So Anyway... Mothers Against Star Wars Galaxies was a hoax pulled off by SWGalaxies.net for April Fool day, 2003. We drew most of our ideas from MAVAV, a similar type of hoax pulled off late last year. Basically, the idea was to trick people into believing that SWGalaxies.net had been bought out by a group of Mothers concerned about the impact Star Wars Galaxies has on youth. In writing the MASWG frontpage, we tried to maintain a balance between something that could be believed, and something that was obviously false and humourous. To be honest, I did not expect it to be believed by so many people. Overview Here's a quick overview of the various parts of the Mothers Against Star Wars Galaxies webpage: Logo - The logo was created by one of our staffers, AcidArrow. We tried to make it look intimidating, so that at first glance, the page would look somewhat legit. Where is SWGalaxies.net - This was also suggested and written by AcidArrow. I thought the last part of this paragraph would immediately give the hoax away, and was a little wary about including it. Who are we - STAB! This paragraph was suppose to sound mostly legit... at least until the end. Again, I thought the body hair growth problem we mentioned would give the site away. What do we do - Yeah, I managed to keep this paragraph sounding legal. What do we offer - The comedy central of the page. I can't believe people still thought the page was legit after reading these. The first 'article' was pretty far fetched, but sadly quite possible. The south African country of "Erehwemos" mentioned in the second "article" doesn't exist, and can be turned around for extended humour. I thought the third paragraph was one of the best pieces of the article. I honestly don't know anyone under 10 who has a girlfriend, gamer or no. The last "article" was my pride and joy. "Tsrif Lirpa," of course, is "April First" backwards. I enjoy flipping words around, Bob. How can you show support? - Links to email staff@swgalaxies.net and a 'petition' link that led back to the main page. I pondered starting a "real" petition, but decided against it. The images - Pure humour on the right. We got a lot of nice comments about the little devil SWG box, as well as many people complaining about the caption of the second image. Response Hoooo boy. The response we recieved to the April Fools prank was both incredibly amusing and incredibly depressing. I've posted a number of the emails we recieved below. The names have been removed to protect the identities of those who fell for (or pretended to fall for) the prank. I've also only included emails from people who 'fell' for the prank. We did also get about 50 emails from people who enjoyed the joke and got it right away. If this is anything other than a spoof, i think your whole group should be taken out to the street and shot. It's call freedom, and i'm no child. I can make decisions for myself, and i decide to play SWG. Our first 'omg. is this true?' email of the day. I was so very proud to recieve this. please tell me this is a joke or... i hope this is a f____ing joke! or... Is this thing serious? or... What is this, some kind of joke? or... is this a serious thing? or... Who are you a**wholes and were is the staff is this a joke You got us, people! It's a joke! Can't pull the wool over your eyes. At first i'm a online gamer! I don't think that m.a.s.w.g. is a very good idea, because SWG is one of those games where you can decide to play the game without using a weapon(a crafter, farmer or something like that) in the most online games you only have to shot around (Couterstrike) but this game also shows the kids playing games without killing anything :-/ i never heard anything of this page, there are much better sites of SWG and it would be more usefull if you look at Iraq and don't play games Er, what? Mom says you need to be more coherant. I'm sorry to say, this is not a letter of support, but a complaint. Several, actually. You do have a very valid point that too much gaming is not healthy, for anyone, but other than that, the rest of your site consists of overblown and one-in-a-million chance stories. To the average person, your stories seem very disturbing and place 100% of the blame on the companies producing these games. The truth is, it is YOUR job to raise your children and if they are doing something you don't approve of, it is YOUR job to make sure they don't do it. All of your stories tell of how the company that made the game never took responsibility for it's actions or paid for any damages. What about the parents? If they were half-way decent at parenting, they would have known about their childs' problems months before it got out of control. The one about 10 year olds particularly concerned me. I live in a neighborhood filled with children of all ages, and I don't know one ten year old with a girlfriend. I would be more worried about that than a 10 year old that plays video games. Your last article is completely ludicrous. In no way does playing any video game cause the loss of grace, looks or intelligence. I feel very sorry for anyone who takes your site seriously and more importantly, I feel sorry for their children. I love the last line. "I feel very sorry for anyone who takes your site seriously." First off you should know that i am a gamer, i am an adult, i have a professional job, and a girlfriend. Despite this i find your arguement compelling. I agree that parents should protect their kids from anything that is potentially addictive. And i think we all know that online gaming has surpassed its potential there. But unless you refine your mission i refuse to sign any kind of petition. You cannot seek to ban a game just to keep your children safe. If an adult chooses to ruin his/her life playing a game it is their choice. An