James Delahunty
15 Aug 2011 8:32
Ex-Oasis fading star crying heart out again over violent video games.
The world watched as parts of British society tore their own cities apart in three days of senseless rioting and looting. Ever since, there has been an ongoing debate about why these regrettable events took place in the UK, and why many of the rioters were clearly very young.
The media has asked politicians, community organizers, psychologists, ex-gang members and even the rioters themselves for their opinion on the disturbances. Of course, who didn't think that eventually video games would be blamed?
Enter Noel Gallagher, the ex-Oasis star currently pursuing a solo career. We wrote about Noel's opinion on Britain's knife crime over three years ago. "People say it's through violent video games and I guess that's got something to do with it," he said in June 2008.
"If kids are sitting up all night smoking super skunk and they come so desensitised to crime because they're playing these videogames, it's really, really scary."
Three years later and Noel is pointing his finger of blame at video games once again, this time as part of the cause for rioting in the UK that claimed several lives, destroyed homes and diminished livelihoods in an already jittery economic climate.
"We live in this age of violence—and I don't care what other people say: Brutal TV and brutal videogames are a reason for this pointless violence as well," Gallagher told Bang Showbiz. "The people are immune to violence, they are used to it. And if they get caught they aren't punished the right way. The prisons are already full? Then build new ones!"
It's likely that more people will blame video games for a large part of the violent scenes on UK streets last week.