Newest Fad - Happy Slapping!

The rise of "happy slapping"

"Happy slapping" -- essentially violently attacking someone while it's recorded with a videophone -- is a growing problem in the UK, with British Transport police investigating 200 incidents in the last six months in London's public transport system alone, with who knows how many attacks going unreported. This isn't harmless childplay, the ferociousness and utter stupidity of these attacks is appalling. And the hooligans have embraced user-created content: they share the videos via Bluetooth, MMS and the Web, often describing their efforts as "Happy Slap TV".

I'm a bit conflicted in my opinion of this new "fad".

On the one hand, I can see the humor in it. My first reaction is "Oh man, look at his face, he never saw that coming! LoLoLoL!"

Then, I pause, and I imagine being the person who was slapped. Suddenly it's not quite so funny.

The latter opinion would seem to indicate that I'm "growing up" I suppose. Pity.

What's your opinion of "happy slapping"?

YOu're getting there--but if you find any humor in it at all, your not there yet.

This type of thing has been discussed here before and videos were shown of people getting hit, including women getting slapped and kicked by guys and it was not humorous at all.

As I said in the last thread, I'd like to get at one of these guys with a cutlass or even just a Phillips screwdriver.

[edit on 28-4-2005 by AceOfBase]

The persons doing the video will be in an ambulance on the way to hospital to have the phone removed from their anus and to mend the dents in their face.

Unfortunately this kind of idiotic activity is being encouraged by movies such as 'Bum Fights', where people submit videos of random attacks in the street.
This is not a problem of violence, as these attacks are rarely ever violence-related, but a social issue. A growing generation of middle-class teens with absent parents who aren't there to console or understand them, is become bored, irritated, and rebellious. The youth of today aren't shown enough different avenues to express themselves, so they are simply thrown in front of the computer/television by their parents who have no idea how to raise them (as they would most likely be out working their arses off to support the kids).
This would appear to be just another childish fad, like the tamagotchi, the yoyo, bluetooth-jacking, etc...
They'll get over it and find something else to do, eventually.

...on another note...

The reaction to being slapped, or seeing someone being randomly slapped, would be to beat the living #e out of the slapper... trying to avoid this would create a huge adrenaline rush for the kids doing it, of which they would become addicted to, and need 'a fix' frequently.


[edit on 28-4-2005 by nrky]

[edit on 28-4-2005 by nrky]

This thread by termite has the video:

WTF is the world coming to? horrible video.

I don't see how anyone could not be enraged by that video.

Originally posted by AceOfBase
This type of hing has been discussed here before and videos were shown of people getting hit, including women getting slapped and kicked by guys and it was not humorous at all.

I'm with you Ace. That video really pissed me off!!

Hitting and kicking the guys was bad enough, but when they attacked that woman for no reason, man, what in the hell is this world coming to?????

Down here in Texas we've got quite a few people walking around with guns because they have their 'Conceal & Carry' licenses. One of these slap-happy morons is gonna do that to the wrong person and end up in the morgue.

Peace

[edit on 28-4-2005 by Dr Love]

Originally posted by AceOfBase
This thread by termite has the video:

I had not seen this particular video before, thanks for posting the link.

You know, I watch this and I wonder why these people don't fight back? I am not cruel enough to want to launch unprovoked attacks at anyone, but if someone smacked me like that I KNOW that I would not sit there and just take it like that.

If I did, I would think I deserved to be laughed at.

Originally posted by Dr Love
Down here in Texas we've got quite a few people walking around with guns because they have their 'Conceal & Carry' licenses. One of these slap-happy morons is gonna do that to the wrong person and end up in the morgue.

Now you're talking! I'm actually really surprised that this thing has gone as far as it has without creating a single slap-happy corpse!

This looks like a good point for the "Should Americans be disarmed" topic!

I think I would be going to jail, if this happen to me.

I'm sure they pick targets that look like they won't fight back.

I'll say..I bet this doesn't happen in FL. or TX. where the citizenry carries guns a large portion of the time.

In the UK, you can be pretty confident that the slappee isn't packin', but you couldn't get away with that over here, even in cities where gun laws restrict concealed carry - people are just too agressive to be caught with their pants down like that.

I join the chorus in saying, try that one on me sometime.

What a bunch of retards. Go get a job, paint a picture, write a sonnet for christ's sake, find something worthwhile to do with your time.