what if, GASP, some of us can play these games in our spare time (ie instead of watching 3-4 hours of tv in the evenings we play games). You dont have the right to take that away from us. So as i said i will not join your cause, and i think youll find most adult gamers will agree, if you proceed along the lines of trying to ban the game entirely. If you want to lobby sony to put an age limit then fine ill agree to that, most of your kids are really annoying online anyway. But please do not try to block this game, ive been waiting for this since i saw the first star wars movie as a child. BTW having any of you parents tried actually parenting (ie telling your kids NO, have some balls and make your kids learn some discipline). Thanx Jc Waldron I couldn't figure out if this guy was serious or not. It was a good read, though. Im going to send oall of your children this game in the mail! muahahahah!!! then they way be happy and know how f***ed up their parents are! Sweet. I've got 164 kids, you can mail the free games to.... Hi, first....Im coming from German, how you can see om my English. But to your Site... You wrote that childs lost 5 IQ Points every month, but I fing they win 6 per month, also they have 1 Point winning. They must train their Brain to challenge the difiicults of "life" in the Game. Thats my thinking... Fooling people internationally since 1903. Ya know, that "petition" is worthless. There is nothing legally wrong with SWG. And why don't you spend more time parenting your own kids instead of everybody else's. As long as companies are making money, they won't care about little "petitions" that a group of lifeless "mothers" make. Besides, my kids play RP games and are straight A students because they use, not abuse, computer games. And I reviewed statistics and that data you give is bull. If you still are brainless enough to hold fast to your opinions, then hear this: If you are so against gaming, don't do it, and don't let your kids do it -- leave the rest of society ALONE and don't pollute everyone ELSE'S mind with CRAP!!!! Have fun playing solitaire in your covered wagon! ;) Hey, my petition isn't worthless! And my opinions aren't crap! You make me want to cry :( F*** YOU FOR MAKING SUCH A PATHETIC ATTEMPT IN TAKING OUR GAME AWAY!!!! AND F*** YOUR STUPID A** CHILD FOR LETTING YOUR B****Y A** DO SUCH A STUPID THING!!!!! I think I may start an actual MASWG movement just for this guy. As a player of online games such as Dark Age of Camelot, I can tell you something from experience (a quality which you mothers obviously lack). First of all, in my experience, most of the people who play online games are successful adults, with jobs and lives beyond the world of online gaming. I myself am a college student, and I might add that I am doing quite well with a 3.75 GPA. I also spend about 10-15 hours a week playing online games. You state that the playing of online games lowers your child's social skills significantly. You are sorely mistaken. Online games are inherently SOCIAL. I often find myself engrossed in conversations that have nothing to do with the game itself with other players. These types of games are made to be SOCIAL. They are just another media for people to exchange ideas, just with a little extra fun thrown into the mix. Here is something that you will find quite interesting. Most of the people that I interact with on these games are adults, as I have already stated. Most even have children. And believe it or not, there is a large portion of players who, like yourselves, are MOTHERS. I often get messages saying, hold on, the baby just woke up, or hold on, i have to change the baby's diapers. I even get messaged saying, "I'll see you later, my kid wants to play now." I find this portion of your website to be quite shameful. It states that, "Online games cause an immediate and extreme loss of intelligence, grace, and good looks. Beware! If your child is stupid, clumsy, or ugly, he or she may already be playing Online Games!" First of all, I don't think it is even possible to lose good looks. Second, you should be ashamed of yourself to call your children ugly or stupid. I wonder what they would feel if they knew your thoughts. You should accept your children for who they are, and you should think they are beautiful no matter what. You all should be ashamed of yourself. Please reply. I would like to hear your thoughts on my letter, and only my letter. I would not like to hear your propaganda. Here's my reply: It's a joke ;) I was just looking over your site and you have some good points. However some of your articles seem alittle far fetched. Can you provide your sources of this information to further prove your point? I have.. good.. points?.. I am so pissed off at this that im going to jump right into it... First off, what youre talking about is a pile of S***! My god i cant even begin to belive what youre doing, do us all a favour and f*** off. I myself am in the royal marines and am living a very full life DISPITE the fact that i play online games whenever i can. Quite frankly this is an outrage and i cant wait till someone takes legal action against you because if they dont then i will. How dare you try to take away peoples freedom to do what they want, you're not mothers, you're sufficating harpies who should be stoped at all costs and give a whole new meening to the term "OVER PROTECTIVE" which by the way also has a negitive effect on a young people, i should know. F*** OFF, I AM FREE TO DO WHAT I WANT AND YOU CANT STOP ME, YOU CANT STOP YOURE KID'S EITHER.....!!!D**KHEADS!!!......... This guy's from the army, people. Be afraid, be very afraid. dudes, someone hacked your page, I don't know if you guys noticed it... but... yeah dudes, might want to check into it! Thanks for the heads