents. Being quiet and secretive, even selective mutism, withholding information and withdrawal from social connection are all warning signs. Later that day, Dylan Klebold came back with a small plant as a Mother’s Day gift. Sadly, it was the last time she had any emotional connection with her son.
Personally, I chose not to go into 8chan while researching this blog post. As a cultural theorist trained in semantics and somatics, I can tell you I don’t want to experience the darkness in that dark space on the internet. And it is my belief that concerned parents don’t want to let their children experience it either, especially before they’re even old enough to be responsible enough to drive a car.
Why Parents Should Be Concerned about Children and Teens Playing Fortnite
Let’s look at what’s going on outside of the game itself. If your child is playing Fortnite and makes a comment on a message board, or asks a question, any number of trolls can respond. Remember, trolls are like fleas on dogs. According to one gamer who shared his experience online, troll attacks are not for the faint of heart. After he got on a Russian server and had the audacity to type “shhhhh” to some trolls talking trash on a message board, he was quickly attacked by some 50 trolls hurling threatening, inflammatory insults at him. Worse yet, the gamer reported his account was hacked. Suddenly Russian rubles were moved in and out of his account without his knowledge or permission, until he was flagged by the gaming platform for suspicious transactions. In 2019, Fortnite admitted it had a security breach allowing trolls to mine personal account information. Parents beware.
In 2018, The Hate Report counted 173 groups that glorifiy school shooters on Steam’s popular gaming platform used by teens to download games. At one point, Steam let a Russian gaming company launch a game called Active Shooter onto the Steam platform, in which players take on the role of an active shooter in a high school. That should make the hair stand up on any parent’s head. Luckily, public outcry led by concerned parents and Parkland student activists convinced Steam to kill the game and banish the Russian game developer.
My takeaway for parents is that Steam, Fortnight and gaming chatrooms are not a place for the young and inexperience, or the feint of heart. ds having suicidal thoughts. Certainly not young vulnerable teens at risk of violence who are on the verge of going off the deep end, struggling to keep up socially, angry, or suffering suicidal thoughts.
Finally, there’s one more reason you might not want to allow your child or preteen to play Fortnite, even though millions of pre-teens and teens are doing just that as I’m writing this blog. Shooter war games are spin-offs of military training programs and many parents suspect are being used for early military recruitment. On the ground military recruitment is not allowed before age 18. But online recruitment has no age limit. If your child is not suited to be a drone pilot, steer them clear of early war gaming addiction. And if they are suited for military service, refer them to media coverage of traumatized drone pilots with PTSD who are coming forward as whistleblowers. Sitting strapped in a chair for hours on end, day after day, bunkered somewhere in the desert outside Las Vegas far from the light of day, shooting at numbers flashing by on a computer screen, and then seeing a flyover of the carnage you’ve created down on the ground after the fact, often affecting innocent people, is not what it’s cracked up to be in video games. Again, it’s not for the feint of heart, or teens who are behind in developing the xyzzy we associate with mature adult behavior—a prerequisite for military recruiters. Military recruitment before age 18 is an ethical breach. Again, caution is advised.
Use the precautionary principle. Play it safe with your preteens and teens.
