Yesterday’s New York Times included an article regarding the suspect in the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband.
David DePape, the suspect in the attack against Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, apparently “had an obsession with video games as a boy.” At a low point in life, DePape “retreated into isolation, spending hours each day in the online worlds of gaming and chat rooms.” Eventually he became engaged with the Gamergate online campaign, which fed his right-wing conspiracy theories.
The article continues to hint at some sort of link between DePape’s disposition and video games. Growing up, he “liked to retreat into the fantasy worlds of video games and chose not to go to his high school dance.” Perhaps the author is implying the reclusion from playing games and resulting engagement with fantastical worlds makes one more distant from reality and more prone to becoming a conspiracist?
As an acquaintance of DePape says, “So he dissociated, and he dealt with his feelings by basically playing computer games whenever he wasn’t working, … He had no friends. He had no social life.” But isn’t this too big of a leap to say therefore he committed this crime?
As games become more social and online (e.g., MMORPGs, MOBAs), can we really say video games relate to hermitage, conspiracy theories, and even crime? This seems counterintuitive.
On the other hand, games are becoming more real (to a point where, as per Professor Festinger, we should call it a “replacement reality” instead of “virtual reality”). Indeed, DePape “believed that he was living inside a computer simulation,” and “would feed birds and talk to the squirrels.” At what point does virtual reality become so real life-like to constitute hallucinations?
But again, to connect this with conspiracy and crime is an overgeneralization. The gaming industry would collapse if this connection was truly extant!
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