Happyslapping...

(i think you have this slightly wrong. to me it was 'here's a computer -> access to DTP software -> better designed prostitute cards in phone boxes')

didn't see program last night but isn't 'Daily Mail style moral panic' sometimes justified? the hoodies thing was on bbc news this morning, the behaviour in schools program from a couple of weeks ago, the above, the 'taxing' thread, are these all things that we should just accept as the new way?

having been watching all the VE day stuff i think the obvious solution is to bring back conscription...

so now the kids around my way will probly catch on.

Thanks ITV you are teh awful lot of shit.

This is horrible as a concept alright, I wonder where it's happening most (didn't see the programme) - yesterday I saw on the BBC (which was questioning how widespread the trend was) that there'd been incidences in Leatherhead, now L'head is not a violent place cos it's pretty well off but there is a fair bit of vandalism for kicks, and this seems like an extension of that, vandalism of the person.

If someone attacks you in the street, while someone else videos it with their phone, and you fight back and knock them down etc, do you get to keep the phone?

You expect 15 year old boys to show remorse for anything? Stick a microphone under a 15 year old's nose and what do you expect to hear? Especially if he's surrounded by his mates.

xpost

jesus this is all very depressing!

You wouldn't, though. If you tried that in south London they'd play the race card and you'd be done for assault.

Though I shamefully admit laughing when the little hooded fuckers knocked on the door of a guys house "Trick or treat!" they said, then lunged in and slapped him.

Quote from David Lynch, years ago: "I hate the fact that the law allows scum to walk on your lawn, but they arrest you if you shoot 'em."

Pretext? What pretext?

http://www.blackchat.co.uk/theblackforum/forum8/6503.html

Well I was thinking about something along the lines of "Genuinely Happy Slapping" where leading music writers get gratuitously ambushed in the street by well-known female celebrities - let's say, Amanda Platell, Penny Smith, Charlotte Rampling and Kirstie Allsopp - frogmarched back to a dope den in Knightsbridge and subjected to 48 hours of abominable sexual depravity.

She used to go out with Rory Bremner, though, so her taste is questionable.

I’m guessing the slapped party ain’t happy!

Did anyone see the footage of the guy in the bus shelter getting set on fire, it was on the news a week or so ago? That was recorded on a camera, grim.

What’s going on in the world?

Imagine ten years from now, scally mates with other scally, makes baby scally, baby scally grows up to be worse than the scallys we have now. Result = the hell scenes from Constantine will be the norm.

I think this thread needs *someone* to stand up for the slappers. This cheesy anti-mindless violence consensus cannot last.

It was pretty depressing seeing 'HS' footage of girls being hit, there's something really wrong about that. I propose a new wave of 'Mam Slapping' where a gang of the righteous hunt down the mothers of every Happy Slapper and film them doing a big slap on them. For one, to say 'YOU BRING UP KIDS BADLY' and secondly because all scrotes 'luv their mam' so it'll upset them.

The guy who got set on fire. Lifting his jumper up and showing his scars and saying "That's wut happy slappin does t'yer" in a gruff northern accent. There was something *so* Brass Eye about that.

I think there is probably a tangled situationist perspective on this all. The situ's used to celebrate rioting, looting etc as people escaping the spectacle, taking their desires for reality etc etc etc. Now it seems Ver Kids are more interested in constructing their own micro-Spectacles. (I remember hearing stories of joyriders who would nick a car and then charge people to watch them smash the car to pieces.)

That said it seems to be broken on Kirstie Allsopp, as it's just giving me Dave Grohl with breasts.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/leeds/content/images/2004/09/09/kirstie_150_150x180.jpg

Happy Slapper:
http://www.aftonbladet.se/kvinna/0106/27/KVINNA-27s00julia.jpg

Ted Maul: "Not many cars to nick here; so instead they hijack pedestrians and run them around at terrifying leg-speeds. It's called "git surfing"; all too often, the "git" is one of their own mothers."

