Elmer’s Helps Fight Childhood Obesity With Low-Calorie Snack Glues

Elmer’s CEO and avid paste-eater Michael Warren announced the company’s latest efforts to combat epidemic levels of childhood obesity with its nationwide launch of a delicious new line of reduced-calorie snack pastes.

Of those articles that McKern analyzed, roughly ten percent for each decade made some sort of moral evaluation concerning video games and those who play them.

In the 1980's, the video game industry was just taking off. A golden age, ushered in by the American release of a Japanese game called "Space Invaders" had just begun in 1979 (finally, there was something other than "Pong" to play and people were excited). However, this golden age was short lived. Because the industry exercised no quality control, a flood of poorly made games killed it off and by 1983 video games didn't look like they had much of a future.

Once again, Japan came to the rescue in 1986 with its release of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in North America. Due to it's release title, "Super Mario Brothers," the NES was extremely popular and by the end of the 80's became a standard household item. Software producers once again entered the market and a flood of games soon followed. During this time, the predominant narrative surrounding video games in The NY Times "document video games' capacity to impede players' intellectual development." By taking a time away from more valuable activities, it was feared that American children were becoming dumber and less social by the day. 84% of the articles written in this decade adopt this moral stance. Because this generation of children's work ethic was thought to be at risk- the future prosperity of America was now in question. This apocalyptic narrative had two main characters; children and parents.

In the news articles, more and more video game players were cast as lazy and unintelligent children. Not lazy and unintelligent adults- but children. According to the media, only children played video games and it was a parent's duty to worry and fret about them and the nation's future. Parent's were encouraged to closely monitor the video game playing of their children with the aim of limiting the time they spent doing so or banning the activity all together. This attitude of constant surveillance being necessary in order to combat the technology encroaching on their children's lives (through their entertainment options) would follow parents well into the 90's.

In the 90's the narrative shifted slightly. The graphic quality of games was improving. Home consoles started incorporating CD drives and 3-D graphics.  And because PC's were becoming cheaper, they also began to evolve into video game consoles. These advances all lead to video games growing in popularity. Though video games were still considered a threat to America's future, now it was the threat of violence rather than imbecility that got people riled up. By this time, video games were now being lumped together with cable television, movies, and music for encouraging violence among our youth (88% of the articles reviewed). School shootings were getting a lot of press coverage and this coverage often pointed to the media these troubled teens consumed as the cause of their respective tragedies. Psychologists were also quick to cite video games' habit of presenting violence as the only solution to a given problem. Throughout this decade, America's youth was characterized as growing up to be little more than sadistic sociopaths. To combat this, many prominent politicians began suggesting such violent media be banned- that it was better to give up a little bit of our civil rights than let the threat of video games and rap music continue unabated. Others countered that people should "vote with their wallets" and more closely monitor their consumption decisions to better align with a culture we could be proud of. Though the nature of the threat had changed, the characters in the narrative remained the same. Video games were played by children, and parents should be very concerned about this.

When the new millennium came around in the year 2000- a new narrative concerning video games joined it. Though video games continued to gain negative attention in the media surrounding their violent content- the introduction of mobile platforms, massive online multi-player role playing games, and new consoles like the Wii (that incorporated motion technology), made video games more popular than ever. At this time, a newer, less covered threat than violence, entered the public discourse on gaming; child obesity. Like in the 1980's, video games were once again cast as a threat because of the opportunity cost they represent. Rather than running around outdoors, children were sitting in front of their TV's moving only their wrists and thumbs for hours on end. But by this time it was video games, TV, and the internet that were conspiring to make America's children fat and violent. Once again, the narrative cites children as the only consumers of video games and parents as the only barrier to such destructive behavior standing in their way.

Lot's of questions running through my head... 

*What the FUCK were they thinking when they left the house?  *Do these people own mirrors? *Are they convinced that they actually look good? *Do they actually own clothing? 

Here are some thoughts...