Last month’s Wired ran the article “The Lost Boy” by Christopher S. Stewart, about a boy who was identified as Internet addicted by his parents and sent to the recovery camp and died there after only 14 hours.
It is so terrifying that these so called therapeutic centers use electroshock along with other torture to relieve the “addiction”; yet it is indeed happening widely after those professors, doctors and government officials claim that Internet addiction is a clinical disorder threatening young people’s mental and physical health. The article listed the government’s initiatives to control the teen’s use of Internet, especially their obsession with online game World of Warcraft, and the tragic consequence.
This is totally one side of the Internet addiction opinion, and that’s why I highly recommend this fan made machinima “ War of Internet Addiction”. It is definitely a brilliant parody of this whole Internet addiction phenomenon in China and moreover, the conflict of Internet business, and of course, the restricted Internet use in China.
This machinima is based on the news that Blizzard announced changing partnership with The 9th City (previous licensed company for WOW China business) to the Netease in 2009, which brought inconvenience to game players due to their irresponsible transactions. However, after Netease gained the partnership, the GAPP (General Admission of Press and Publication) considers this game is inappropriate and requires Netease to close the server in November, 2009. Back and forth with these American, Chinese corporations, and different government divisions, every party involved in this deal contends for their best benefits and no one cares the players. This video is the outcry of those game players, and essentially the exclamation from millions of ordinary Internet users.
According to the scenario, the parody set up these involved parties with funny nicknames, these game companies, the officials, the Internet addiction therapeutic centers. The protagonist named “Kan Ni Mei” symbolizes a candid, bold game player who wants to fight against all these black forces. In his personal journey against these rulers, the movie refers to tons of sarcastic terms relating to news events in 2009. For instance, Qin Gang, spokesman of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, his famous quote regarding the information control software Green Dam Youth Escort, “do you have a child” is in the line. If you follow these news and the derivative phrases and usages, you will definitely appreciate the humor of this video; therefore, it is a little difficult for foreigners to completely enjoy the story without enough references.
The message of the video is bitter even the video is so hilarious: why Chinese game players can not enjoy the game? Parents and teachers treat WOW players as shame, and international game players contempt Chinese players as gold mine farmers.
However, the message behind the video is inspiring, young people did not keep their mouth shut under the authority. Users as individuals think independently against brain-wash information, work collectively, collaboratively to make the video, and share the thoughts via viral videos.
Finally, here is the video clip. If you can understand Chinese, please go find the original one. This is subtitled, so the resolution is a low. And this is the highlighted part toward the end:
