The Destructoid community is abuzz with the arrival of its newest member (and avid Destructoid reader) Jack Thompson. Thompson, a man who still clings to the obsolete belief that gamers are sociopathic children, chose to make his grand entrance by calling us just that, and was even cutting enough to describe us all as E-tards. While most of the community fired right back at him, one of our readers sought some manner of rational discourse.
Paying him respect and urging him to engage Destructoid in a less hostile manner, CBlogger Mecha Monkey hoped to crack through the bravado and find a man whose beliefs we could get behind. It was a futile effort, but a noble one. After suggesting he appear on one of our podcasts, Jack Thompson quickly declined his own offer, deciding instead to retort to the up-until-then polite Mecha Monkey with condescending words and finally offering up this amazing description of all gamers:
Gamers are ill-mannered and uninformed, and they prove it everyday. They couldn't care less about the people killed.
Thompson, the man who has a history of being rude to correspondents, called the manners of everybody reading this into question. Thompson, the man who continues to implicate videogames in the Virginia Tech shooting regardless of proof showing otherwise, has called everybody reading this uninformed. Furthermore, the man who used the NIU tragedy to plug his own book as gone on record as saying not a single one of us cares about the people killed.
If it any wonder that gamers treat him like a figure of fun and a complete joke when he can't even respond to polite ones with any degree of respect?
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
1:42 PM on 02.18.2008
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It doesnt work
Actually people didn't start dying until 1972, after the release of the Magnavox Odyssey. The more you know!
See, that was a joke. I'm just offended by his words.
I absolutely do care as I'm sure everyone else does around here and elsewhere on the gaming blogosphere.
I haven't read any of Mechamonkey's questions or JT's responses though. Are we sure there wasn't any condescension on our part that instigated his response? I'm asking to make sure that he's given a fair opportunity and not just lambasted because "Jim says so."™
I absolutely do care as I'm sure everyone else does around here and elsewhere on the gaming blogosphere.
I haven't read any of Mechamonkey's questions or JT's responses though. Are we sure there wasn't any condescension on our part that instigated his response? I'm asking to make sure that he's given a fair opportunity and not just lambasted because "Jim says so."™
can we please stop giving him attention, he's worse than an only child sorority girl at a frat party.
How can a man who cares take advantage of grieving families to his own advantage?
Also, are you sure it was him?
his record against video games is laughable, he's under investigation for disbarment for being an asshat, and to top it all off he's a tragedy chaser.
stop giving him an audience and maybe he'll go back to wanting to topple the hip-hop industry or better yet Ice Cube for those terrible movies he's made that truly are destroying the youth of America.
Jack Thompson couldn't care less about these poor kids who kill and are killed. He uses every opportunity of death to get his face in front of a camera, and spouts his rhetoric about evil gaming.
Well Mr. Thompson, by diverting people from the real issues these kids have, your just enabling more and more of these shootings by ignoring truth so you can spread your rhetoic instead.
So how should parents identify if their child needs help? He plays video games? Lets just ignore mental health problems, ignore that they acted out and were abused, ignore that they could have gotten mental help, and focus on the evil video games. Don't spend your time helping prevent these incidents by spreading awareness, keep spreading that all-powerful ignorance, Mr. Thompson.
Keep telling yourself we're the ill-mannered and uninformed ones, that we don't care about human life, that gamers and the games they play are evil. Then you look take a good look at yourself in a mirror Mr. Thompson, and just try to tell yourself your not the one who's heartless.
"You play in dirt, you get dirty." ~ James McNulty
did you just quote HBO's The Wire?
In all seriousness, I think Jack Thompson needs every last bit of air time he can get.
Think about it. We, as gamers, could have someone competent, civil and honest making a real case against a hobby we enjoy... or we could let the legal equivalent of the unholy spawn of rodeo clown and French street mime try to make a case against us. We look awesome by comparison and anyone that believes him already hates video games anyway. His approach of tragedy-chasing, ham-handed book pimping, wild accusations, and propensity to go on game websites just to be a dick makes the average XBL 13 year old look like a saint.
The more attention he gets, the more anti-game legislation supporters look like raving lunatics.
Yes well apparently gathering to pray at candlelight vigils are selfish attempts to make us feel better, and not genuine heartfelt reaching out to them. Apparently everyone at every college should just go to NIU and hang out there with them for the week or some shit.
I'm a VT student and the NIU situation brings back a lot of painful memories for myself and my friends. We want to be there for NIU and so we find the best ways of reaching out that we can.
And this douchebag, Jack Thompson, has the tenacity to say in his e-mail to MechaMonkey, that it's all just designed to make us feel better?
You know what makes us feel better? Reaching out to others in their time of need. We're not doing it to feel better, though that is unevitably a side effect of reaching out to our brothers and sisters there.
Jack, grow the hell up. Didn't your mother teach you any manners?
I understand people want to see what Thompson says since he's the Ann Coulter of video game politics.
But there's no difference in going to an insane asylum and recording what some deranged schizo says about a topic than posting what Thompson says about anything.
Thompson is a deranged, psychopath who is one chromosome short of a down syndrome. Recording his thoughts is a waste of space.
Why do people care about him so much? He has no influence.
I really don't think kids should have mature games. But I also don't think you should completely get rid of them. It'd be censorship.
If I'm in a game store, I'm usually the first one to tell an unsuspecting parent if a game is good for their kid, even in front of the kid.
So, can there be more done to stop kids from getting games, yes. Is the ESRB a joke, yes. Is the 1 year age gap between MA and AO games a joke, yes. Is the "stores won't sell AO games, but will sell unrated usually nc-17 versions of movies freely, not behind a counter a joke? YES!
Fix those things first, and go from there.
Yeah, that's a Wire quote from season 4. I just grabbed the series after reading a review in Time and can't stop watching it, one of the best series on TV imho.
That point is pretty hard to argue.
@Jim
"Is it any wonder that gamers treat him like a figure of fun and a complete joke when he can't even respond to polite ones with any degree of respect?"
I can't believe I'm defending Jack Thompson, but....He did respond to a polite gamer until he read the site MechaMonkey belonged to. Had MechaMonkey been associated with a different site that didn't post snarky comments such as the one's he quoted, he might have had an intelligent discussion on a podcast. I applaud him for actually trying to do some research. Everyone here can definitely admit, Destructoid isn't exactly a haven for polite and "adult" gaming discussion.
I don't think anyone should be surprised that the tone of this email exchange went south once Jack discovered he would potentially be setting himself up on a podcast where he would most likely be berated. If anything he probably felt like MechaMonkey was trying to pull a fast one on him.
What a brave man Jack Thompson is for coming to this hell hole of a place that is called the gaming community filled with murders, rapists, and person who don't care if over people die.
Bravo Mr. Thompson Bravo.
Maybe he gets President's Day off. Is he still working for a law firm? Or have they dumped him like the bar?