O’Reilly says gamers are “know-nots”
Hit the road, Jack Thompson. There’s a new anti-game crusader in town. Bill O’Reilly, controversial talk show host and occasional David Letterman sparring partner, doesn’t think highly of gamers and fanboys.
In his broadcast “Young and addicted to machines”, the outspoken O’Reilly blamed machines (e.g. game consoles) for the deterioration of the American Society. In fact, he referred to them as the new drugs and alcohol and gamers as the new junkies.
A large portion of the population, mostly… under the age of 45, who donÂ’t deal with reality – ever. They donÂ’t know what day it is… they donÂ’t know what their neighbor looks like. They donÂ’t know anythingÂ… because they are constantly diverted by a machine… it takes a person away from reality because theyÂ’ve created their own realityÂ…
Then he sunk his teeth on the PS3 calling it a “big, big problem” because he says some “people get addicted to it, just like opium, just like drugs and alcohol.” How about pain killers, the kind that fellow conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh is addicted to? Now Sony has always been crowing about how powerful the PS3 is but we didn’t know how powerful until O’Reilly pointed out that the machine is “going to change every single thing in this country.”
Wow! Every single thing? But wait! There’s more! O’Reilly then takes on the entire video game industry and says it will send more people to the unemployment line. Why, you ask? Because video games make gamers too stupid to hold down jobs. You think we’re kidding? His words were:
Because the skill set that is necessary to earn a decent living is being de-emphasized 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… youÂ’re not going to know anything… youÂ’re gonna fail.
That’s funny because a while back the U.S. Army said soldiers who grew up playing video games are better at operating CROWS (common remotely operated weapon stations). It’s not only the U.S. Army who feels that way. Even the South Koreans were turning to professional online gamers to provide support for the development of war-simulation programs. Being a very big supporter of the Iraq invasion and probably every Republican-led war, shouldn’t O’Reilly be promoting video games?
Speaking of wars, O’Reilly says game consoles has made him fear for the United States because “believe me, the Jihadists? … theyÂ’re not playing the video games. TheyÂ’re killing real people over there.” Uh, so you want gamers to get off their butts and start killing real people as part of their training to defend the U.S.?
Oh, really O’Reilly. We think David Letterman was right when he said 60 percent of what you say is crap.
Via GamePolitics
Hit the road, Jack Thompson. There’s a new anti-game crusader in town. Bill O’Reilly, controversial talk show host and occasional David Letterman sparring partner, doesn’t think highly of gamers and fanboys.
In his broadcast “Young and addicted to machines”, the outspoken O’Reilly blamed machines (e.g. game consoles) for the deterioration of the American Society. In fact, he referred to them as the new drugs and alcohol and gamers as the new junkies.
A large portion of the population, mostly… under the age of 45, who donÂ’t deal with reality – ever. They donÂ’t know what day it is… they donÂ’t know what their neighbor looks like. They donÂ’t know anythingÂ… because they are constantly diverted by a machine… it takes a person away from reality because theyÂ’ve created their own realityÂ…
Then he sunk his teeth on the PS3 calling it a “big, big problem” because he says some “people get addicted to it, just like opium, just like drugs and alcohol.” How about pain killers, the kind that fellow conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh is addicted to? Now Sony has always been crowing about how powerful the PS3 is but we didn’t know how powerful until O’Reilly pointed out that the machine is “going to change every single thing in this country.”
Wow! Every single thing? But wait! There’s more! O’Reilly then takes on the entire video game industry and says it will send more people to the unemployment line. Why, you ask? Because video games make gamers too stupid to hold down jobs. You think we’re kidding? His words were:
Because the skill set that is necessary to earn a decent living is being de-emphasized 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… youÂ’re not going to know anything… youÂ’re gonna fail.
That’s funny because a while back the U.S. Army said soldiers who grew up playing video games are better at operating CROWS (common remotely operated weapon stations). It’s not only the U.S. Army who feels that way. Even the South Koreans were turning to professional online gamers to provide support for the development of war-simulation programs. Being a very big supporter of the Iraq invasion and probably every Republican-led war, shouldn’t O’Reilly be promoting video games?
Speaking of wars, O’Reilly says game consoles has made him fear for the United States because “believe me, the Jihadists? … theyÂ’re not playing the video games. TheyÂ’re killing real people over there.” Uh, so you want gamers to get off their butts and start killing real people as part of their training to defend the U.S.?
Oh, really O’Reilly. We think David Letterman was right when he said 60 percent of what you say is crap.
Via GamePolitics
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