The Knockout Game: A Media Made Myth

Attention: Do you like being taken advantage of, or, played for a fool? 

No? Ok, cool. Guess what... the "KNOCKOUT GAME" is a phony media-made story! 

It's not a phenomenon. It's not an epidemic. It's f*cking sensationalist journalism built on fear-mongering and racism. 

Look at the video (which I will not post a link to) that's gone viral. Most all the footage is random and not attributed to any specifically defined crimes by law enforcement. 

It's supposed to all take place in Jersey (in that video) but its a random assortment of other cities. One of the incidents is apparently in another country. 

The videos creator also only interviews black teens about the "game" and proceeds to blur out all of their faces. Why are the faces blurred? The local news doesn't blur out the faces of high school kids when they interview them. So, is this normal? No, they are blurred to make it more insidious and insinuate something criminal. As if they have been blurred because they are all somehow complicit.

Moreover, why do these "news" sources keep calling it a "GAME"? Should we also use language such as: "the rape game" or the "touching children game" or "the murder game"?

Hey, we have the "Hunger games" right!?

Now of course with all of this phony sensationalist media hype we will no doubt see some young people mimic what they've been seeing or hearing because its getting so much attention. Just like the crazed men who go on murderous shooting sprees, because they know they will finally get the attention they've been lacking. 

Its all Bullshit. 

We do indeed have real epidemics in this country though. 

• Black youth in inner cities are killing each other every day and nobody outside of the community cares. 

• We have overzealous police forces brutalizing the poor and disadvantaged.

• We have an out of control 'War on Drugs' that's affecting us all but disproportionately black and brown people. 

• We have out of control gun violence when compared to any other first world nation. 

• We've also got a corporate-corrupted political process from the way we are forced to choose our elected officials, to how we receive our mainstream news, and how we obtain our over priced health care. 

If you want to do your fellow Americans a favor, don't fall for fear-mongering and yellow journalism upon first glance. Before you click "share" on something or have some super-energized opinion, think about it from all angles. Don't get played for a fool and feed into these kind of pathetic scare tactics that only seek to sell ad-space, bolster spineless politicians, propagate the prison industrial complex, and further divide us as a nation. 

Be smarter than the Internet.