This morning CNN.com has a link to this story out of Ohio, describing how a video of two junior high girls fist-fighting in a locker room wound up on YouTube.
Here's what disturbs me about this incident: it's not that two adolescent girls got into a (pretty decent) fight. It's that another girl actually stood by and videotaped it! It makes me wonder: was it their intention to post the video on YouTube from the get go? If the fight had been recorded with a cameraphone, I'd say maybe it was spontaneous...but the footage appears to have been filmed with an actual video camera, suggesting premeditation (of both the video uploading as well as the fight itself).
For the second time in as many weeks I am left to wonder: is this just the way things are in today's instant-information society? Unlike the (long lost) days of my youth in which even pre-arranged fights ("Outside by the bike rack at 3:30!") required little actual planning, do preparations to beat another kid's ass at school nowadays include double-checking the video camera batteries?
I am reminded of celebrities' need to be "camera ready" at all times -- even if they just want to run out in their jammies for coffee on a Sunday morning -- because the paparazzi are a mercilessly relentless and constant presence in their lives. Has that same mentality infiltrated adolescent culture, too? Is there a constant awareness among youth when fights like this happen that the whole thing might be "YouTube-worthy"? Did the girl in Ohio wear her cutest skinny jeans the day of the fight, anticipating that the whole world would see images of her online? Pap & Patch can speculate far more knowledgeably than I can, but I would guess that the answer is yes, especially given that another student was there carefully documenting the entire thing...
4 comments:
But our generation looks at it through the lens of our own experiences and applications of technology. This is a generation that has always had the 'net and has no real memory of cell phones and ipods being less than ubiquitous. Video cameras are cheap and small. In a relatively affluent community, it isn't unreasonable to think a kid might have their own and have it at school. In pretty much any other community, its quite reasonable to imagine that a "meet me tomorrow at the bike racks" (probably sent by text message) challenge might motivate an onlooker to bring a camera.
Was the intent to post on youtube for the world to see? Perhaps not if there was a local equivalent, but since there isn't everything gets put on youtube. Was the intent for the world to view it once there? Perhaps not...maybe the poster just thought local kids would watch the fight.
I don't see this as a sign the end is near and/or that youth have lost their way. Its just how technology and the 'net have morphed seamlessly into the lives of youth (and all of us, in other ways...just ask Sean how funny it is to call someone sitting next to you...its the high tech equivalent of tapping them on the shoulder as you walk by). At the end of the day, you still have kids fighting and other kids watching...not all that different than 50 years ago.
Well, for about the third time in the years I have known him, I actually mostly agree with Joe. There are a lot of folks who question or even dismiss "cyberbullying" as a distinct problem and simply view it as another form of ‘kids being kids’ while using the latest technology. While I partially agree, I think this perspective fails to account for the many unique differences between traditional and cyber bullying. Part of what made bullying so debasing in adolescence was the perception that the whole school knew about it. Now the perception is that the whole WORLD saw it (even if usually viewers are limited to local kids). And I think many bullies engage in “bike rack-type” bullying simply because it gives them an audience. And the web has made that even more attractive: “I am going to be on YouTube! I better really kick this kid’s ass!” And by the way, Joe…YOU KNOW!
Interesting. So the consensus is that it isn't a big deal that another girl videotaped it? I'm not disagreeing, just curious...
i agree that it's not a big deal that the videorecording occurred. it was probably done with a high-end digital camera with video capabilities. i think the first instinct nowadays, if you are a bystander, is to record what you see rather than step in to save the day. it's a cultural phenomenon tied to voyeurism, instant celebrity, and the desire to get the "scoop" before someone else does. i don't think this recording was premeditated. i just think this stuff has happened in years past and is happening now, but now the whole world is getting to know about it through the permanence, archival, and posting of digital recordings.
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