CUT TO:

SECURITY VIDEO FOOTAGE: (Shop interior), NIGHT

TM: "The latest trick - catapult them into a shop -"

(A "git" flies through a shop window, glass breaking over the floor)

"- and force them to steal booze, fags and mags."

Unlike JtN I am not that crazy about 'the democratisation of technology' in the first place, or about the plutocracy of technology neither. Perhaps we could happily do without some of the technology that is knocking around.

yeah, but be careful because all his mates have footage of you doling out a beating...

xpost

(x-post, the little shitheads don't have footage if you take the phone off them. I guess the footage I'd like to see is the "happyslapping" incident "gone wrong" where the bullies get hospitalised by their "victim")

TS: acupuncture vs. kirstie walking all over me with her thigh-high boots?

yea, i think a lot of this is if it coincides with school start/end

shit. i hope the little lads across the road at the boys' school don't get any new ideas after all of this. they're, um, lively enough as it is.

I am still in hysterics over this.

So if you want to know what sort of people think six guys slapping a woman is cool then investigate viceuk

i got to the bottom and there was a definite atmosphere, and people looked uneasy, i felt the presence of people behind be rushing about, *something* was happening, i walked briskly to the bus stop and the 29 was there. as i got on i looked around to see 5 or 6 lads punching this other lad, he fell to the ground, and they all kicked him as he lay prostrate, their cameraphones pointing, laughter rang through the air. everyone on the bus was looking out the window, and people looked ashen.

there was loads of people everywhere outside too. no one did anythiing.

i felt shaken, these had been the people that were right behind me on the street. i couldnt relax on the tube on the way out, and i couldnt relax when i was out. i had to walk past this spot on the way home, i just wanted to go home. for the first time since ive been in london i really did feel, well, nervous. i came home early, and there was no one around

its pretty fucked, but pretty inevitable i think. sometimes i am surpirsed that there isnt more random acts of violence around. as a kid at the public school i got knocked about a bit on a friday night, but i was usually aware that it was gonna happen. i dont like the randomness of this, esp. at bus stops.

How are we gonna increase market share of buses if this sort of shit happens?!!?

B b but Americans invented it! Its from Jackass, innit?

Also: I guess the footage I'd like to see is the "happyslapping" incident "gone wrong" where the bullies get hospitalised by their "victim"

Apparently thats happened too - someone I know says theyve seen footage of some little american shits in a car doing, of all things, drive-by slappings by leaning out car doors. Exept this one kid misjudged his lean out, and fell out the car, and got run over and killed.

I cant feel a drop of sympathy either.

Quote from David Lynch, years ago: "I hate the fact that the law allows scum to walk on your lawn, but they arrest you if you shoot 'em."

They don't do happyslapping around here, and since I'm in Florida, we can now shoot/stab/assault them to death on the fucking street if we feel threatened by anyone. Happyslapping will never work here. Maybe they made the law as a preventive measure so as not to have happyslapping catch on here? I highly doubt it, of course -- I know it isn't -- but it'd be slightly amusing if it were.

At lunch for the past two years I used to sit with a group of acquaintances and they used discuss Jackass with frequency as if it were the pinnacle of television programming. They also discussed anime and video games relentlessly. I'm not sure how I ever tolerated any of that (and my 13-year-old brother does the same thing now -- except that we don't have cable and so he doesn't watch Jackass), and I'm not sure how any of them ever came to associate with me in the first place aside from them having regarded me as an eccentric curio. Yikes! It's quite a stretch to go from that to reading ilXor in the span of a few hours.

It is, though. The Bounty Hunter skit- funniest thing on TV ever.

which one was that?

I was shocked and my feelings were really hurt and I started to cry later as I walked home. It made me feel a little better knowing this might be part of some random 'dare' thing and that it happens to other people.

maybe if they called it "karmic bedwetting" nobody would want to do it

Surely "It's Chico Time" would have been the correct response.

That still reads extremely strongly and kind of off the wall to me, for the Guardian, it's weird.

what are "rice flails"?

