November 18, 2006 -
Apparently sparked by the PlayStation 3 launch, conservative pundit Bill O'Reilly took off after video game culture and digital technology generally in yesterday's Radio Factor.The controversial talk show host, who advertises his program as a "no spin zone" offered the following spin on gamers and much of their favorite gear:
American society is changing for the worse because of the machines... In the past to flee the real world people usually chose drugs or alcohol... now you don't have to do that, Now all you have to do is have enough money to buy a machine...
Basically what you have is a large portion of the population, mostly younger people under the age of 45, who don’t deal with reality - ever. So they don’t know what day it is; they don’t know temperature it is; they don’t know what their neighbor looks like. They don’t know anything… because they are constantly diverted by a machine. Now what this does is it takes a person away from reality because they’ve created their own reality...
Here comes the PS3 rant:
The newest thing is the PlayStation 3. Now this is a machine that allows you to play games in hi-def and all this other stuff... It's the newest state of the art system from Sony.... It has a video game console, plays DVDs, connects you to the Internet, tells you how handsome you are. It’s six-hundred bucks. Now people lined up for hours to get this thing. Hours!
Next, O'Reilly recounts some of the various, well-publicized incidents that took place on PS3 lines around the country, before launching into:
The problem with this stuff is that some people can deal with it constructively... but other people get addicted to it, just like opium, just like drugs and alcohol… So this is a big, big problem. It’s going to change every single thing in this country.
At about this point, O'Reilly has Blois Olson of the National Institute on Media & the Family on as a guest. Olson talked about some issues regarding video game addiction, but was quite reasonable. As for O'Reilly? He thinks your video gaming may well doom you to a life of poverty:
The have-nots are growing. Why are they growing? Because the skill set that is necessary to earn a decent living is being deemphasized in a fantasy world of football games and shooting zombies and all that…. Now you have the "knows" and the "know-nots", because if you spend all your youth being prisoners of machines..... you're not going to know anything…. You’re gonna fail.
And, even though O'Reilly's pay site offers a podcast, the pundit rather curiously disses the iPod and seems to equate video gaming with national collapse:
I don’t own an iPod. I would never wear an iPod... If this is your primary focus in life - the machines... it’s going to have a staggeringly negative effect, all of this, for America... did you ever talk to these computer geeks? I mean, can you carry on a conversation with them? ...I really fear for the United States because, believe me, the jihadists? They're not playing the video games. They're killing real people over there.
GP: A big, huge shout-out to reader Jim for the tip... Even if GP did have to shell out $4.95 in order to listen to O'Reilly's rant. Hey, we spare no expense for our readers.
Comments
Re: Bill O'Reilly Slams PS3 Launch, Gamers, iPods, Digital Tech
We should spend more time waving our countrie's flag and singing the national anthem while dancing the national jig, talking to people that are too busy to pay attention to us, writing letters to them and shivvering with glee as they get glanced over and ignored for lack of mindless praise.
In fact, all of our free time should be spent worshipping both government and god.
Oh and let's not forget the military, simply supporting our soldiers and staff isn't good enough, we must gather our collective psychic power and beam love and joy over to them through means of magic arse crystals.
While we're at it, we should also spend more time yelling over far seas at cave-dwelling warlords. Showing them our displeasure, as they shread our suggestive letters, and ignore us.
I am really very tried of your attempts to attack the New Generation. You attacked hip hop and now you attack video games. You are a right wing shock-jock and this is why.
Everyone knows what a Left wing shock-jock is... i.e. Howard Stern. But Bill are the opposite. Hip Hop is Billion dollar industry with Millions of listener's worldwide. Video games are no different. With the Playstation 3 and Nintendo's Wii release for this Christmas it is sure to be the top of everyone's list, young and old. The hype of this is, the biggest Computer and Gaming industry has seen, and this being the tech age and the release of the new windows that's pretty big. And you Bill taking it, (spin-doctoring if you will) and use it to wide your listen audience. Bill you are full of it. By Shocking the nation again and spinning the hype for own good you are a hypocrite. No different than Dennis Rodman, Madonna or Stern.