up. i would really appreciate it if you gave back star wars galaxies.net to the cool people who had it before it was my favorite site to visit and i don't see your point on this. i played everquest and am still very social at my school and i don't think about killing people infact a lot of peaople want to play this game because they don't want to kill people it is just a nice break from school and other activities to play video games for an hour. if you have a younger child who wants to play he dosn't have a credid card (i hope not) and that is how you would pay for it. you are the one with the credid card and would have to pay for it. i will still buy this game but pay for it with my own money that i earn being social at my work. i have a 3.8 G.P.A and am a junior in high school. i think that by agressivly stopping kids from doing things will hurt them more. when my parents would do that it made me want to do it all the more and i did end up doing them, at school or at my friends house. they will find a way to play the game wether they do it when they are older or at friends, because this is the most anticipated game for about 2 years now, your kid will find a way anyway. killing little animals really isn't anything bad. we eat animals real animals get killed everyday in sauterhouses. you have hunters that do it, and there is nothing wrong with them. and after all it is just a game that is all it is it is a game. there are cases where people go crazy from playing to much but just limit your kids from playing video games. i don't care if you do or do not let your kid play video games but the people that play it are usually 16 and older. there are people older than you that will play this game. it just think it is a waste of your money putting up such a jewish site that really no parents are going to look at, because most of the parents are doing the playing and there parents can't do a damb thing about it any way so stop your kids from playing but put the other sit back up please. i am willing to bet that it's the kids of parents like you that end up being the dead drunks that can't stop playing and not being social whenever my friends and me get together we usually go cruising for girls or play the playstation and games like medal of honor and james bond. most teenage male's do that i promise that. Thank you for your input. I have to admit that I still haven't read it all, but it looks kinda cool. Get a life and stop blaming all of your children's problems on music, computer games, television and whatever other excuse you have for being pathetic parents. Spend time with your children, teach them about the world and you won't have to worry about what a lyric, code or script supposedly does to your kid because they will have been raised to know the difference between fantasy and reality. Stop letting technology be a babysitter and trying being a good parent, it will do wonders. You might want to think about that. But.. I don't have any kids. I just saw your site..I have been playing everquest for over a year now, im getting married this year I have a good social life, I have a good job, and family is great!. I have encouraged my son to play it as it actually broadens areas of interaction with other people. The benefit of online gaming is the ability so say what you feel without having to be face to face ..this is then carried into real life and there for the player isnt hindered by emotions of insecurity or parent dictatorship. the game is played indoors and keeps the kids OFF the streets. If your members and site are truly worried about the effects anything has on their children..TEACH THEM POLITICS. We all live in a very corrupt world full of hypocrisy (just look at the Gulf war). I personally believe Everquest and MMO games of the same ilk help protect the younger generation. The MMO games give allot of kids the chance to interact with others without worries or inhibitions so don't portray all of it as negative. You will probably find kids that go down a wrong road in life will do so with or without the aid of an MMO/RPG. Eh. No comment. My son is under 10, has a girlfriend, but we don't like her. Could your game help? Perhaps you could let our underprivelaged son participate in your beta testing to see if it will rid us of his girlfriend once and for all! Please help! ROFL. Okay, obviously we didn't trick everyone ;) I was researching on the internet and I came across this site. And I thought to myself, maybe you should reflect upon your own parenting skills. Maybe should spend more time talking to your children spending time with them and helping their development and less time telling other people how to raise their children. Your saying a computer game can hurt a childs social life, how about an over protective Nazi for a parent. It just occurred to me that perhaps you don’t even have children, and if this is so I feel terribly sorry for you. But If nothing else reflect upon what you are doing and think to your self is it really worth it to ruin other peoples leisure time? What are you getting out of this? Why don’t you do something really beneficial and try to help children in a logical helpful manner. I love you, google. Excuse me... sorry to have to bring you people into reality but your claims are not only sientificaly unsound but the information you have to back it up isnt even well layed out. First of all you arnt even provideing your readers with the full articles which to me says eather the rest of the article doesent support your claim or that the people that wrote those articles doesent agree with what your doing and refuses to let you use it. If the latter is the case then you really probobly shouldnt be quoteing them and I would hope that they take legal action on your orginization. But since you