Of all the games they try to demonize, they demonize a game type people have played at home for decades at parties, in person, with no computers.
Brilliant.
90s house party game here, I’m sure people played it earlier.
Not too much earlier; Wikipedia says the game was invented in 1986 by psychology student Dimitry Davidoff, a psychology student at Moscow State University.
Interesting, had no idea about its origin story.
Also… of course
In June 2006 a Rockingham school inquiry was launched after parents complained of the traumatic effects classroom Mafia was having on their fifth-grade children. Davidoff responded to the reports, saying that as a parent who had studied child psychology for 25 years, he felt that the game could “teach kids to distinguish right from wrong”, and that the positive message of being honest could overcome the negative effects of an “evil narrator” moderating the game as if it were a scary story.
If you enjoy the game you should check out The Traitors with its many international variants. I was surprised to read that the productions provide psychologists to help the contestants as it gets traumatic, but when I watched the first UK season there were a lot of people getting into emotional distress.
There have been a lot of people cast who really shouldn’t be on the show; it’s just a game!
