Viewpoint "fiction doesn't affect reality"

[The Great Sage]

i have absolutely no clue how anybody can say that fiction has no influence on reality. fiction <i>is</i> reality, when it comes down to it, for far too many people, and it's a terrifying thing to think about.

One can argue very easily that mythology and religion have been the greatest creative work of mankind, and look how that turned out.

 

[nerdy tangents]

I think it is worth differentiating from mental illness and violent tendencies. Also that the media likes to sensationalize stories by blaming fiction rather than addressing societal failings.

Take Slenderman, I listened to a podcast years ago that actually went into it and one of the first things they brought up is that one of the girls had a legitimate mental disorder. That is the reason she attacked her classmate not because she was into creepy pasta.

Creepypasta might have had a small influence on how she attacked her classmate but she would have still done it even if she spent all her time playing with barbies and watching My Little Pony.

Because if you have violent tendencies (with it without the addition of mental illness) they will manifest regardless of whether or not you consume fictional media.

I mean think about it logically, do most mass shooters leave a manifesto blaming their actions on television shows? No typically speaking they will either say they take part in hate groups online OR the police will uncover they have histories of violence against others that escalated until they committed a newsworthy atrocity.

Which honestly I think that’s exactly where this “oh no violent fiction leads to violent acts” BS came from. It’s just a sensationalized story that is designed to fit into peoples preconceived biases or create new ones.

Im sure if you actually looked into every case of someone who was “influenced” by fiction you would find something similar to Slenderman or a mass shooter.

Either the person suffers from a pre-existing mental illness that people don’t want to acknowledge they didn’t take seriously so they blame fiction instead OR the fiction is a justification so they don’t have to look at the real root causes which are personality and a sense of entitlement.

It’s why I think censorship is ultimately useless in these situations because it doesn’t address the root cause of what is happening.
We need to hold people accountable for their own actions rather then foisting the blame onto other things. I mean even mental illness, plenty of people have a legitimate inability to distinguish between fiction and reality and they do not harm a single person because of it.

I have interacted with people that had legit delusions (not made up Hollywood bullshit but a sincere belief in things that are not there or irrational). And to be honest while they might have been a little unnerving the vast majority were some of the most polite and pleasant people I have ever spoken with.

Which is why I don’t like the “well fiction makes delusional people violent” narrative. Because it doesn’t.

Delusional people aren’t the problem violent people are. And violence manifests because of a personal choice. It’s a silly phrase but “I woke up today and chose violence” is basically exactly what happens in these cases.

That violence might be enhanced by a pre-existing mental illness but that would be something for a professional to decide.

 

[The Great Sage]

I'm not so sure about it always being about an underlying mental illness. I'm also not so sure that violent media or media glorifying an antihero or villain isn't responsible for some of those mental illnesses. I'm not sure what sort of effects desensitization to violence has on people over a significant time frame.

What I do know is that people will copy that which they see on TV or read about. I know that mass murderers will try to 'outdo' one another if the media makes a big deal out of a mass-murder.

I think I have to do some more research about this, but since criminal psychology and human psychology in general are so poorly-understood, I doubt I'll find anything compelling.

Update: After talking to my girlfriend about it, I think I change my mind. Although I do believe (and strongly) that works of fiction influence the behaviour or people, I no longer think that censorship of egregiously violent or disturbing themes is appropriate. I now agree that mental health programs should be expanded to cope with any negative effects that people disconnecting from reality causes.

I have this argument with my friend sometimes: does faith healing work? His stance is that it is at best a fantasy and at worst a scheme to cheat people out of their money. I argue that since the placebo effect is well documented and understood, it should be no surprise that if people believe that faith healing works, then it will - at least for them. If that's true, and what a person believes can literally influence the process of homeostasis within their bodies, it should stand to reason that the same thing can affect a person's mind.

I saw an article some time ago where a Russian (I think) kid fucking threw himself out of a multistory building to his death because his favourite anime character had died.