(x-post - "rice flails" = 2 bars joined by a chain as seen in the banned scene from "Enter the Dragon")

I sometimes wonder do they consciously try and mimic tabloids in some pieces.

"A Clockwork Orange" perhaps?

hahaha!

i dunno why they got manslaughter and not murder.

And exactly how great is that "possibility"?

oh you know, in certain estates in S London, always aware of casual random violence going on, muggings, queer bashing, that sort of thing, pretty common... so an reasonably understandable fear I'd say. I mean if these are the sort of things that people do in relatively public places, on buses, etc, imagine what happens in the dark alleys... it's the perception, the fear of the possibility that is just as dangerous. Why shouldn't people feel that potential and actual murderers should be dealt with.

Well it's destructive to people's peace of mind, that's true

now i get called a kaiser chiefs-liking tory-boy but fuck it.

The nail them with conspiracy because the whole night of violence was premeditated in the very general sense.

xpost

so, so OTM - as indeed are all noodle vague's posts on this thread today - it hurts.

i mean, this story in today's herald is bound to have even more people going: "OH NOES I CAN NEVER GO OUT IN GLASGOW AFTER 4PM AGANE." but what kind of ridiculous, irrational response is that? yes, if you live in a big city, the probability of you getting beaten up/stabbed/hit by a bus/ripped off in an overpriced sandwich store is higher than if you live in a lead-lined box underground. if it really bothers, you: leave the city. otherwise, just accept that life is full of risks. as i keep saying: crossing the fucking road is risky.

"making an example" of people might serve to gratify the sadistic impulses of a few small-minded tory wanks, but it has absolutely no effect at all on anybody else. yes, we should be asking what kind of fucking society we live in where "happyslapping" has become even slightly prevalent, but blaming the individuals is a small-minded, kneejerk response.

perhaps if people didn't walk around in a state of frothing fear, flinching whenever they so much as see anyone aged between 11 and 18, and treated young people with a bit of respect, no matter what their background, they might show a bit of respect back?

just a thought, like. just a thought.

you've got to be fucking kidding!!!

er, ok, but this is basically passive acceptance of... anything. don't like the increasing gap between rich and poor? live in sweden? concerned by the war? move to cuba!

i note you didn't say 'probability' of rape, because you'd look pretty shitty saying 'don't like rape, move to the country'.

Is there really any evidence at all that this kind of random violence is happening more frequently than it was 20 or 30 years ago?

compare with 40 or 50 years ago, then yes. there's more gun crime today than 20 or 30 years ago, too.

xpost

You had me until that bit. You can certainly blame the kids that beat people up for their actions. But you can also understand their circumstances, know that you live in a big city, and try not to be knee-jerkily afraid of groms in hoodies.

I think I get what you're saying, but let's not forget that taking responsibility for living in the city (viz. the city is dangerous oh noes deal with it) goes hand in hand with taking responsibility for beating the shit out of people.

xpost Society IS to blame, in a very general sense. Not to blame for specific crimes, no, not at all. But to blame for the conditions that produce it? Yes, duh, obviously.

noone said all kids in hoodies are potential muggers, but muggers are often kids in hoodies

no, it's the other way round.

you hippy.

-- Theorry Henry

this is why the world/people are so fucked up, you bastard!

How was it achieved?

i note you didn't say 'probability' of rape, because you'd look pretty shitty saying 'don't like rape, move to the country'.

right, let me spell it out really simply:

- MORE PEOPLE LIVE IN CITIES
- THEREFORE THERE WILL BE MORE NASTY PEOPLE IN CITIES
- THEREFORE YOU ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE HURT IN THE CITY
- THEREFORE, IF YOU WANT TO REDUCE YOUR CHANCES OF BEING HURT, LEAVE THE CITY.

without being funny: what else can you do except "passively accept" the increased probability of attack? fom a vigilante group?

i'm simply being pragmatic here. fine: if you want to live your life in the city looking over your shoulder at every moment and shitting yourself every time you see a hooded top: that's your prerogative. but tell me: on a day-to-day level, other than accepting the increased risk and keeping your wits around you, what else can you do?