You clam that Video Games are the down fall of the youth. You mis-informed, dumb or really smart ( See last par.) Video Games are not like Pac Man anymore. In Video Games you must earn money, to stay competitive. Muti-task, you must monitor your heath, radar, team members, ammo and enemies. In Sports you can have full control of your favorite team. Trade players even draft players from your NCAA game to your Pro game. With games like Grand Theft Auto (GTA) Do your homework, as sells of GTA went up, crime alone the same lines of in the game went down. The US Army said that soldiers who grew up playing video games are better . And Video Games trains you to be a soldier by use tactics to win ( things you should be happy about unless you are a Kerr supporter). And with Online ability in all of the Next Gen systems the world is your neighbor. You are able the talk to people around the world and play with or against them. All of these skill can help you in your adult life.
BILL, I challenge you to air this Full email without edit to your TV show and Radio show!!! Because you may have a lot good points on many issues ( I to side mostly with the right wing ) but attacks on hip hop and video games because it's big news or business. Bill, Stop attacking peoples fun, entertainment, and hobbies. You sound like the people that attack Elvis for dancing on a stage. And Bill what do you do for a hobby, read books, RPG's are interactive books. Play tennis, the Wii makes you run around the room and swinging the controller like a racket to play. So next time you want to hit the court and its raining theirs an idea. and Bill you say boy-cot the thing you do not like. You said "I don’t own an iPod. I would never wear an iPod…" I hope apple and the rest of the tech industry will thing about boy-cotting you. And Finally the underlining problem with the youths is this... The Parents! The Parents are the only true problem with our children. Like computers garbage in garbage out. Parents and You should not take games away from children but spent time on there interest (Video Games, Sports, and etc.) and show them love and not a $699 babysitter.
Signed
Shawn Talbott
Husband and Father
middle class citizen
and 28 y/o Gamer 4 life
When they have options for normality, they'll explore it in a heart-beat. But until their have that option, they'll continue with the paths presented to them. I just wish Billy boy here would stop with the rhetoric which is both damaging and useless.
He isn't helping. Only reinforcing incorrect sterotypes and applying more negative pressure to the kids who need help (Hey kids! You're doomed to be failures forever. :D And you can't do anything about it! :D), IF they even need help in the first place.
Interesting that Ben grimm isn't replying to this at all.
Check it there : http://youtube.com/watch?v=yGFRi_ueq-M
O' Reilly's comment=lies, ignorance, half-truths, and fear. Nothing else to it. He's the one who can't handle the real world.
Did he actually support drug and alcohol abuse? Come on even the biggest moron on the planet wouldn't dream of suggesting people abuse controlled substances to "flee" the real world. Does he really think if all the gamers started coming home and, rather than playing Warcraft or FInal Fantasy 12, got drunk and/or high they would suddenly know thier neighbors and the temperature, if they already didn't? I've never even heard of a gamer running around in 20 degree weather naked, or assaulting an officer, but you can be sure a drunk or a stoner has done so and ended up on the evening news. They probably will do so again, too.
I'm not proud of the reaction to the PS3 launch. Whether they were parents, gamers, or violent rabid beasts, it was a shame. People don't act in such a manner. The recent troubles weren't so much an issue of a new game coming out, but really proof that ignorant, selfish, disrepectful, and violent people come in all shapes, sizes, creeds, and colors (see Bill O' Reilly). As many others have pointed out, similar incidents have occured with movies, games, and even Tickle Me Elmo. It's not gamer culture but a sad fact of human nature. If there was a food-shortage and only enough for 10% of the populace to eat you can bet there would be mass riots. I'd bet money Bill would be among them if he didn't already have a stock of his own. That's not a perfect example, I'll admit that. Still my point is: it's humans that did that, not the PS3. Not one PS3, or XBox360, or Tickle Me Elmo, killed, mugged, or raped anyone.
Hey Bill, do me a favor. Protect your kids. Don't protect me. I don't want you to.
Seriously, he has at least one of those a day. It's either about how evil this newfangled technological advance (that he obviously dosen't understand, but he dosen't need to because understanding things is unnessasary for a manly man), or how lame that new "chick flick" (like, you know, anything that isn't about WWII soldiers led by John Wayne kicking nazi ass) is, andhow he'd never watch that because he's a manly blah. Hell, he even finds a way to insert it into his daily ego stroking: "Well, those girly men at random local newspaper said something about me again. You know, if I wasen't such a manly man I'd point out that *my* show is way more popular than them. So there, neener neener, suck it you lame nerds lols!"
And that's why I finally stopped listening, well, that and I'd broken two radios...
And just so we're clear, I am NOT saying Dennis or Andrew are media whores ;)
Ya those were the good old days when real men bought drugs to get away from society!