Edit #2: I think that I'm somewhat biased since I spend such a disproportionate amount of time around psychologically troubled people, but I am under a strong impression that people, if left on their own will most often make wrong or bad decisions. For example: if you took any selection of people from around the world and dropped them off on a tropical island I believe that you'd most often get 'Lord of the Flies' and not 'The Swiss Family Robinson'. This belief is why I tend not to shy away from authoritarian methods of solving social problems.

 

[Merciless Medic]

Take Slenderman, I listened to a podcast years ago that actually went into it and one of the first things they brought up is that one of the girls had a legitimate mental disorder. That is the reason she attacked her classmate not because she was into creepy pasta.

Creepypasta might have had a small influence on how she attacked her classmate but she would have still done it even if she spent all her time playing with barbies and watching My Little Pony.

Because if you have violent tendencies (with it without the addition of mental illness) they will manifest regardless of whether or not you consume fictional media.

I mean think about it logically, do most mass shooters leave a manifesto blaming their actions on television shows? No typically speaking they will either say they take part in hate groups online OR the police will uncover they have histories of violence against others that escalated until they committed a newsworthy atrocity.

Which honestly I think that’s exactly where this “oh no violent fiction leads to violent acts” BS came from. It’s just a sensationalized story that is designed to fit into peoples preconceived biases or create new ones.

I remember there was this mass shooter who shot up his own store. In his last video to the internet, he blamed his parents for not noticing that he needed help, for not being his support, for making him feel like an outcast. He had an obsession with Danny Phantom as a series and especially the rockstar ghost who he believed he had a connection with. He then felt weird and seeing that fictional ghost made him put his feelings he's had for a long time into words, where he felt like he was actually a female spirit in a man's body and that he had the fictional ghost as a girlfriend in another universe and he was forcefully taken from her. He then made multiple original characters from the Danny Phantom series and operated their individual Twitter accounts, making long chain messages between these characters and role-playing as them by himself. Later in his manifesto in a video, he said he didn't feel like he belonged on this planet or in this world and he blamed his parents for not being the support he needed from all the bullying. He thanked Danny Phantom and those who created it to give him clarity on who and what he was and gave him a purpose that his parents couldn't provide or help him with. He then shot up his own store on a coin flip that decided whether he should kill his parents first or his work.

He had both an unhealthy obsession and an unchecked mental disorder of some kind. His videos are still up on YouTube and there are a few hour long videos of the man's rise and fall. He used Danny Phantom and the rockstar girl ghost as a way to cope with his confusion, lack of real friends, and lack of familial support, and then ultimately became so obsessed that he couldn't get away from his own delusion, couldn't find his own perception of reality, and ended up doing a mass homicide-suicide because he felt like he had to kill people and himself to see the rockstar ghost at the end.

He also mentioned that his parents never knew he bought tons of guns, and they didn't seem to care. He was pissed that they didn't care what he did, so he subconsciously more or less made the manifesto video and did what he did for attention so someone can notice him and take pity or sympathy upon his mental struggles he was obviously having. This isn't the gun seller's fault, but the fault of the system and most importantly his parents. They should have known he bought lots of guns that are difficult to hide and they should have cared more about their son. It's telling that the only person he left alive was a female coworker who was nice to him.

Still, everyone is a victim in this scenario, the parents included. It might have been their fault, but it doesn't make the guilt, grief, and sorrow any less crushing. Just like that doesn't make the grief any less terrible for those affected by the deaths if I say the killer was also a victim because they were and they lashed out. If we have enough, we will lash out, sometimes in stupid, violent ways. But people have to be predisposed to doing this level of violence whether it's in their personal history or it's a trait they are likely to acquire from their family due to genetics and ideals being taught. I'm not going to get into nature vs nurture because believing they both have a say in what someone does or doesn't in their future is much easier.

In other mass shooting manifestos from what I can remember, they all blamed either their schools for not stopping the bullies, the bullies for picking on them, their friends for not doing anything to help, their parents for not doing what they can to ease their suffering or noticing that anything was amiss, and blamed the support groups they got into or more or less glorified them for making them "see the light" and giving them clarity on what they could do to make themselves feel better.

