It’s Presidents’ Day! Which Reminds Us: Has Obama Decided if Video Games are Good or Evil Yet?

Image source: iofbeholdermen.

Spoiler: No. No he hasn't.

Happy (almost) Birthday, Mr. Washington! As the great man himself once proclaimed, "video games -and I really must stress this point most vociferously- are utterly shit." A first draft of the Constitution, indeed, endeavored to combat the gaming menace by decreeing that anybody that indulged in such -even a few fleeting seconds of Angry Birdsor similar wankery- would take a righteous smiting to the gonads with a shovel.

There was, we'll concede, no sign of gaming in the eighteenth century, but American heroes can be excused for their occasional (and hypothetical) bouts of demented B.S.

Hastening back onto our smoke-billowing, clamoring-to-depart-into-the-sunset-with-naught-but-a-quick-middle-finger-back-at-us train of thought, though, the 44th Mr. White House still hasn't got his shit together on this issue. Are video games inherently educational tools? Are they innocuous entertainment? Are they spreading violence, corruption and general asshole-ery through our society in an insidious fashion, and need to be thrust back up Satan's rectum from whence they came?

We crave your wisdom, Mr. Obama! Guide us!

2010: "With iPods and iPads; Xboxes and PlayStations -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation... all of this is not only putting new pressures on you. It is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy." (-www.g4tv.com)

2013: "Look at Mark Zuckerberg. I was sitting next to him at dinner a couple of years ago, and he said he taught himself programming primarily because he was interested in games...Given how pervasive computers and the internet is now, how integral it is in our economy, and how fascinated kids are with it, I want to make sure they actually know how to produce stuff and not simply consume stuff." (-www.develop-online.net)

As such, the message is quite plain: don't ‘consume stuff.' Consuming? What good has that ever done anyone? Shit to it, and shit to stuff. Instead, by encouraging career aspirations that will enable today's youth to emerge on the job market/economy with all the haste, grace and majesty of a big-ass tiger with its bollocks on fire, a penchant for gaming can be worthy of encouragement and nurturing. Amid the oft-ballyhooed threat of violence in video games, this is worthy of note.