August 30, 2010

Real vs. simulated wildness

Just browsing the NYT archives and came across this snapshot of what young guys were up to for fun in 1987. As far as I know, not a single midnight launch of a video game has attracted nearly 20,000 people in one spot and ended with cars being overturned and burned. For all they rave on about the first-person shooter de jour, or how sick it is to get to play as a gang member in Grand Theft Auto, it's worth remembering that adolescent dudes today have never gotten into a real fight, or even toilet-papered someone's house -- really, when was the last time you saw that anywhere?

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous8/30/10, 5:24 AM

    I was at Ohio State in the early 2000s, and after big football games there were often riots -- breaking windows, setting fire to cars, that sort of thing. So you don't have to go all the way back to the '80s to see this kind of stuff. You're right, though, that the violent video game-playing guys and the actually physically violent guys were pretty much disjoint sets.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hughman8/30/10, 6:50 AM

    Where?

    The UK, every single day.

    ReplyDelete

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