A video game wants to change how we look at an international tragedy.
It's a powerful look at humanity.
Europe is in the midst of a dire migrant crisis. This year, Germany alone expects 800,000 people to claim asylum.
Many of the would-be immigrants are fleeing war-torn countries like Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq. Others are simply trying to escape parts of Africa and the Middle East that have been hit with famine and crushing poverty.
The journey can be perilous. An estimated 2,500 have drowned this year crossing the Mediterranean Sea, one of the riskiest routes to Europe. Asylum seekers often report violence and abuse during their journeys.
Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.
A video game seeks to change how we think about the crisis and humanize how we view migrants.
While the EU governments continue to debate what to do about the crisis, London-based game developer Francois Alliot (he also goes by the name "Nerial") and his collaborator Arnaud De Bock took on a project to help humanize an often faceless collection of stats and numbers. Together, they created "Passengers," a game that puts the player in the position of a smuggler trying to assist refugees and asylum-seekers making their way to Europe.
The game is a bit like a modern take on "The Oregon Trail."
GIFs from "Passengers."
"Passengers" highlights some of the tough decisions facing both smugglers and migrants.
The game starts with two decisions: Where are you going? and Who are you taking?
Not every person hoping to make the dangerous trip will be able to. You're put in the position of deciding who you'll take with you, and who gets left behind. Do you take the scholar? Do you bring the accountant? Do you bring the former criminal?
In my first time through the game, I took as many people along for the ride as I could. Even then, remembering that these people all represent real stories playing out in the real world, I was left feeling that it's unfair that others would be left behind.
In the end of that first play-through, everyone lost. Including the "lucky" passengers selected.
After a number of passengers died along the way, my poor boat capsized after being hit by a storm. There were no winners. Whether lost at sea or left on shore, the characters were gone.
In Europe, the political gridlock around immigration can be just as bad as in the United States.
The U.S. has its own challenging political situation when it comes to immigration. We have over 11 million undocumented immigrants hanging in a perpetual state of limbo, and despite the fact that presidential candidates seem to talk a lot about it, Congress hasn't delivered a comprehensive solution in decades.
The issue is different in the European Union, which has 28 member countries (and no shortage of diverging opinions). But similar to the U.S., migrants in Europe are also struggling for their rights.
People protesting the British government for its crackdown on smugglers. Photo by Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images.
If we value human life, a safe haven must be available to all. These preventable deaths at sea are unacceptable.
Perhaps Nerial's game will spark more public interest in addressing the problem at hand. After all, if the immigration system wasn't so broken, people wouldn't need to take such dangerous routes to their destination.
Perhaps it simply serves as a reminder to be grateful for what we have. In either case, it's amazing how such a simple game can have such a profound effect on the player's own sense of morality and self-worth.
There is a human cost to any government's inaction on immigration. Thanks to one game, that became a bit more clear.
Men try to read the most disturbing comments women get online back to them.
If you wouldn't say it to their faces, don't type it.
This isn’t comfortable to talk about.
Trigger warning for discussion of sexual assault and violence.
A recent video by Just Not Sports took two prominent female sportswriters and had regular guys* read the awful abuse they receive online aloud.
Sportswriters Sarah Spain and Julie DiCaro sat by as men read some of the most vile tweets they receive on a daily basis. See how long you can last watching it.
*(Note: The men reading them did not write these comments; they're just being helpful volunteers to prove a point.)
It starts out kind of jokey but eventually devolves into messages like this:
Awful.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
These types of messages come in response to one thing: The women were doing their jobs.
Those wishes that DiCaro would die by hockey stick and get raped? Those were the result of her simply reporting on the National Hockey League's most disturbing ordeal: the Patrick Kane rape case, in which one of the league's top players was accused of rape.
DiCaro wasn't writing opinion pieces. She was simply reporting things like what the police said, statements from lawyers, and just general everyday work reporters do. In response, she received a deluge of death threats. Her male colleagues didn't receive nearly the same amount of abuse.
It got to the point where she and her employer thought it best to stay home for a day or two for her own physical safety.
The men in the video seemed absolutely shocked that real live human beings would attack someone simply for doing their jobs.
Not saying it.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
Most found themselves speechless or, at very least, struggling to read the words being presented.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
Think this is all just anecdotal? There's evidence to the contrary.
The Guardian did a study to find out how bad this problem really is.
They did a study of over 70 million comments that have been posted on their site since 2006. They counted how many comments that violated their comment policy were blocked.
The stats were staggering.
From their comprehensive and disturbing article:
If you can’t say it to their face... don’t type it.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
So what can people do about this kind of harassment once they know it exists?
There are no easy answers. But the more people who know this behavior exists, the more people there will be to tell others it's not OK to talk to anyone like that.
Watch the whole video below:
.This article originally appeared on 04.27.16