As a full-time technology journalist who has specialised in the critiquing of video games for over a decade, you’d be amazed how many times I’ve been told that I have “every teenage boy’s ultimate dream job”. What amazes me more is the fact that I haven’t rammed a joystick down the throat of every person to have uttered this infuriating sentence. In just a handful of words this seemingly innocent statement not only belittles the career path of a thirty something professional, it also sums up how misunderstood and incorrectly stereotyped today’s interactive entertainment is. The truth of the matter is that video games are big business, and this revolutionary form of entertainment is no longer solely enjoyed by pimply pre-pubescent boys.

As a 36 year old male surrounded by friends who share the same passion for blasting animated pixels into the digital afterlife, I know through my own day to day observations that not all gamers are still in high school. Thankfully you don’t need to take my anecdotal evidence as the only proof - there’s also a comprehensive report that backs up my conclusion - the Digital Australia 2012 report. To be clear, this survey was indeed commissioned by the iGEA (Interactive Games & Entertainment Association), an organisation with a vested interest in spreading the truth that gaming isn’t just for geeks. However, the author of the report, Jeffrey E. Brand Ph.D of the School of Communication and Media at Bond University, has strived to ensure that it’s as objective as possible, sampling 1200 random Aussie households to find out the truth about how Australians really play in the 21st century.

I imagine most of you reading this have a blog or your own little website, a place where you’ve invested time and energy so as to carve out your own little corner of the web. You’ve probably bought your own domain name, or have a cool name on tumblr and you’re quite proud of it.

Imagine that you’re wrapping up the year and you’ve written a list of your favourite songs from the past year. Imagine then, that someone in the comments posts a link to one of those songs, where someone else can download it. Under the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (And Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act), you are liable for the content posted and, should anyone follow the link and download the song, your domain name can be seized and your site blocked from major search engines. All for one little comment. There’s a fantastic infographic at www.americancensorship.org/infographic.html that explains how this system works.

Now you might be wondering why I’m more than a little bit worried and more than a little bit upset about a bill that would seemingly only affect American web users. Think about how many different web services you use that reside in or were created in, the United States? Tumblr, where this piece was first published, is hosted in the US.

Oh yes, I’m the great pretender
Adrift in a world of my own
I play the game but to my real shame
You’ve left me to dream all alone

They may have recorded this over fifty years ago but The Platters knew what they were talking about. Why bother actually learning how to do something, when you can simply pretend? There’s no point in making an effort when you might not turn out to be any good... so fake it instead. Who’s going to know?

Welcome to the Age of Pretence, a world where simulation is cooler than reality. Pretending is a billion-dollar industry these days; nowhere more so than the gaming industry. Early flight simulators may have been the domain of the military, but since then there’s been no looking back. From the comfort of our lounge rooms we can hurtle around a race track, or pilot a jet fighter, or blow holes in a succession of enemy soldiers. All in the name of good clean fun.

Soften The Fck Up is an initiative aimed at breaking down the “tough Aussie bloke” façade and getting men to open up to each other if they are depressed, worried or, as they put it, just feeling crap. On their website, they say,

“We’re standing up to be counted. We’re saying it’s time we chuck out that tough Aussie bloke stereotype and bring back the laid-back Aussies. Speak up if you’re not feeling right. Soften the fck up like a real man would.

Look after your mates if something seems a bit off. Ask them if they’re okay. If they’re really okay. Ya gut will usually be right, even if your mate doesn’t wanna talk about it. Grab a beer and have a chat.”

I wanted to like it. I really did. Mike Stuchbery and Ben Pobjie, who I respect both as writers and survivors, have written articles for them which gives the initiative some credibility. But the more I looked at it and the more I thought about it, the angrier it made me.

While it’s wonderful that people are getting the message out about depression and mental illness, it seems to be being done in such a dumbed down, made-for-television way that I wonder whether it’s simply trivialising something that was previously ignored.

‘People should be aware of what’s out there. And not believe what they read just because it’s written.’

