Police under fire for using ‘Angry Birds’ in anti-bullying campaign

by Robert Koehler on February 23, 2012

The National Police Agency (NPA) is drawing fire from SNS users over its decision to use characters from the popular mobile game Angry Birds for its ongoing campaign against school violence and bullying.

In the game, players launch birds with a slingshot to destroy pigs on the playing field. The game gained worldwide popularity among smartphone users for its addictive features and comical style, but there are jokes that the birds are “suicide attackers.”

“The game itself is fun to play, although it has some violent elements. My question is, is it appropriate for police to use the game characters for its anti-violence campaign?” a blogger named unimombaby wrote.

I guess now is as good as any to re-post this:

Tagged as: Angry Birds, police

{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }

1 jkitchstk February 23, 2012 at 6:15 pm: “The game itself is fun to play, although it has some violent elements….”
Other than promoting violence and video games, now we know what cops do on the job when they’re not sleeping in their cars.
2 Year of the Dragon February 23, 2012 at 9:41 pm: http://chrome.angrybirds.com/ So who are the “suicide attackers”? the bullies or their victims?
3 keith February 24, 2012 at 12:14 pm: Presumably the pigs are the bullies and the birds the victims. Given the recent stories about bullied children committing suicide. The suicidal bird thing is quite creative, though at the same time very tasteless and inappropriate.
4 SomeguyinKorea February 24, 2012 at 12:39 pm: #3,
I thought that pigs were the cops.

Joking aside…Suicidal birds, never thought about it that way. Maybe they see the game as a collective action against aggression.
5 fanwarrior February 25, 2012 at 2:28 am: I’d say it is appropriate.
Angry birds is ridiculously popular with kids, and using something this popular is only natural.
They’re hero characters rescuing their eggs.
6 keith February 28, 2012 at 2:52 am: @5 I’d disagree.

Have you ever played the game. I did, because it’s free on Google Chrome (some levels) and all the kids I taught last year were obsessed by the game.

The story-game is:

i) Big obnoxious pigs steal the cute bird’s eggs, and dig in
ii) The birds get really angry
iii) The birds use suicide techniques and sacrifice their lives to destroy the pigs
iv) No eggs are recovered, and lots of pigs die – if you got the skills
v) ‘The bird commander’ gets to kill lots of pigs, and all the birds die in the process

Not to get overly intellectual about it, but it’s a bad game. A bad game in a moral sense. If it was a good game you’d be able to do really clever stuff like send in special forces (very angry birds) to actually rescue the eggs, bring them back home and raise them up and train them to be super angry birds. The super angry birds would put off the idea the the pigs could casually go around stealing eggs.