There's a lot more that I have listened to over the years. A lot of these mass shootings or killings spurred on fictional material are really spurred on by the system, direct family involved (or lack thereof), and possibly hate groups on forums they associate with and take like gospel. The fictional media gave them ideas and an outlet for all that violence in their head but they soon began obsessing over it, making fantasies over and over in their heads, and then once their brain finally craves for the real thing after a few years of this behavior because it is their only outlet, they cave and kill.

Obviously, you have a choice to obsess to this level and a choice to kill, but if you have a mental disorder or illness, it makes it that much harder to see that the coping has turned unhealthy. Villains and antiheroes don't cause mental illnesses, it's trauma and genetic predisposition and circumstance that causes the brain to form delusions and illnesses because it's damaged. The outlet can only do so much before the waters start to rise higher than the outlet can spill. This is also the reason why you'll hear someone killing another for taking their games or doing something to their outlet that makes them irrationally angry and violent. Their coping mechanism (especially unhealthy obsession of said thing) is taken away and all that water just spills over in whatever shoddy dam or reservoir they got and they lash out in the heat of passion and rage or with cold, calculating precision.

On the flipside, I have heard people (including myself) have been saved by fiction. Fiction that taught them or helped them find who they were as a person, what they can work on, and how to be good to themselves. While I obsessed over Pokémon to an unhealthy extent and had mental issues myself that could have made me violent, I didn't go into dog fighting rings and abuse animals. In fact, I found the caring side of Pokémon fascinating. Caring for animals in any game really gave me a wonder for life, and Pokémon with its amazing creatures and the life they put into them were amazing. While a good portion of my favorite Pokémon are all ones who can kill you brutally, my top favorite is Pichu. But I also didn't use Pokémon as a basis that animals are abused and should be treated like precious lives and go on a shooting spree to kill all the animal abusers either. As desperately as I wanted Pokémon to be real and even believing they were for a time, I never killed anyone over it.

It’s why I think censorship is ultimately useless in these situations because it doesn’t address the root cause of what is happening.
We need to hold people accountable for their own actions rather then foisting the blame onto other things. I mean even mental illness, plenty of people have a legitimate inability to distinguish between fiction and reality and they do not harm a single person because of it.

While everything else The Great Sage touched on I do agree with to some extent, censorship is not one I agree with. If we censored fiction, all it does is force people to find another outlet for their creativity and frustrations. Fiction won't be able to save people like it did me or others who use it to dig themselves out of their depression or ground them in their anxieties. Sure, people can find other things to do, but because fiction is so widely available, it's the easiest thing people can latch onto. Yes, fiction can be used for inspiration on a lot of things, including murder. But censoring fiction after we have been so ingrained by it in our daily lives can cause a massive rift in society and cause even more deaths because our coping methods were taken away. If anything, this idea is too late to be reinforced, slowly or quickly.

There are a whole slew of questions I have for it too. How will it be enforced? What kind of media is "too much" for the consumer barring obvious examples (and even then that's subjective)? Fiction makes it easier to find those with problems that can potentially affect society negatively, so how will we find them if the fiction they are consuming is "non-violent" (whatever that means)? If we don't include violence, how will people know what violence is if they were supposed to be taught by media before the censorship? From media, we know violence can potentially harm anybody and everybody, including the person doling it out. So, if we don't know what violence is and we don't have an outlet to share what it looks like, how will our kids know what is right and wrong if we so choose to use media as a learning tool? Will that cause a massive curiosity for the violent aspect? And those who end up finding the thrill more fulfilling than what they were doing before that it trumps the basic human conscience of morality even have those morals ingrained in the first place? And if they did, then it proves that censoring stuff is just going to make people want to do it more. See the alcohol prohibition in 1920s for an example.

Humans are social creatures. We lead by example. If we have these things censored, it can lead to ignorance and the lack of knowledge of how people get to where they would. If censorship affects the news media and we can't watch what a serial killer did and how they got to that conclusion of their life, how will we seek out and combat the problem if we hide it from those who can potentially help or use the info we give to prevent it in their own homes? Yea, copycat killers exist, but they do it for the attention and infamy. That is all. Maybe they really do believe they are that person and they did it to fulfill their purpose, but that's a delusion at that point. How do we know how they got there? How can we combat and "fix" (I'm using this term loosely) the problem if our solution is being censored to the masses who might be able to do something about it or use it for themselves in a constructive manner?

