Okay it’s time for a little bit of an opinionated rant. This whole craze of violence on Youtube makes me sick. Kids are now attacking strangers in the street; bashing them, kicking them in the head and then filming it an putting it on Youtube for a bit of a laugh. It’s called ‘happy slapping’ and it is something that sickens me right to my core. If you don’t know about it take a look at this pseudo-documentary video:
But the thing that makes me especially upset is that Youtube allows these videos to stay online. If you type in ‘school fight’ you will get 40,200 videos of kids gang bashing weaker kids, organized after school fights and a whole host of other violent things.
In March of this year a girl under the age of 15 was sentenced to two years in a youth detention center because her and her friends murdered a homeless man while filming it on their mobile phone. If you watch the video of this cowardly attack you can hear the girl saying things like ‘kick him in the head’ and so on. They do and the man dies. All for a bit of fun.
This whole thing really disturbs me. I don’t understand how anyone can find bashing an unsuspecting person entertaining. Is it a sex thing? Is it a power thing? Or is it just that these kids had shit parents? I really would like to know what motivates such young, white-eyed teenagers do something so filthy.
Back to Youtube. Initially Youtube was supposed to be a clean service. It really isn’t. You can find millions of videos related to drugs, sex, violence and a whole host of other things. Anyone can access them. I heard some kids I babysit talking about how they go home and look up school bashings on Youtube for a bit of a laugh. Needless to say these kids are also very violent themselves.
The last time I checked kicking a person in the face and gang bashing them with your friends was illegal. So, why is Youtube allowed to broadcast and promote these crimes? And don’t tell me they don’t promote them! When you look up ‘happy slapping’ you get ten ‘related videos’ in the sidebar begging you to watch more illegal attacks.
This post has no point other than to register my objection to the whole thing. I think it is sad that people find this amusing and that no one really cares that it is going on.
Does anyone have anymore knowledge about the whole thing? I would love to hear some legal or psychological opinions relating to the videos being on Youtube and why this ‘happy slapping’ trend is growing in popularity.
Originally posted on June 26, 2008 @ 7:32 am