It's not that they don't want to fight back.
If you wantch the video and look at the pictures, there is usually upwards of 7-10 kids in the pack.

I know I'd jump on the one that slapped me and crush his face as best I could before the others kicked my ass...but some people get intimidated by odds.

Yep, I think I'd end up in jail too now that I think of it...manslaughter.
Maybe get off on temporary insanity from the rage.
Hmm...

-DT

I see your point, but I'm of the opinion that more opponents is more fun (more targets ).

It's all about the flurry of blows...

Having a hard skull doesn't hurt.

This is really unfortunate though, I'm surprised there aren't more transit cops to deal with this. Problem is, can't arrest them all, so you'd only end up getting one or two people per bust.

Are the same 10 people doing this, or are there many groups all doing the same thing?

If it's one group, it would be easy to put a stop to it. If it's a lot of indipendently operating entities, it would be much more difficult to stop this from happening.

What's the world coming to eh? At least it's not as bad as America yet, where a few gangs just pick random people to stab on the subway as part of an initiation ritual.

Someone tried that with me a while back, while I was taking the train from Paris to Brussels. Luckely I saw it comming by the reflection in the window.

To bad for him and his pall he did it just 10 minutes after we passed the belgian border and I grabbed him, put him on the floor and pulled out my cufs to drop him of at the nearest police station with "assaulting a police officer" charges.

The other passengers saw the guy that was making a video clip with his cellphone and when I slapped the cufs on the assaulting guy they grabbed the other one and said he was filming it.

15 passengers and these 2 idiots joined me to the police station in the brussels North trainstation and my guess is they'll never do it again.

What bothered me most about this is that none of the passengers reacted untill I slapped the cufs on this guy.

Are people to scared or just to selfish to stop people from doing stuff like this?

[edit on 28-4-2005 by thematrix]

Good one!

I love hearing stories like this.



Damn right they won't be eager to try it again.

Originally posted by thematrix
Someone tried that with me a while back, while I was taking the train from Paris to Brussels. Luckely I saw it comming by the reflection in the window.

To bad for him and his pall he did it just 10 minutes after we passed the belgian border and I grabbed him, put him on the floor and pulled out my cufs to drop him of at the nearest police station with "assaulting a police officer" charges.

The other passengers saw the guy that was making a video clip with his cellphone and when I slapped the cufs on the assaulting guy they grabbed the other one and said he was filming it.

15 passengers and these 2 idiots joined me to the police station in the brussels North trainstation and my guess is they'll never do it again.

Good man.

I'm a security officer in a shopping mall. My boss saw two teenage girls around 18/19 slap a man across the face and so he went over and asked them to leave. They refused, so we both took one eack and pysically removed them from the mall giving them on the spot 6 month bans.

Then the boyfriend turned up and punched my boss in the back of the head knocking him down, i then grabbed them man and we fell to the floor struggling. Fortunatly two local cops were in the area and our controller called for their assistance on our police band radio.

All three were brought up on assault charges and all three ahve recieved life bans from our mall.

Both myself and my boss recieved bruising where we got pounded by this guy but not as much as i gave him.

Glad/Happy slapping is totally unacceptable.

[edit on 28-4-2005 by rustiswordz]

Damn, even girls joining in on this stuppid and childish behaviour?

I'll keep an eye out next time I'm in the U.K., because every time I travel there, I am packing a primary and a backup. I sure would hate to explain to the locals why their kids own stupidity got them waxed.

But then... the stupid getting waxed is all a part of evolution.

yup girls are in on it too. You know what the scarey thing is. ALL three insisted what they did wasn't wrong!

What are they gonna teach their kids when they start to breed with an attitude like that!

Originally posted by Chuck Stevenson
I'll keep an eye out next time I'm in the U.K., because every time I travel there, I am packing a primary and a backup. I sure would hate to explain to the locals why their kids own stupidity got them waxed.

But then... the stupid getting waxed is all a part of evolution.

Get caught with a weapon in the UK will getr you 5 years in prison.

Our country you are not allowed weapons. period.

I wont describe myself as a tough guy, but they better prey this never happens to me or my family.

I have seen video's of this, and moslty they prey on people who obviously cannot deffend themselves, or when they have advantage of numbers.

This btw, is the prime reason we need cameras everywhere. The police cannot react in tim to this sort of crime, so our only hope is to catch them on video.

[edit on 28-4-2005 by skippytjc]