"Now what this does is it takes a person away from reality because they’ve created their own reality…"
HAHAHAHA! I love this, a FOX News employee, and Bill O' Reily no less, accusing OTHER people of creating their own reality.
"Now you have the “knows” and the “know-nots”, because if you spend all your youth being prisoners of machines….. you’re not going to know anything…. You’re gonna fail."
No, the knows and the know-nots come from an American education system that has failed its children due to funding cuts. Your conservatives at work!
I'm a tad sick of this anti-nerd bias in this country. To sum it up, it's like "I hate you and think you are undesirable and unsociable and you deserve to be bashed or ignored you stupid nerd! Now make my fucking cell phone, video game, computer, maintain my computer and net connection, etc." Why don't we "geeks" get appreciated? Why is it that we have so many people in the news and in sitcom writing that feel it is OK to just bash the nerds anyways? And why the hell don't we have our own civil rights organization or group to defend us when we are bashed? It's about time somebody steps up for us and tells these people to knock it off. Can't make fun of black people, Hispanics, women, etc. because that would be sexist or racist, but bashing geeks seems to be perfectly OK. Why?
He acts like as if our focus is on machines and not being smart and succesful. Tell that to Will Wright, Warren Spector, Mark Rein, Ed Boon, John Tobias, and the throngs of other men and women who have had success with game business, design, art, and competition you damned old fart! Saying that we are unsocial, unsmart, and future unsuccessful people is just writing us off without giving us a chance to be such. If he really doesn't like those of us that are, why doesn't he work to do something about it to begin with instead of just turning into a talking head that just bitches about it?
And by the way Mr. O'Reilly, the whole anti-game and anti-geek bias in this country that you are very much a part of will be decimated. And OMG! Did I learn the word "decimated" in school? No! I learned it from a game of Warcraft II.'
But then again, the PS3 riots don't exactly help the gamer image with people robbing stores at gunpoint and people getting wild because of shortages. Does anyone smell another opportunity opened up for He Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken to get his face in the spotlight and say "See! I told you games turn people violent!"?
/rant
1982 here we come!
This anti-game shit is getting dumb. I'm starting to think that Gamers should ruthlessly google-bomb and hack every Censorcrat site there is, while the game industry goes rambo with lawsuits.
Then again, maybe it's just making games more popular.
Gotcha. I as well think that the few who do take it too far need help. There is such a difference between escapism and gutless denial and refusal to deal with reality.
It is a good thing that the problem is brought out and should be addressed, but not by O'Reilly and other generally un-game educated people because their opinion is almost always automatically slanted in one direction before going on and voicing themselves. I'd rather someone goes on and talks about such issues in the gaming community who first sit on the fence in a neutral position and then form their opinions based on stuff they find out rather than go in with a slanted viewpoint.
O'Reilly is not one of those types to be neutral. You know fully well that he is going to take a right-wing conservative take on an issue and it sure as hell isn't a neutral one, like it should be. Because he panders to a certain crowd he is going to make his opinion of games a certain way to please them.
Anyone know of a news organization or network that has those with a more neutral view or don't they exist? It would work better than Bill here.
Pundits like O'Reilly make me laugh. I'm glad there are people like Colbert to show how absurd these vainglorious demagogues really are.
"I’m a tad sick of this anti-nerd bias in this country. [...] Why is it that we have so many people in the news and in sitcom writing that feel it is OK to just bash the nerds anyways? And why the hell don’t we have our own civil rights organization or group to defend us when we are bashed?"
Because we've got better things to do.
On a related note, perhaps we can agree that no one should reply to O'Reilly on these issues? He is notorious for being a troll, inciting people into e-mailing flames to him, which he gets to mock on the air. O'Reilly is garbage and not worth your time or mine.
Good point. It is better to ignore these people and watch it because they aren't really worth it, but at one point I think it goes a little too far. I find it disappointing that kind of thing is what I'm seen as.
Anyways, why the hell is Bill O'Reilly so popular anyways? Is it because he likes to rile people up over his words for shock value to get attention from those that agree with him or what?
Next door, on the left is the Detective Sgt. trying to become a Lt., his bitchass wife, and their little slut of a daughter who goes to the Catholic High School for girls.
On the right is the single mother with a retarded son. They're good people.
Across the street on the left is the furniture salesman, his wife the obsessive compulsive who is so bad she vacumes the driveway every day, and their son, the delinquent.
