Ignorance is bliss? Not if it makes you look like an idiot, and that’s exactly how author Cooper Lawrence seemed in the eyes of video gamers everywhere following an appearance on a Fox News program.

On Jan. 21, Lawrence attacked “Mass Effect,” which by the way is a great game, for having “full digital nudity and the ability for the player to engage in graphic sex.”

First off, this is a complete falsehood. There is absolutely no “full nudity” in the game. There are a few scenes of love expression but the game never shows the full body; in fact, I think you only see someone’s stomach once. This all happens in cut scenes which the player has no control over while it’s playing.

“Mass Effect” is not a game about sex. It’s a highly engaging experience in an alternate, futuristic universe with a romantic subplot. Lawrence claimed that depictions of sexuality have a “desensitizing” effect on kids today. While that may be true with things such as pornography, there are virtually no video games that are sexually explicit.

Lawrence even admitted to not having ever played the game before. How can someone criticize something they’ve never seen? Movies and books can be easy to criticize since just about everybody has seen a movie or read a book and is well-versed in the topic. Video games, while having a smaller audience, are still a form of entertainment that requires knowledge of the topic in order to criticize it.

Though Lawrence did apologize in a New York Times article, the damage was already done, and gamers everywhere were irate.

This brings about another issue of knowing what you are talking about. In order to get revenge on Lawrence, hundreds of people posted poor user reviews on the Amazon.com entry for her new book, “The Cult of Perfection: Making Peace With Your Inner Overachiever,” which has nothing to do with “Mass Effect” or video games.

More than 400 negative reviews were posted and have since been removed. The negativity does not bother me; the content of those reviews does, however. Many reviewers admitted to not reading the book but rated it low because of Lawrence’s “diss” on “Mass Effect.”

I think after this episode in the world of gaming, everyone should do a little research before they criticize. I’m sure there are many other critics who obviously have no idea what they’re talking about, dealing with topics like politics. I’m not going to go into that, however — I don’t know much about it.