By Julianna Franity

How has it come to pass that gamers eating gamers has become an acceptable part of modern life? That our children and young adults (and increasingly people of all ages) are actively seeking to eat each other leaves me utterly perplexed and a bit frightened. When I was a child, we did not eat one another, and if we did, we paid a stiff penalty and often served several years of prison time. But today, people are eating each other left and right in the so-called innocent occupation of gaming. How is it that making cannibalism into a game is socially acceptable? Following a recent online session playing a game, my daughter gleefully announced that she had eaten all four of her online opponents.  Even with her garbled diction (due to her braces and a rather severe overbite) Alice clearly was delighted by her virtual atrocity. When I forbade her to eat anyone else online or in person, she gave me a look that, quite frankly, could only be described as one of pure shock, as if I had just accused her of cooking her dog.

“I beat them,” she protested, speaking more clearly for a change. But I was unmoved. What does it matter if she beat them prior to digesting them? I beat eggs, too, but does that mean that when I devour them I haven’t devoured them? Obviously they aren’t teaching logic at her school. All I can say is that this must end. My friend, Beth, believes that the practice of gaming cannibalism will naturally die out once all the gamers have eaten each other, but that seems a bit cold, to me. Where are the parents in all of this? Why are they not speaking out? Have their children already eaten them? Why won’t somebody do something?