The game that lets kids ‘role-play as ICE agents’

What do you want to be when you grow up? A pilot? A firefighter? An ICE agent? Since the explosion of the LA riots,  the online gaming platform Roblox has seen kids “role-play as ICE agents” and anti-ICE protesters.

Despite Cockburn’s doubts, this is considered “fun.” Internet scholar Taylor Lorenz explained to Cockburn: “Roblox has become like this metaverse where kids and young people go to sort of mimic real-world events. They role-play as teachers, or they have a family.” It’s just like the SIMS: but with round-ups and deportations.

It seems the game is mimicking real life: just like the protests in California became violent, so did the simulated ones. And in the gaming world, there are no background checks: a Roblox user can get an assault rifle, a double-barrel shotgun and plenty more, and it doesn’t cost a dime. That’s a bit much for those developing brains, no? “The thing is, I don’t think it causes damage,” Lorenz said. “I think it’s like a vanity thing; I don’t think you can be killed in Roblox.” She told Cockburn of a first-hand account from one child “protester.” “I have video of one – actually it was a protester that had a gun, that was shooting the cops,” she said, adding that Tuesday night, one of the children playing the game texted her that “the cops just started shooting all the protesters.”

Political activism in children’s games has been a thing since the 90s, Lorenz explained. “It’s a lot of young people who have certain feelings about ICE or wanted to attend the protests IRL or they had friends or family members affected by ICE, and so they’re participating in these protests. Other conservative-type kids are role-playing as ICE agents.”

How inclusive. Learning your letters, numbers, and all the tactics needed for violent protest. What could go wrong?

While you were sleeping…

Is age just a number — or the elephant in the Senate? On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on “How the Biden Cover-Up Endangered America and Undermined the Constitution.” Senator Grassley, aged 91, opened with a wandering complaint on Biden’s political ineptitude and mental decline. Senator Durbin, all of two years Biden’s junior, produced in the former president’s defense a video of Donald Trump’s gaffes. While not lacking in material, Senator Durbin seemed asleep to its humor. As he grieved the scandal, the audience — primarily hill interns — laughed.

Senator Schmitt, aged 73, answered Durbin’s sally with footage of a mumbling Biden. He was relieved by a youngster, 50-year-old senator Schmitt, who then yielded the floor to 78-year-old Senator Welch.

GOP senators berated Democrats for being absent from the hearing — possibly napping? Cockburn couldn’t help but notice that it’s not just the executive branch that is deficient in youthfulness.

On our radar

THE POWER OF THE PRESS After a Wall Street Journal article pressured President Trump to aid Israel, he delayed bombing Iran.

BARRON THE BILLIONAIRE? Forbes reports Barron Trump is well on his way to billionaire status, having reportedly raked in $40 million in cryptocurrency at the tender age of 19.

CNN CUTS As part of recently announced cost-cutting measures, cable giant CNN is preparing to require its employees to provide receipts along with their expense-account reports, according to the Daily Mail.

The man, the myth, the party

Biblical rains could delay but not abort the party held Thursday evening in midtown Manhattan by Matthew Sitman and Katy Roberts for Sam Tanenhaus’ epic new biography of William F. Buckley Jr: the polysyllabic provocateur who dominated intellectual debate on the right for decades. Sitman, who is the co-host of the erudite podcast Know Your Enemy, led the assembled celebrants through his carefully curated library to his spacious rooftop aerie, where Tanenhaus expounded upon Buckley’s gift for friendship with his ideological foes. He suggested that Buckley knew his enemies very well indeed.

But no overt hostilities could be detected at this high-flying gathering whose guests included Beverly Gage, Pamela Paul, Jennifer Szalai, Kathy Bonomi, Ian Ward, David Oshinsky, Alex Star, Andrew Marantz, Samuel Adler-Bell, Jennifer Schuessler, Barry Gewen, David Margolick, Nina Burleigh and our own Jacob Heilbrunn.