On the right is the guy who bought the house as an investment, lives in one side, and rents the other. He paid alot of money to buy his place from the state, and now he's suing them because of the lunatic who used to piss in the corner and light fires in the living room.
So, I know my neighbors, Bill. All too well.
Of course he can't carry on a conversation with us - Because we're more intelligent than him.
But, I mean, we don't know anything, right? dee-de-dee.
Bill O'Reilly:
http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/4190/howdaruls1.jpg
Dear Mr. O-Dumbass,
The vast majority of gamers play games as a means of simple stress relief, or casually for fun. Most of us do know our neighbors. Most of us do interact with the real world very well. Most of us are very normal people. There is a minority of gamers who do need some help dealing with the real world, but it is my guess that these people would be doing something aside from gaming if they didn't have a "machine" to plug into (probably obsessive reading of fantasy material, or D&D/other role playing games).
You are usually an intelligent person, so please do some research and THINK before talking about gamers in such a bigoted, knee-jerk way again. You are steriotyping a HUGE percentage of the population, and as a person in your position such an action is extremely irresponsable. Bringing in someone from NIMF without bringing in a gamer to dispute their claims was also quite short-sighted. Essentially, you formed your own opinions and brought in a "yes man" to confirm them. Congratulations, I hope you're happy with yourself.
I would like to attest, however, that the iPod is definitely beneficial to one's health...I'd never go to the gym without it. (24 Hour Fitness never changes their music and working in a nightclub, I've heard enough hip-hop to last me ten lifetimes.)
Well, technically, he's complaining about how video game addicition is at an all-time high.
He does make some good points (albeit he could've said them WAY better) about how the addicition is happening. True, not EVERY gamer does what he says, but there are a number who do. Sure, maybe not knowing the temperature off-hand isn't the most important thing in the world, but the point he's trying to get across is that sometimes you should just put the controller down, and go hang out in the sun and make sure you're actually living a life.
However, if I read right, that's what the other guy is saying, and this guy is just taking the whole issue to a new level.
You want to know a real problem with America: our over inflated egos which have stifled our progress as a nation. The ego masturbation that passes for informing television today is a big part of the problem.
I admit these pundits may have good points at times but I for one don’t feel like digging through a pound of feces (their egos) to find the one oz. of chocolate (their points) buried underneath.
What really gets me is the quote about the "computer geeks," I mean, there ARE the classic reclusive computer-type people out there, but by and large programmers, sys admins, game devs, etc etc etc that I've known and worked with throughout the years have been some of the smartest most informed, most interesting people I've ever met.
His rant actually made me feel like puking ;p
I've got three words for you, Billy O': Cabbage Patch Kids. What actually incites these behaviors is GREED. It isn't video game related at all.
Seriously. What a luddite.
Hell! Maybe we should give the terrorists some PS3s!
Seriously. I guess those people that camp out for Star Wars and James Bond are also addicted to movies like alcohol and drugs, and also created a reality for themselves? What do you say to that Bill?
First off, O'Reilly's claim to fame is his TV show - you know, the one on that 'machine' that everybody is diverted by, which they sit in front of to escape reality?
Speaking of escaping reality, isn't that what viewers and listeners of O'Reilly's shows do every day by watching and listening to him? I think that people who consider themselves 'informed' after listening to O'Reilly are a far greater threat than game consoles.
Amazing how so many people forget that just a few years ago, people referred to television as "that machine" that "degrades social skills." At least with video games, I'm not being yelled at by an ultra-right wing loudmouth every night.
And I love how in O'Reilly's world, everybody under the age of 45 has yet to experience reality. I'm guessing that makes most employees and execs at FOX and O'Reilly's radio show a bunch of dolts.
It's a good thing O'Reilly was able to come forward and speak the truth - I always had my suspicions that everybody under 45 was living in a delusional haze.
I agree with you completely. But just because the problem is on a small scales, does not mean that we should ignore it's existance. And that goes for anything that people delve into too much to escape reality. Whether it's gambling, sports, eating, exercising. All of these activities can pose problems for those who become dependent on them. Instead of getting automatically getting defensive, like a lot of the responses above, we need to say, "Hey, that's not all of us, but a small portion need help". We can't ignore it.
And escapism can be healthy, especailly if the alternate is unhealthy. But when people are ignorning their personal and professional obligations, no matter what the vice is, they need help. And that happens to be a big problem in video gaming.
Videogame addiction is no more shameful than gambling, eating, or a sports addiction. It's a problem that mah people have and should be taken seriously. Not ignored.