Granted, how will we know peace and love without a bit of murder and mayhem?

Trick question: you don't. You can't have one without the other, as their true meanings become nothing and they are taken for granted. Does it suck? Yes, but it at least puts things into perspective.

I have interacted with people that had legit delusions (not made up Hollywood bullshit but a sincere belief in things that are not there or irrational). And to be honest while they might have been a little unnerving the vast majority were some of the most polite and pleasant people I have ever spoken with.

Which is why I don’t like the “well fiction makes delusional people violent” narrative. Because it doesn’t.

I feel like I should say this again because it does help with this point. For a long time, I was an odd child. There was a rift in my family that tore my parents apart and the stresses of having to live through that led to trauma of abandonment. Later, this will culminate in me having a split personality (along with other dubious things happening to me). I started consuming large amounts of media through books and video games like Paper Mario, Pokémon, Sonic, Metroid, Mario games in general, Spyro, and more violent video games like Halo CE and 2. I even watched violent movies. The world of beat-em-ups has become and still is a stress reliever. If I didn't have those games to play with, I would have been far worse and I likely won't be here. My husband is a legit clinical psychopath and he even said that without games like Doom or any of those other violent games, he wouldn't be here, he'd be dead having shot someone up or killing his parents and being in prison for it. Video games to us were an outlet for our violent urges and our self-loathing, as he was abused and neglected by his family and I was abusing and neglecting myself because of my family indirectly. Censoring those bad boys would end ourselves up in jail or prison. But because of video games, I understood violence hurt and can kill, and I didn't want to have to deal with making a life disappear. Was too much of a hassle, and that's why I have a hard time hitting people, even in jest.

I was delusional at some point because I didn't want to believe I was myself, but something else more primal, an animal. Pokémon was my outlet for that. I thought I literally was an animal in human form for a few years (as cringy as that sounds) because I had a developing and unchecked disorder and lack of discipline and teachings in my household. I learned more from video games, specifically Pokémon, than I ever did school or from my own parents. If my dad were there for me more often despite the divorce and my own mother, he'd be up there with video games but I digress.

I was and am still a fucked up person due to not only mental struggles but desensitization to violence. Normal things that should make people cry hardly affect me but make me viscerally angry or incredibly amused into a laughing fit (I laughed at Happy Tree Friends, Mortal Kombat Fatalities, people getting seriously hurt, and I found playing killer in any game, especially when other players are involved and they can't kill me, too fun... like, people were worried about me), and things that do end up making me cry are based in the deep-rooted psychological fear of abandonment and losing loved ones, which I've had ever since I was barely old enough to talk. But I still am a functioning member of society, I take care of my husband and child like a normal wife and you wouldn't expect that I had such a past and such a mental struggle growing up and the fucked up shit I still do laugh at. I am dealing with it now and the amount of identities in my head have gone down by one, so that's something to look forward to. Having a brain where I don't have people constantly talking to me even though it's just aspects of me taken and dialed to eleven would be nice, even though I do cherish and care for them too because they are sweet. XD Well, for the most part.

Anyway, I think that's all I wanted to touch on. The human psyche is complex because we don't only have instincts or simple thoughts like animals, but complex reasoning abilities and deflections to aid in blocking what we don't want to see or accept about ourselves or our past. Truly the human mind is fascinating.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk, lol.

 

[StrixDesmodus]

Gosh, there are just so many reasons fiction effects reality, my main one being that it can bring a heck of a lot of comfort to people who might not be able to get it elsewhere. But I think the real question would be "is it consistent enough to matter?" Ultimately, fiction has different effects depending on the individual.
The same book that gives a lonely middle-schooler a good laugh and a sense of belonging can also enrage parents enough to campaign to have it banned from the school system. A movie can have little to no impression on one person, while giving another person the impulse to buy a living, breathing dalmatian. Etc.
The emotions evoked by fiction are demonstration that fiction effects reality, and this can't really be denied. But what also can't be denied is that the way people interpret fiction will always differ vastly, and is really influenced just as much by the perspective of the consumer as by the content that they are presented with.

