Of all the kinds of stupid that exist out there, certainly it’s the predictable stupid that is the most frustrating. And of all the kinds of predictable stupid that exist, one of the most predictable forms of stupid is how video games are linked to mass shootings and murders on a clockwork-like cadence. As I’ve said previously, this rush to the video game boogeyman is dumb and should stop. But it won’t.
In fact, it not only continues to happen, but does so in ridiculous fashion. Unless you somehow live off the grid, you cannot possibly have escaped the news about the brazen murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the arrest of the alleged shooter, Luigi Mangione. This whole episode has been fascinating on multiple levels, from the way the assassination was carried out to the online discourse afterwards.
But it’s been a few days now since Mangione was apprehended, so, of course, it’s time for someone like NBC News to swoop in with a piece on how a video game played some sort of role in this story. And if you are trying to guess the video game in question highlighted by NBC, I promise you that you are never going to guess it correctly.
In the game, called “Among Us,” some players are secretly assigned to be killers in space who perform other tasks while trying to avoid suspicion from other players.
Alejandro Romero, who attended the University of Pennsylvania with Mangione and was a member of the same Discord group, said he was shocked when news broke on social media that Mangione had been taken into police custody.
“I just found it extremely ironic that, you know, we were in this game and there could actually be a true killer among us,” he said.
Yes, the preamble for this massive post by NBC is Mangione having played Among Us. And if you’re somehow unfamiliar with Among Us, it’s a fucking children’s game. It is a multiplayer video game built on classic party games like Mafia or Secret Hitler. The ESRB rating for the game is E10+, while the much more puritanical Common Sense Media rates the game as good for children eleven years and up. Mangione played the game in college. What are we even talking about here?
As Polygon has pointed out, this must certainly be the result of lazy journalists trying to shoehorn a video game angle into a story about violence without having one iota of understanding as to what this game is, nor how it presents itself. Never mind, to add, the sheer volume of people who have played this game and managed to not shoot the CEO of a healthcare company with a homemade weapon and silencer.
Among Us has been downloaded 500 million times and is popular among people of all ages — many (if not most) of them being children. That’s because Among Us is a family-friendly game in which players use social deduction to spot a “killer” amongst their crew of astronauts that look like colorful, anthropomorphic beans. It’s much like the classic in-person party games Mafia and Werewolf. Among Us became popular during the COVID-19 pandemic thanks to its simple gameplay and cartoon aesthetics that have more in common with Looney Tunes than military training simulators.
In the NBC News report, the Discord member noted the irony of a suspected assassin playing a game that involves assassination. And it is ironic. But it’s not a national news story without more context, in the same way it’s not a national news story if a corrupt landlord once played Monopoly.
I’m mostly amazed that NBC or another outlet didn’t somehow look at Mangione’s first name and make some insane attempt to link his violent acts with a Mario Bros. game. But the point Polygon is making here is exactly correct: there is zero that is interesting about the coincidence that a murderer also played an insanely popular game.
Hell, at least back in the day when we were busy blaming school shootings on games like Doom, those games were actually violent. This game is better described as cute than gory. If it’s any more violent than classic Saturday morning cartoons, it’s on the margins. Mangione is 26 freaking years old.
So just stop it.
