Being a victim is part of our culture now. It is the fastest way to riches and award. There has been a long trend in the media to root for the little guy, the underdog and cheering him on. This is, as they say, a trope in storytelling, part of the hero’s journey. Before victory there must be at least one point in the story where the hero has fallen and has to get up, usually against overwhelming odds. This is a common trick the writer uses. A character is always on a path of some kind, but it is the writer’s job to make sure he doesn’t get there, as least not so quickly.
I warn you if you haven’t noticed this before, the skill to notice such an aspect of storytelling might ruin all media for you.
Imagine a story where there is a legendary guild that spends more days drinking at the local bar. He has given up on life and is determine to live the rest of his life in peace. Now there is a reason for his, but this guild is just the plot point to the protagonist. The hero of the story needs the help of this guild to complete their quest. There is no other option for the hero but to get help form this guild. The writer has given us no other choice, it is either “make it or break it”. But the guild is not going to agree at first. This causes the tension to build. The audience is on the side of the hero and knows the guild is the only way for the hero to win and tension will build into frustration and from there, a deep desire.
It’s almost painful to watch a character that is dead set on not helping, for you usually can countdown to the last second when they turn around and agree. A clever writer will try to hide this interaction and not make it so obvious, only in the end the writer can only hide so much. For many the desire to witness these connections come to pass is very emotional, to see the little guy triumph over the enemy, no matter what type of enemy that might be. Narratives are very powerful. Set a decent narrative and there is no telling what enemy takedown can be achieved.
Anita Sarkessian was such a victim (hero), a moral crusader and pop culture critic who gain notoriety villainizing video games. Gladly her star has seems to have fallen, but for a time the media loved to fond after her, because she could say things that they could not. Sure some who wrote editorials could blast their opinions, yet the news at large had their hands tied somewhat. Thankfully for them Ms. Sarkeesian could state whatever nonsense came to her mind and then the media outlets could parrot it, claiming they were reporting the news.
Ms. Sarkeesian complained about the trope of women being damsels that needed to be rescued. In retrospect this was comical because she made herself into one of the biggest damsels of all time. Needless to say Ms. Sarkeesian hit a nerve attacking video games. Previously it was missies without any hits with TV shows, music, movies, toys, books, and advertisements.
You can’t put her down for not trying. Upon releasing her absurd criticisms about video games, gamers began to take aim at her. The problem was that a few of these gamers were very immature and posted rude messages at her, which she collected and told whoever would listen. This attention sparked a firestorm, soon after she became The World’s Most Famous Victim. The narrative was she was the hero, the underdog, which was fighting off an army of angry gamers. Naturally the media came to her aid because her message was a message they wanted to repeat often and because of this they protected her, never challenged her and disappeared anything that would have every harmed her. The side effect was that anything that wasn’t “rude”, honest comments that poked holes in her screwy logic were casted away without a thought; she was a critic that could never be criticized. She became untouchable and was able to obtain a position of power among others in the media and the business world who would coveted her as a pawn they could use in the chess game known as social justice. If you loss that battle you go down in a mob of flames.
This appears to be the trajectory that David Hogg is on. I don’t put much stock in him being a survivor. I haven’t heard of a shark survivor who had no contact with a shark or even a survivor of food poisoning who didn’t eat anything toxic. And who claims to be a cancer survivor because of their proximity to someone who actually had survived cancer. Finally, when I hear of a Holocaust survivor I think of a person waiting upon their appending doom while they are being badly mistreated and starved. A word can only cover so much. Stretch the meaning of words too much and our language with become gibberish. Commonplace terms like “Winner”, “Victim” and “Hero” might have already become lost. I believe you would have to have been hit with a bullet to survivor a shooting. The act of modifying the language to sort your political needs is highly insulting to me. The selfishness of this act is disheartening, interchanging “illegal alien” with “undocumented immigrant”. This type of sleight of hand couldn’t impress a five-year-old.
I think the news media has deluded themselves into thinking that informing the public is the same thing as leading the public on and what does it say when this Mr. Hogg (victim) is protected like a damsel that constantly needs to be rescued. The news media’s faulty understanding of guns won’t even slightly correct Mr. Hogg on his utterances, because he is too much of a damsel to be questioned. Between Ms. Sarkeesian and Mr. Hogg the only thing that has been transposed here is “feminism” with “gun control”. But now the stakes are much higher. Instead of Ms. Sarkeesian being “Video Games Greatest Adversity”, Mr. Hogg is on a power hungry charge to topple the Second Amendment. This puts the time when Anita Sarkeesian went to the United Nations to talk about mean tweets to shame.