Astro-turf creation expert ‘Sharepro’

The lack of imagination shown by the media and politicians about the upcoming inquiry into the Australian media is making my head hurt. How many more media proprietors and vested editorial interests will falsely equate a quality, free press with a commercial one when the examples of the BBC and ABC are staring them in the face? How many more journalists must we listen to, as they reel off numerous and significant problems with the way the media conducts itself, before sighing that nothing can be done? Isn’t the sustained analysis of an inquiry precisely what you need to know to decide what can or should be done? And if so, can someone please, please make all those insisting we have to know what an inquiry will conclude for it to be justified go away?

Terribly academic of me I know, but then, I am an academic, with the life scars of a completed Masters and Doctoral degree to prove it. Which gives me a vested interest in the argument I want to make about the importance of suitably-qualified transparently-labelled experts participating in national policy debates. But I’m going to say it anyway, because no one else is talking about the credentialing issue, which is an important corner of the truly zeitgeist discussion about Australia’s democratic decline.

This is an edited extract of an address given to the Australian Society for Australians who feel fondly towards but are also a bit afraid of Scientists.

Good evening and thanks for having me. I’m not a climate scientist but I am an active participant in our healthy democracy and all of my opinions are based on facts and freedom of speech, so I ask you what is the difference? I’m not saying there isn’t one but surely all free thinking Australians would agree that there isn’t one.

As Australians, we must encourage each other to have opinions about Science, to engage in vigorous debate about facts and stuff, especially the facts that support the views I hold and I can prove this look at this graph.

I have been asked here today this evening to tell you what I think and if you simply read between the lines, even though there is nothing there, you would want to be on the side of decency and justice when everything goes to hell in a handbasket if it hasn’t already because what about the government who do they think they are?

To begin, let us start where we will all end, dead and buried and alone in a ditch with no one to mourn for us not even Science because it is busy with its lonely vigil looking to the stars, to the stars.

So, a funny thing happened a few months back. In my own little way, I contributed to this country’s disturbing trend towards shutting down freedom of speech. Or something.

Here’s how the story begins. You’ve probably heard of Lord Monckton. Don’t get sidetracked by the whole thing about the title. Just make sure we’re thinking of the same guy. Tours the world; talks about climate change myths and one world government and stuff; a bit like a British anti-Al Gore.

Well, he was coming to Australia for another speaking tour. And someone who I knew online sent me a message. Some ivory tower types had prepared an open letter, asking the University of Notre Dame to reconsider their invitation for Monckton to speak on campus. Would I co-sign it?

My academic area isn’t climate science. My research and teaching work is in psychology — but as a blogger, first on my own site and then for Crikey, I had covered issues about climate change and I was familiar with the public debate and its main participants, including Monckton.

I thought about it for a while. I passed the link along to a few people for them to think about as well. And then I made my mind up, and I added my name to the letter.

This letter wasn’t exactly massive national news. But it did get some mainstream media coverage. It generated some opinion articles. It drew a response from some prominent academic leaders. And, on the other hand, it gave some ammunition to our local community of so-called climate sceptics, who bundled it into their conspiracy theories.

It’s a sardonic line but a cautionary tale: the internet is the place where men are men, women are men, and 14 year olds are the FBI.

It’s indisputable that we should be alert to and protect ourselves from online fakery. Much effort is devoted to safeguarding our privacy, our finances and our children from this risk. Others cast the net more broadly. Some suggest the use of anonymity or pseudonymity online, particularly in the online exchange and debate of ideas, can distort or even stifle free speech.

There is, however, another type of online misrepresentation that concerns me. They’re the people and organisations that seek to influence political and other public debates but aren’t quite what they claim to be. I call them Synthetic Supporters and Friendipendents.

Synthetic supporters are an extension of astroturfing, or fake grassroots support. Both are based on the principle that the public are more likely to believe someone from their own community or peer group than a politician, businessman or activist.

Stop The Boats. Great Big New Tax. Moving Forward. Working Families.

Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

On second thought, I take that back. On third thought, I don’t take it back, I just append to it ‘unless you’re going to actually say something for once’.

Which, on fourth thought, would render most of our politicians silent most of the time and our TVs and radios deliciously mute, or at least casting around for another few episodes of Big Fucking Bang Theory.

