AverageBro: Ashy Or Classy?!? - Tea Party Zombies Must Die.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Ashy Or Classy?!? - Tea Party Zombies Must Die.

I'm not much of a first person shooter fan, but I suppose I get the "disconnect from reality" allure of them. That said, while I felt really bad afterward, I played Tea Party Zombies Must Die for damn near a full hour yesterday and still can't get past Glenn Beck.

Manufactured outrage was turned up in unison yesterday evening as the right wing of the Internet became aware of the existence of an online video game called Tea Party Zombies Must Die. "DON'T GET TEA-BAGGED!" reads the game's description. "The Tea Party zombies are walking the streets of America. Grab your weapons and bash their rotten brains to bits! Destroy zombie Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck, the Koch Brothers, and many more!" The game is free to use here; design and playability are surprisingly slick. But none of that is of concern to partisans, who don't often get to use threats of violence and weapons-related outrage against the left. "I thought Liberals didn't like guns?" reads one comment on the game. Conservative blogs were not as gentle, even comparing the game to — you guessed it — Nazis.

The company behind the game, StarvingEyes, has clients including TLC and Hotels.com, but Jason Oda, the boss, told Media Research Center TV, "The game was just a personal project. I am not worried about it effecting [sic] business."

The game does call to mind the infamous Sarah Palin target map, which included Representative Gabrielle Giffords, and the more recent Arizona Glock giveaway — the key difference, of course, being the complicitness of elected officials. Dumb and tasteless? Sure. But at least the game was not signed off on by a professional politician.

Let's not be cutesy about this: violent imagery of murdering politicians and TV personalities isn't funny in the least bit. I suspect the makers of this game see this as a calculated risk of sorts for free pub and don't really care about the inevitable Conservative backlash. I felt like I needed to take a shower after gunning down a few dozen Fox News Generic Blonds and the Bill O'Reilly zombie, so I could imagine the outrage of those on the right. A game that allowed you to hack Michelle Obama and members of the Congressional Black Caucus with a machete would prolly piss me off a bit too.

I suppose if there's any point to me made here, it's that violent imagery isn't the sole province of either political party. Wackos exist on both ends of the spectrum, and thus we get drivel like this, of the equally deplorable Slap Obama game.

So much for civil discourse.

Question: Ashy or Classy?!? Is this game merely innocent, clean, wholesome American fun, or does such imagery have no place in society?!?

Manufactured outrage was turned up in unison yesterday evening as the right wing of the Internet became aware of the existence of an online video game called Tea Party Zombies Must Die. "DON'T GET TEA-BAGGED!" reads the game's description. "The Tea Party zombies are walking the streets of America. Grab your weapons and bash their rotten brains to bits! Destroy zombie Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck, the Koch Brothers, and many more!" The game is free to use here; design and playability are surprisingly slick. But none of that is of concern to partisans, who don't often get to use threats of violence and weapons-related outrage against the left. "I thought Liberals didn't like guns?" reads one comment on the game. Conservative blogs were not as gentle, even comparing the game to — you guessed it — Nazis.

The company behind the game, StarvingEyes, has clients including TLC and Hotels.com, but Jason Oda, the boss, told Media Research Center TV, "The game was just a personal project. I am not worried about it effecting [sic] business."

The game does call to mind the infamous Sarah Palin target map, which included Representative Gabrielle Giffords, and the more recent Arizona Glock giveaway — the key difference, of course, being the complicitness of elected officials. Dumb and tasteless? Sure. But at least the game was not signed off on by a professional politician.