How Do Violent Video Games Affect American Culture

For many years, major parts of American culture was dark, violent, and quite disturbing. In earlier times, this dark culture was seen mainly in novels and poems. In today’s America, this culture is now much more prevalent being in dark movies, violent video games, and disturbing music. As the years have gone by, this culture has gotten darker and more violent. America’s youth also has easier access to these dark games, movies and music. American culture has become much more darker, and this is taking a significant toll on our country’s youth. Video games can be educational and fun, but they can also prove to be evil. Shooting games such Call of Duty, Battlefield, or Grand Theft Auto have been proved to desensitize players (Drinka). These improve hand-eye coordination such as those used to reload and fire a weapon. Studies recently have shown that brain activity associated with empathy is suppressed while playing these violent games (Drinka). In many of these video games the player becomes the shooter. The player is shooting dehumanized enemies, which is enabling
them to perfect the technique of aiming flawlessly and pulling the trigger back smoothly (Drinka). Many shootings can be traced back to violent video games such as the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting. The shooter, Adam Lanza, was believed to be deep into the world of shooter video games. Sadly, Lanza was so caught up in this world of violence he went to the extreme and took it out on the most innocent. Music is known to make people feel certain ways.
Happy, sad, excited, there is a music genre for it all. But much like video games, music can have a negative effect on people. Music such as heavy metal is known to romanticize suicide. Artists such Marilyn Manson have written songs specifically to glorify this horrible act that some feel is the only way out of their troubles (Kuntz). For example, Raymond Kuntz testified to the U.S. Senate on the effects of heavy metal music and teenage suicide. Mr. Kuntz teenage son committed suicide while listening to a Marilyn Manson CD titled Antichrist Superstar. The song he was listening to was filled with lyrics praising death. “And cut away our smiles without the threat of death, there's no reason to live at all”, was some of the praising of suicide throughout this song (Kuntz). Something as real and terrifying as death and suicide is should not be
romanticized. Dark movies have proved to give people ideas of violent acts to perform. The greatest example of this would be the Aurora Theatre Shooting which happened back in 2012. James Holmes had dressed himself up as if he was the Joker from the movie Batman, and opened fire into a theatre full of those watching The Dark Knight Rises (Healy). After many interviews with FBI and police officers, Mr. Holmes said he killed all of those people to “increase his self-worth” and to “complete his mission” (Healy). Though, there have also been studies done that show that violent movies decrease violence in communities (Dahl). These movies are shown late at night in theatres to keep people busy during the major times at night for crime. The movies may keep people out of trouble for the night, but it can give them ideas on what to do on nights they aren’t filing into a movie theatre.
American culture has a dark side, much like many other cultures. But our video games, music, and movies have proved to cause significant problems within our populations. School shootings, mass shootings, and suicide, America’s culture has gotten darker and more violent. Our youth also has gained easy access to these violent games or songs. As the years have gone by, our culture has sunk deeper and deeper into the dark.