are quoteing them and not produceing the whole article or even a link to a sight where we might view the whole article then it probobly doesent support your hypothisis. Seckond of all you should really learn how to cite your resorces becaus I would really like to take a look at those articles of your. As for your kids haveing no social skills and not haveing girlfriends well let me just say that is a sexist remark I know plenty of girls that play these games and let me ask you this... Do you really want your 10 yr olds out haveing sex? oh sure you may say a girl friend doesent mean sex fine Ill go with that side of the arguement although the other side is alot easyer but still... do you really want a 10 year old dateing? what is dateing after all? Dateing is practiceing failur isnt it? of corse it is its teaching kids to go out be with someone and then when it doesent work break up and try again... we dont need 10 year olds dateing we dont need any one dateing when people choose to start a relationship then they need to learn how to make things work and ill give you the fact that that isnt always possable there are abuseive people in the world and as much as I would like to I wont point a finger at the people who started this orginization becaus Id really prefer not to have this just be a word flinging contest I just think that if you are going to protest something you should do the research and weigh all sides then present both sides of it to the public and let them make their own desisions and beleaive me I have seen plenty of things that says these online relationships are just what people need it lets us young people connect on a different level and really open up to people we wouldnt nessacarly ever open up to face to face and with that give us the chance to learn to love soemone for their personality rather than their appearance which by saying your kids are ugly is odviously all you really care about. Good hygine, and being ugly are two totaly different things. And beleive it or not the mini worlds we spend so much time in do teach us alot about econemys people and learning how to comprimise now I think if you really want to present a good argument go pick up a copy of UO, EQ, AC, DAoC, SWG, or any of the countless others play it for a few weeks and dont just play it haveing desided you hate it already play it with an open mind and meet some people on it and then if you still think they are so evil then you get some articles from both sides of the fence call up the authors get their ok post the articles on your websight and make people beleive what you beleive but dont knock it till you know it... and certainly dont knock it with out doing the research on both sides and get more than 3 articles from third world countries... try geting some articles writen in the US about kids in the US they will have alot more weight on the people becaus % of kids in third world countries or where ever that can afford to be addicted to these games has gota be prity low so of those numbers of corse the extream cases %s are going to be high... Thank you for your time Another email I've yet to actually read. Someone let me know if it's any good You f***ing dumb loony b****es! Get a f***ing life and go get laid! I don't know where exactly you came from, but the last time I checked, all mothers have gotten 'laid' at one point in their lives. Instead of trying to Censor games that you don't like, why don't you try exercising some parental discretion. This is assinine Censoring a funner. Maybe if you parents were spending a little more time talking with your child and a little less time looking for a fictitious cause to riot against, such as SWG, your kid would be a little more sociable and wouldn't have to escape into a video game. I'm sorry. I'm a bad parent. So bad, in fact, that I don't even have any kids. :p Are you people stupid? No... that is a dumb question. I know that there is something incredibly wrong with you people, and by you people, I mean the insecure, soccer-mom "know-it-alls" that litter our communities. I have never found myself to be so annoyed and pissed-off after reading an article trying to get people to support a cause. I myself am a 17 year old student at a high school who earns good grades and tries hard in the sports I play. I am also a former subscriber to Asheron's call, 1 and 2, and a soon to come subscriber to Star wars galaxies. You know why? Because I wanted to. For one, you can not be serious about trying to stop these kids from DOING WHAT THEY WANT TO DO! There is no way. And I hope you are kidding about trying to stop the companies who "poison" your dear sweet child's minds. I think that the problem is not with the companies, they are not trying to destroy your child's lives, if they even are destroying them, but I believe that the problem starts at home, with you. I can see it now, a child not getting enough attention from their parents to feel good about themselves reverting to video games whenever they want to put their problems and insecurities aside. And you people, with nothing else to fall back on, and noone else to take the blame, start accusing these video games for ruining your child's lives, when in fact the true problem is you. You also can not throw b.s. "scientific" reports our way and expect us to believe them. I have never heard tests being done on such trivial matters, and scientists who waste their time on these kinds of studies should be exiled. You mothers must ask yourselves then, "What have I done wrong?" Because it's not the kid's fault that he/she is playing these games, and its not the developers or the sellers of the games faults either, they are in a business to make money, and people, not just kids you know, are their business. I know countless people who are over the