Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

It's time to blame videogames, once again

As people react to the Newton tragedy, they blame many sources: guns, mental health support structures, cultural factors, and... video games, naturally enough.

Donal Trump applied his wisdom over Twitter:

Video game violence & glorification must be stopped—it is creating monsters!  

From the other side of the American political spectrum, Daxid Axelrod broods:

In NFL post-game: an ad for shoot 'em up video game. All for curbing weapons of war. But shouldn't we also quit marketing murder as a game? 

The Mass Effect game series came in for special treatment, after an AP wire piece claimed to have determed the killer's identity.  The article was incorrect (it was the murderer's brother), but people had already noticed that the man liked playing that space opera sequence.

a swarm of Facebook users converged on EA's Mass Effect Facebook page, littering it with comments insulting the company and the team behind the game, calling for it to be banned, the page to be taken down, and overall blaming EA and BioWare for the entire situation.

Gaming continues to play a vital role in the fearsome media universe.

(thanks to Hullaballoo for collating these links; image via Mass Effect Wikia)

Death by Facebook

A man harasses a Muslim woman via Facebook so disturbingly that she kills herself. 

The story manages to avoid casting Facebook as an evil thing, instead shifting the tragic onus to the relationship itself.

(thanks to Ed Webb)

Death to Justin Bieber

Call it the Justin Bleeder plan. A convict hired two gunmen for a celebrity murder/ mutilation hit.

Martin offered Staake and Ruane a $2,500 bonus for castrating the four victims. The two men also were supposed to strangle the victims with neckties, in the same way that Martin killed Florucci.

“Reference was made to the type of neck tie to be used,” the affidavit states, recounting a monitored phone call between Martin and Ruane. “Mr. Martin stated that a paisley tie needed to be used because that was what he (Mr. Martin) had used previously.”

Ambitious fellow, this Martin:

Staake told the police that Martin had said he was responsible for 25 murders across the country, including two in Vermont, the affidavit said.

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Undead Berlusconi

Italy's leading politician is staging a comeback, and Europe reacts Gothically:

Return of the Undead

The French leftist paper Libération wrote "The Mummy Returns"...

[T]he otherwise dour German radio broadcaster Deutschlandfunk noted, "It is like a horror film: The undead keep coming back."

Another Gothic trope might be in play.  Der Spiegel notes Berlusconi's supporters harping on Germany and its chancellor as tyrannical.  The undead B. might cast himself as the virtuous hero saving innocent Italy from a brooding monster.

(link via Naked Capitalism; image from Alessia85)

One fine Krampus

The fine horror podcast Tales to Terrify has a splendid bit of Krampus art this month:

Time for a spot of Corpse Bludgeon

Looking for something to do on a lonely Saturday night?  Consider a fine time of Corpse Bludgeon, should you be in the Los Angeles area.

Corpse Bludgeon is a Game.

You bludgeon corpses. There are points.

Visual and auditory effects will enhance your Bludgeoning Experience. Can you be the Best? 

We’ll let YOU be the judge of that!

Oh, but Corpse Bludgeon is so much more than a game. Oh yes. Corpse Bludgeon is a Method.

It is a Technology. It is a System. It is a Path.

That is all we know at this point.

(transmitted via Twitter)

Fear the royal baby

British royals resume spawning, and the Onion throws down the horror gauntlet.

[says Kate Middleton] I can feel it gestating inside me, a malformed abomination wrought from centuries of inbreeding and an ancient pact of unspeakable evil.

The decay of videotape

What can we learn from signal decay? This video project tracks a short 1980s* music video clip through successive copies.  From the 1st to 23rd iterations we watch the image and sound degrade:

Think of the mysteries which emerge as the signal turns into noise. What images now appear, what sounds surface? What shapes are these which hint at becoming clear, looming behind the hissing, clattering audio track? Perhaps this VHS decay approach offers another tool for electronic voice phenomena (EVP).

(thanks to Jesse Walker)

*Apparently 1980s. Maybe early 90s.

When mannequins watch you watching them

More on those surveillance-happy mannequins.

When humans interact with technology, they don’t think about a human being on the other end. We attribute things to the proximate source. We think of the camera watching us not the person behind it. This makes us feel like the mannequin is watching us. You’re being monitored by a quasi-person.

(thanks to Jesse Walker)