What Violent Video Games Really Mean to Young Men

What Violent Video Games Really Mean to Young Men

Yesterday, President Trump held the hardly anticipated video game summit he announced shortly after the shooting in Parkland, Florida.

Simply put, no one has been able to find a significant link between violence in video games and violence in real life. Personally, I don’t enjoy violent video games. But it’s a fact that millions of players do, and somehow the large majority of them manage to not be violent individuals.

Since I don’t enjoy violent video games, I wanted to discover what the appeal exactly was to young male gamers. In 2016, I did a qualitative case study involving a male participant and extensive research surrounding masculinity and video games. My goal was to discover how these wild, larger-than-life displays of masculinity in video games related to a male gamer. Originally titled,

“Dude, Do You Even Have a Penis?”: Affirmations of Masculinity in Grand Theft Auto V and How They Relate to Male Gamers

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