age of 18 who play MMORPG's. I do not see why you are wasting your time trying to ban online games and convert other mothers to your side, for it is futile. Why not turn your attention to somewhere it is needed such as MADD or drug/smoking help programs, for these programs save lives, your program, if you can call it that, inevitably will not. God knows these other programs need your help more than anything. Thank you for reading this letter and I hope I have made a point. Do not throw my words aside like they are some ramblings of a peeved teenager who just wants to start trouble, for my words are true and to the point. If you can not see past the wool you have pulled over your own eyes then I have wasted my time with you. This one made my day. First of all, lets look at the source. Your talkin about massive mental trama/manipulation by a VIDEO GAME. If a person is weekminded enough to resort to criminal acts, suicide, and/or rioting, then there was something wrong with them long before they ever logged onto the Internet. Second of all, any child (a human being not "legally" declared as an adult) should be monitered and regulated by a Paternal figure or figures. If your child is spending all his time and allowance on an online video game, then get off your own Ass and get them off the computer. Its YOUR job to maintain YOUR childs health and mental well being, not the people who make their living by producing entertainment thats intended for use by mature and responsible human beings. If your going to make accusations that a freakin video game is causing childeren to waste their lives, then your efforts at puttin a stop to it are seriously misplaced. Why dont all you "Mothers" go get your child, get them off the computer/video game system, and start influencing their lives YOURSELF. The last time i checked, after all, it was YOUR job as a "Mother" to provide such for your child. YOU PEOPLE ARE A SHAMEFULL, LAZY, AND IDIOTIC EXAMPLE OF PARENTAL ROLEMODELING. sides, you seem to be puttin alot of effort into the whole internet thing yourself. i dont think anit-internet people are makin money off what you pay for this webiste :) Won't you be my friend? F*** off mother f***ers ! star wars galaxies RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We don't f*** mothers! We *are* mothers! I don't mean to sound disrespectful, but don't you think you are being a bit extreme? I mean seriously - playing online games to the extreme (37 Everquest accounts) will obviously be harmful just like anything taken to the extreme is harmful. However, playing games like this in moderation is a relatively healthy, enjoyable source of entertainment and should NOT be shut down. Oh and also - Exactly where is Tsrif Lirpa and why should we believe some obscure study done by a small group of obscure scientists in a country most have never even HEARD OF??????? anyway I almost think that this site is put together by a couple of kids who got kicked out of Beta and are mad at SOE now or something. Tsrif Lirpa is in Europe. Duh. And we haven't gotten kicked out of beta --- yet. ;) your an idiot hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. This was apparently from 'my mom.' Oh yeah, and it's YOU'RE, not YOUR. I am a teenager who stumbled upon your site. About the facts that you proposed, I am glad that you are concerned about my welfare, but I am intelligent enough to know that the majority of your articles are biased and worthless. You say yourself that the first person was insane. You are proposing the information in such a way that it looks as if the game MADE him insane, which it did not. How can you expect people to take seriously a horribly narrow minded view of one man's life? There are billions of lunatics in the world that blow themselves up for their beleifs, blow up abortion clinics, and do horrible atrocities. Are pro-life, the islamic faith, and other examples to blame for the insane actions of a small groups of people? A minority alot larger than the example proposed by you. Why would Sony pay for the criminal actions of people? Do bankers have to pay for people that rob them? To jewelry manufacturers have to pay for when their merchandise causes stores to be robbed? Do fur manufactuerers have to pay for the riots that they cause? Claiming that Sony somehow has responsibility for people rioting because of their product is ridiculous. This next example was what I found the most humorous. I have never played a MMORPG in my life and I did not have a girlfriend under the age of ten. Who on earth has a girlfriend under the age of ten? This example is pathetic and disgusting. You are actually proposing that it is healthy for kids to have girlfriends at that age? You are shoving maturity down their throat and showing these "scientific" reports as if it has any value at all. This is also "correlation without causation" and also does not mean anything. I am learning in psychology how this simple, stupid, biased information exactly like this you just proposed has no value whatsoever. This next article is so pathetic is not even worthy of pointing out in which ways it is pathetic. If you beleive this, your IQ is already lower than your "scientific" reports predict a gamer ever could be. You will have to be scraping really low for facts if you expect anyone to beleive this. Feel free to respond if you think I am somehow incorrect, but seriously, what the hell is wrong with you? Thank you for your input. It was with great pleasure that I found your site today. I am terrified at the global implications that this game has. It's a further attempt by Mr. Lucas to undermine world religions by introducing an all encompassing force. I applaud your efforts and will continue to pray for you to have great effect. Finally! A supporter! Haha.