We’ve all been bitching for years about ‘soundbite politics’, where a complex issue, like tax reform or how the hell do ciphers like Craig Thomson get pre-selection, is boiled down to a few words at a presser.

Soundbites came into existence as politicians realised that they would only get a couple of sentences on the news so they had to make sure they were the right ones. Reporters liked it, because it made their jobs easier both from an editing point of view and in terms of not taxing their intellects by having to decipher a press conference for the rest of us who, mercifully, weren’t there.

Most economics reporting is about things we can measure: interest rates, inflation, the All Ordinaries index, the unemployment rate, the way the economy is rated by various agencies like Moodies, consumer confidence indexes, business confidence indexes, the exchange rate, GDP, balance of trade and, of course, the deficit.

These inevitably become scoring mechanisms in the media, and journalists tend to cheer when, for example, the exchange rate goes up, or boo when growth comes down. A deficit is nearly always seen as bad and a surplus as good, and we hang breathless on what the ratings agencies say, no matter how discredited the agencies themselves are.

This is not to say that such measures are not useful or important in and of themselves, but it is to say that as ways of keeping ‘score’ they are hopelessly inadequate. Such reporting obscures as much as it reveals because it oversimplifies the hugely complex way in which a globalised economy like Australia’s actually works. Our reliance on them, along with our tendency to back our favourite teams — whether they be political parties or economic ideologies — blinds us to the fundamental shifts in economic and social practice that are disrupting some of our most basic relationships.

This sportification of economics, much like the horse race-calling that passes for political analysis, is of particular concern at the moment because the whole nature of economic activity is going through a once-in-a-hundred-year shift; if ever there were a time to step back and look at things afresh it is now.

Words are powerful things, far more than we realise most of the time. Public debate can be led or changed simply by capturing the words that bring a visceral reaction and claiming them for our own. So much so, that when it’s done properly, we don’t even realise that it happened.

Cuckolding the Media

Recently a certain prominent newspaper columnist, much loved down at the stagnant end of the gene pool, was found guilty of racial vilification. The tsunami of columns, blogs and editorials written on the subject since fall into one or more of the following four categories: 1. Joyous schadenfreude from detractors and ideological opponents. 2. Wails of outrage from rusted-on supporters and ideological allies. 3. Bipartisan support of the ruling by those who feel that freedom of speech is trumped by the rights of the individual. 4. Bipartisan objection to the ruling by those that see any impediment on freedom of speech as deleterious to a truly functional democracy.

We can safely discount the first two categories as unworthy of consideration for the sake of this exercise, as they obvious fail even a cursory litmus test of objectivity. The remaining two categories are notable in their balanced and nuanced regard for the subject matter and their seeming disparity with regards to social and political divides. When you have David Penberthy of News Ltd and noted Left academics like Tad Tietz and Antony Loewenstein all united — not only in their revulsion at the subject of the columns in question, but in concern over the ruling — you can be forgiven for thinking that the world has turned on its head. This is clearly not an issue that can be cleaved neatly between ‘left’ and ‘right’.

Gay and lesbian issues are quite popular in the Australian media right now; some would even say it’s all a bit sexy, as celebrities, politicians and a range of activists bang the drum for or against marriage equality As this debate heats up, with the ALP National Conference looming in December, folk like Miranda Devine and Jeff Kennett continue to twist the debate by spruiking the benefits of children being raised in a heterosexual home.

A clear ideological division has emerged with one camp believing that homosexuals have the same familial rights as their heterosexual counterparts whilst others believe that heterosexuals are a superior class and that only they have the right to marry and raise children. The battle lines have been drawn in a straightforward fight for equality, as gay and lesbian Australians move closer to achieving this right.

So, you’ve just read a thoughtful and erudite piece of online political commentary. Enlivened by new ideas, you’re keen to continue the conversation, share your thoughts, and maybe even re-evaluate a few of your positions. Your cat has never shown a particular interest in the impact of the carbon tax the economic debate and there’s no one else around, so trembling with intellectual anticipation, you click on the ‘Show Comments’ link.

