Murder? NBD.

One of my favorite shows at the moment is Criminal Minds. The idea of FBI agents using their knowledge of psychology, the way humans think and act, to catch their bad guys is SO cool. They seem like psychics when they make their profiles with details like, "this unsub feels unappreciated in the workplace..." or, "He keeps a notepad in his right jacket pocket listing his kills," to help law enforcement figure out what type of person committed the crime. 

In the episode I'm currently watching, S2E14 "The Big Game", a wealthy couple had been murdered in their home after they hosted a Superbowl party and the killers somehow hacked into their laptop to use the webcam and make a video of the kill. This video became viral and millions of people across the world had viewed it and people thought it was "pretty cool". Jason Gideon, the leader of the Behavioral Analysis Unit, mutters disparagingly, "Murder as entertainment," when he learns of the video. JJ, the team's communications specialist follows him by saying, "They probably don't realize it's real. People see so many images online every day, they might assume it's marketing for a horror film or something." 

I know, I know...this is a fictional situation. But is it?

This got me thinking of just how easy it is to desensitize ourselves to violent and aggressive behavior when we are constantly viewing it on our screens in the name of entertainment. When we see murder and violence and fighting as entertainment in our various movies, shows, and video games each day, it changes our nature. The shock value eventually goes away. 

Personally, I can't stand violent media. It will literally make me nauseous to sit through a fight scene in an action movie. In fact, in a high school sociology class, we were watching a movie with a particularly intense, violent scene and I had to leave the room because I'd almost passed out! Even in Criminal Minds when they show the murderer killing their victim at the beginning of each episode, I skip over it every time. However, I can see how over my life-span as I've been exposed to more and more aggressive media how it has become somewhat normal to me. And that's even with me still cringing through the fight scenes in the Avengers movies! 

It's probably not possible to undo the damage that's already done, but we can be more mindful of what media we're consuming and what it's doing to change our ways of thinking, what's now normal to us that wasn't in the past. I agree with what Derek Morgan, another BAU team member, said after JJ made her observation. "The world is pretty screwed up." But now that I know that, it makes me want to put out wholesome media into the world to balance the scales between the uplifting and the aggressive or disheartening. So even though the damage has been done, we can still be mindful media consumers to make better choices in what we watch so that we can lessen the effects on our own lives and hopefully influence those around us to do the same.