Last week I published this cartoon about people from the maritimes who go to work in Alberta and come back as conspicuous consumers, just looking to prove at all costs how much money they have...
One reader also said that drawing about this was a bit depressing, so I took on the task to write a positive comment about on the cartoons...
Generation Y was raised on Science Fiction, the Internet and japanese anime. Don't get me wrong, it's not the first time that adults freak out about something teenagers. If the parents of the kids who liked Elvis were still alive, they would tell you a few words about it. As a kid I loves Sailor Moon, Reboot, Spaceballs, Mario, Zelda, Once Upon a Time Space, Asterix, Tintin, The Simpsons and South Park...but when you watch tv 8 hours a day, it becomes your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, your play friend, your school buddy, your teacher, your psychologist and your babysitter.
Those things where meant for entertainment, a cool add-on to our lives. Not our whole life.
I'm not some kind of Tipper Gore concerned about the violence there, but more about us turning little by little into modern Don Quixotes so constantly surrounded by fiction that when we're faced with real people in our daily lives, we just don't know how to have human interaction anymore. When we're in front of screens, sexuality is showoffed in front of us non stop to make us buy all kinds of stuff, but our social skills, our ability to actually get, give and receive that and any kind of social contact shrinks day by day.
That's how you get living, breathing typing balls of frustration, like Mittaines-on-steroids there.
There was a good example of that lately. An online scandal called "Gamergate" where female gaming personalities got death threats online for their opinions. I didn't get much information on that, but I did check the meaning of "game" and "jeu" in the Webster's and the Larousse and it's stuff that people do for fun. When it comes to DEATH THREATS, well, congratulations, you just sucked the very essence of gaming since cavemen figured out how to play tic tac toe in the dirt. Without fun, it's not a game but just a dexterity test... Some people tried to frame gamergate as something about journalistic integrity, or a sex scandal. To me, it's just stupid death threats over stupid games. If it means anything more than that to you, you seriously need to reconsider your priorities in life!
ON THE BIGHT SIDE...
Hikikomoris do exist. The kind of people who play 16 hours a day, eat nothing but chips and can spend weeks without seeing another human being or daylight. One of my childhood friends was like that. Last thing I heard, he was better. I'd like to say something to those people that neither their parents, their friends, school bullies or themselves ever said to them.
You're not pathetic.
No, you're not pathetic. Despite the cartoon, I don't think internet addicts are pathetic. They're just sad. What's wrong about being sad? Half of the population of all western countries is under antidepressants! What's wrong about being addicted to games? People are addicted to alcohol, or drugs, or gambling. It does not make them weak, of stupid, or pathetic. It makes them people who need help. There's many of them out there, and many of them manage to control their addictions. You don't have to be Mittaines on steroids all your life, even though sometimes sadness can make you sound like it. Your sadness is not who you are.
It does not mean in any way that games are evil either. They're just not supposed to be the point of your whole life. An addiction is just a good thing used to fill the wrong need.
So come out of your caves, all you basement dwellers, and you may be surprised how the real world misses you.