JULIAR. FASCIST LEFTARDS. GREEN NUTTERS. REDNECK RIGHTISTS. HACK JOURNALISTS. BUDGIE SMUGGLERS. SEKRIT MUSLIMS. COMMUNIST.

You recoil in horror.

As an undergrad student at the University of Queensland I wasted weeks, possibly months of each year in the library, browsing magazines. OK. Maybe I didn’t actually waste that time, seeing as how I went on to work in magazines a few years later. Let’s just say I ‘invested’ a heap of extracurricular time with my feet up on the cheap, institutional coffee tables flipping through magazines I couldn’t afford to buy myself.

I still waste, or invest, a huge part of each week flipping through magazines. Except that nowadays, for the most part, I do it on my iPad. Sometimes, due to a turf war between old media publishers and Steve Jobs, on my Kindle. Each week, without fail, when I turn on my Kindle some time between Friday and Sunday, I’ll find a new copy of The New York Times Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The Atlantic, The New Republic, Harpers, and occasionally the weighty, stentorian wordage of Foreign Policy. Each one costs me a couple of bucks a month. Less than I spend on store-bought coffee every day.

I work in the industry. I understand the difference between professional journalism and the risible lack of standards that characterise much of what we call citizen journalism when we’re being kind, and amateur ranting when we’re being accurate. I know what went into writing those stories I paid for. I know that for the most part I can trust them, even if in the case of, say, The New Republic, I have to apply an ideological filter when I read them. I know they are worth paying for.

And yet. And yet…

Political Pundit Shows™, a format where so called fucking experts debate the issues of the day, either in a “partisan” or “neutral” bias.

Yeah right. Unlike Drag0nista (who I know is Sallyann Atkinson) I bloody hate these shows, and so should you.

There has been an explosion of PPS in Australia, based on the US model. Meet the Press, Insiders and Q&A (based on a UK show Question Time) now get all the political wonks sexually aroused and bleeting inanities on social media like Twitter.

Yesterday I bought a copy of Lindsay Tanner’s book, Sideshow: Dumbing Down of Democracy.

The book is not a memoir, it is in fact much closer to George Megalogenis’ Quarterly Essay Trivial Pursuit, than it is some tell-all political autobiography. The book’s central thesis is that the media and politicians are locked into a dumbed-down, trivial, vicious circle, which is, for the most part, instigated by dumb, lazy journalism and the dumb media organisation that encourage such journalism. So well argued and accurate is Tanner’s thesis that I think this may actually be the first time a book’s thesis has been completely proven correct before the book has even been officially launched.

A couple of weeks ago, The Australian launched a pre-emptive strike against an entire communication platform, claiming that it was hopelessly biased towards Teh Left. (Poor Twitter. What has it ever done to the #LOLstralian Australian?)

“Australian Twitter users are eagerly anticipating Miranda Devine’s (@mirandadevine) appearance on the ABC program Q&A (#qanda) tonight if the tweets of the last week are anything to go by. Moments after host Tony Jones announced last Monday night that the News Limited columnist was to appear, the Twitter echo chamber whirled into a flurry of comment. Not much of it was friendly, however, with many using words not fit for print.”

Disaster, death, destruction. In the past few months every time you turn on the TV or open the laptop, there they are, laid out in colour, with a perfectly groomed journalist helpfully front and centre of the story. Which is pretty revolting, but not as much as the endless clips of that teenage brother and sister weeping for their mother killed in the Christchurch earthquake - now available with Touching Musical Accompaniment!

What’s the most soul destroying career that you can imagine? Doctor at a tobacco company? Head of light entertainment at Channel Nine? Opinion writer for a News Ltd tabloid? To my mind they’re amateurs and also rans when you put them up against what’s arguably the most destructive force in western society: the self help industry.

In the beginning, Q and A was unmissable TV. The panel format wasn’t new, but with the gravitas provided by the ABC and Tony Jones, the quality of guests was unprecedented. Then, when the Twitter feed turned it into one of the most interactive hours of Australian television, Q and A was hovering on the edge of something truly ground breaking.