Tyra’s World of Warcraft Addiction Hoax

Posted by Stropp on February 3, 2007

I guess I’m a little cynical these days. I take a lot of what I read in newspapers with a grain of salt. I don’t believe much of what I see on television news and current affairs. So much so that I’ve pretty much stopped watching Australian free to air news.

I’m also cynical enough, that when I see reality TV, or those TV chat shows like the Tyra Banks show, not to believe what I see on them. So when I saw the YouTube footage (part 1) (part 2)of the Tyra Banks show episode with the guy that what so addicted to World of Warcraft I was able to suspend disbelief enough to see the signs that it was a hoax.

First of all, a definition. Dictionary.com lists the following definition:

hoax (hoks)
n.

1. An act intended to deceive or trick.
2. Something that has been established or accepted by fraudulent means.

Now by definition, much of what we see on TV and in the movies, much of the fiction we read is intended to deceive us. We’re entertained by stories that enable our imaginations to suspend disbelief. Special effects are designed to convince our minds of the reality of the effect. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s entertainment.

Shows like Springer, Tyra Banks, and the like are also entertainment. They are trying to convince us of the reality of the situations that they are portraying. This entertainment isn’t designed to stimulate our imaginations as much as to tickle the gossip-center of our brains. You know, the bit of our brain that makes us cluck our tongues and tut tut. There’s also nothing wrong with that if you accept that it is not real, but is designed to sell advertising.

So when I watched some of the segment on YouTube, I noticed a few things that convinced me that this segment was made up.

Sean’s behaviour didn’t add up

The guy was so addicted to World of Warcraft that he completely ignored his partner for the game, but still went to work each day. He was unable to remove himself from the computer to attend to his daughter in front of the cameras, but still able to go to the studio to film the show. If he was so addicted to WoW how was he capable of:

1. going to work each day, and
2. dragging himself to the studio for the show?

Here’s another definition from Dictionary.com.

ad·dic·tion

–noun

the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.

Sean certainly looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights, but he didn’t look traumatized. Perhaps the shock set in after he left the studio.

It’s one of my beefs at the moment. There’s a lot of bandying about the term Addiction when it really doesn’t apply. But that’s a subject for a future post.

The Discussion was One Sided

Did you notice on these videos how one sided the discussion was?

The first half of the segment was designed to get sympathy for Autumn.

She was asked to describe how her fiance was ignoring her and their child for the sake of a video game. Tyra Banks very early on drew the analogy of World of Warcraft being the other woman. Tyra did a great job of looking shocked and dismayed at Seans callous behaviour. Especially leaving the hospital to go play the game. (No. He left during a long delivery to go home and have a shower, and also spent some time also playing WoW. He was there for the birth remember?)

So after all this. The shocked looks and audience stirring. The barbed comments by the show’s shrink. They finally bring Sean on.

Sean was not prepared by the producers. That is also pretty obvious. He was behind the scenes watching what was being said about him, but when he was finally asked about his behaviour, he made a lame reply about SIDS. The show’s resident quack was quick to dismiss the excuse, inflaming an already hostile audience. It’s no wonder, being outnumbered and outgunned, a single guy facing an audience of hostile women who had already made up their minds that he was the spawn of Satan, that he caved for the rest of the segment.

This Relationship is in Trouble

With or without World of Warcraft, Sean and Autumn’s relationship is in serious trouble.

There is a lot more going on here than addiction to a video game. Addiction in the first place is not a root cause. It’s often the result of other issues in the addicts life. Having said that, I don’t think this guy was addicted to WoW in the first place. It appears he was using it as an escape from his home life. Don’t forget he was capable of going to work, and capable of going on the Tyra Banks show. He just didn’t want to do things with Autumn.Case in point. Sean slept on the couch. Well no guy does that unless he has serious issues with the person he is sleeping with (I’m talking about sleep here, not sex.) A bit of weight gain doesn’t stop a guy catching some Zs next to his partner if he loves her. There is more here than Tyra would have us believe.

What Sean and Autumn need is a professional qualified counsellor, not the pop-psychiatry of a TV chat show. A professional counsellor will help them do the hard work of mending their relationship, and listen to both of them. He won’t demonise either party like the Tyra Banks show did.

Was Tyra perpetrating a Hoax?

That’s the question I’ll leave you with.

Don’t forget that a hoax is defined as act intended to trick or deceive. It certainly looks like the producers of the Tyra Banks show intended to trick or deceive their audience into thinking that Sean was addicted to World of Warcraft. It looked like they attempted to show that World of Warcraft was responsible for this couples relationship problems. It looked like the camera work in the Sean and Autumns home made it look like Sean was hopelessly glued to the computer even with such an invasion going on.

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