 

[yutohase]

Gosh, everyone talks about the whole "fiction affecting or not affecting reality" thing in a bad way that they don't stop to see the good ways in which fiction can affect reality! I wonder why that is...

 

[Merciless Medic]

Gosh, everyone talks about the whole "fiction affecting or not affecting reality" thing in a bad way that they don't stop to see the good ways in which fiction can affect reality! I wonder why that is...

On the flipside, I have heard people (including myself) have been saved by fiction. Fiction that taught them or helped them find who they were as a person, what they can work on, and how to be good to themselves. While I obsessed over Pokémon to an unhealthy extent and had mental issues myself that could have made me violent, I didn't go into dog fighting rings and abuse animals. In fact, I found the caring side of Pokémon fascinating. Caring for animals in any game really gave me a wonder for life, and Pokémon with its amazing creatures and the life they put into them were amazing. While a good portion of my favorite Pokémon are all ones who can kill you brutally, my top favorite is Pichu. But I also didn't use Pokémon as a basis that animals are abused and should be treated like precious lives and go on a shooting spree to kill all the animal abusers either. As desperately as I wanted Pokémon to be real and even believing they were for a time, I never killed anyone over it.

I feel like I should say this again because it does help with this point. For a long time, I was an odd child. There was a rift in my family that tore my parents apart and the stresses of having to live through that led to trauma of abandonment. Later, this will culminate in me having a split personality (along with other dubious things happening to me). I started consuming large amounts of media through books and video games like Paper Mario, Pokémon, Sonic, Metroid, Mario games in general, Spyro, and more violent video games like Halo CE and 2. I even watched violent movies. The world of beat-em-ups has become and still is a stress reliever. If I didn't have those games to play with, I would have been far worse and I likely won't be here. My husband is a legit clinical psychopath and he even said that without games like Doom or any of those other violent games, he wouldn't be here, he'd be dead having shot someone up or killing his parents and being in prison for it. Video games to us were an outlet for our violent urges and our self-loathing, as he was abused and neglected by his family and I was abusing and neglecting myself because of my family indirectly. Censoring those bad boys would end ourselves up in jail or prison. But because of video games, I understood violence hurt and can kill, and I didn't want to have to deal with making a life disappear. Was too much of a hassle, and that's why I have a hard time hitting people, even in jest.

I was delusional at some point because I didn't want to believe I was myself, but something else more primal, an animal. Pokémon was my outlet for that. I thought I literally was an animal in human form for a few years (as cringy as that sounds) because I had a developing and unchecked disorder and lack of discipline and teachings in my household. I learned more from video games, specifically Pokémon, than I ever did school or from my own parents. If my dad were there for me more often despite the divorce and my own mother, he'd be up there with video games but I digress.

I was and am still a fucked up person due to not only mental struggles but desensitization to violence. Normal things that should make people cry hardly affect me but make me viscerally angry or incredibly amused into a laughing fit (I laughed at Happy Tree Friends, Mortal Kombat Fatalities, people getting seriously hurt, and I found playing killer in any game, especially when other players are involved and they can't kill me, too fun... like, people were worried about me), and things that do end up making me cry are based in the deep-rooted psychological fear of abandonment and losing loved ones, which I've had ever since I was barely old enough to talk. But I still am a functioning member of society, I take care of my husband and child like a normal wife and you wouldn't expect that I had such a past and such a mental struggle growing up and the fucked up shit I still do laugh at. I am dealing with it now and the amount of identities in my head have gone down by one, so that's something to look forward to. Having a brain where I don't have people constantly talking to me even though it's just aspects of me taken and dialed to eleven would be nice, even though I do cherish and care for them too because they are sweet. XD Well, for the most part.

I mean, besides making it sound like I'm super edgy or traumatic, I do point out the good things. XD It's just that the bad things are covered more and the voices that speak it are much louder than if someone made a fluffy story about their time with fiction.

 

[Mr Phoebius]

Everything starts as fictional products and then they become real products, affecting human reality.

Basicaly we are wearing fiction, speaking through fiction and living in fiction that has become a real thing.