Desensitization

Warning: Most links will be NSFW and may contain spoilers

There are lots of arguments on how media is turning our generation in to "Virtual Citizen Soldiers." Military advertising is commonplace, soldiers and their lifestyle is glorified in film, video games often are centered around militaristic themes. The concept of war is in your face at all constantly, and we have become accustom to it. The few times war isn't prevalent, violence assuredly is. We are becoming desensitized as a society, and it is having a huge affect on the media we intake.

The Walking Dead is currently one of the most popular mutlimedia forms of entertainment out today. Originally graphic novels, a television show, and even video games emerged. Some of the most popular video games this year have been Bioshock Infinite and Grand Theft Auto V. Most of the films up for best picture at the 85th Academy Awards involved very graphic situations or war.

I am a fan or a follower of most of the media mentioned above, and I can safely say that violence play a major part in each of the narrative. I can also safely say that I was hardly affected by the violence, seeing it for the most part as a necessary for the intended narrative. In fact, I will hear complaints that things were often not taken far as opposed to taken too far.

Now that isn't to say I enjoy violence for violence sake. While most of my friends wanted to see Hostel, I instead watched Grandmas Boy, and met up with everyone after. The few of us who went to the latter seemed to have had a better time, but the fact is we were in the minority in the first place. Everyone wanted to see violence, but when shown that it did not help what was already a poor narrative were disappointed. No one discussed how it was to gruesome, but instead how the story was poorly put together. Even in 2005, violence hardly bother us.

I don't necessarily see this desensitization as a bad thing, but it hard to argue that it isn't there. Shock and awe is harder to accomplish, and interesting narrative void of violence is harder to achieve. I enjoy the films being made, the video games being played, and stories being produced. I am part of the newly apathetic. I do think its strange to see how differently someone from my Grandmothers generation and someone from my own are effected by television now, and how we are disinterested for seemingly polar opposite rationals. Whether this is an advancement of society, or leading to its downfall is for greater (or more concerned) minds than my own.