i'll tell you what: you could - we all could - try not to distrust every "youth" we see; not buy the kind of shitty newspapers that spread the whole "ALL KIDS IN HOODED TOPS ARE EVIL MUGGERS" line (hello, the daily mail); not send our fucking children to segregated private schools and actually foster some spirit of community ... the list is endless.

if it's not "society" that's created a culture where kids think happyslapping is acceptable, exactly what has? this is what we get when we live in a capitalist society that places wealth and the trappings thereof above education and common decency and where owning a home (or, rather, being in hock to the bank) is the pinnacle of human achievement.

yes, ok, my whole "don't blame the individual" thing was a bit glib: obviously you're going to blame the individual if they've attacked you. the point i was clumsily trying to make is that this isn't about one or two evil rogue elements who are dangerously out of step: it's about an entire subculture that obviously believes this kind of behaviour is acceptable. that's what we need to worry about; as opposed to just dealing with each individual as and when they offend.

and "unhappy": have you ever been attacked? if not, why have you got such a victim complex? i would seriously suggest you seek counselling.

mm -- some might say the point of, oh, i dunno, POLITICS, was to try to create a better, less violent society. or is that too crazy for words?

Thanks for your advice grimly, you condescending asshole.

we all could try not to distrust every "youth" we see; not buy the kind of shitty newspapers that spread the whole "ALL KIDS IN HOODED TOPS ARE EVIL MUGGERS" line (hello, the daily mail)

which is it?

Surely if you beat a man unconscious and then repeatedly kick him in the head you're aware that your actions could kill him and so it's murder?

I very very much doubt that the robbers who killed that WPC will avoid a murder conviction if they claim they were just firing their guns and didn't mean to hurt anyone.

which is it?

eh? in the first instance i'm talking about a subculture. that's why i use the word "subculture". in the second instance i'm talking about the approach - which you seem to be subconsciously doing here! - of seing all kids as problems. that's why i used the word "all".

as for "unhappy" ... i forgot, you're obviously the only gay man in britain. shit, my apologies.

maybe, but if they had intended to kill i very much about they would've wanted to film it.

not that i can remotely understand why anyone would want to do what they have done. the yawning chasm between mentalities alone is frightening enough.

I find myself struggling to understand it when people drop litter on the pavement while standing next to a bin, so I'm not even going to try and get my head around a 14-year-old kicking a man to death cos she had nothing better to do.

wtf are you on about?

none at all, but the idea that things like happyslapping are best left alone because, hey, it's a city and bad things happen there, is just bullshit. a political change, eg in areas you suggested, such as education, could bring about a socio-cultural change; in the same way that the social climate now, in which you get this level of random violence, is a product, in part, of political decisions.

"it's not rocket science"

hmm. if you look back, what i said is not "accept happyslapping" but "accept the increased probability of it happening in the city". small difference, but important.

society is in a bit of a mess (nothing new there). i believe the onus is on all of us - individuals, the "state", schools, places of employment, whatever - to do whatever we can to improve things. this isn't easy, and what you say in your last post is absolutely right: it's just that when you say "POLITICS" (yr caps) it all sounds a little reductionist, like you're just waiting for someone else to do all the hard work. i'm not accusing you personally of doing that: i'm sure you'd agree, however, it does seem to be many people's modus operandi.

christ, i could do more. a lot more. and i know i should.

what riled me originally is what i perceived in some posts as an assumption that happyslappers are just this absolute aberration; that they're a tiny number of bad apples and that once we've rounded them up and shot them all, we'll be fine. what i'm suggesting instead is that instead of condemning, we - as a "society", whatever the fuck that might be - try to understand why a small but significant number of young people do this kind of thing. basically: what is society (that word again) doing to these people to turn them into such disenfranchised, antisocial, fucked-up pieces of shit?

remember when john major came out with "understand less, condemn more"? that was proof incarnate that he was a total cunt. i was being overly glib above when i said we shouldn't condemn/blame the individual: but FFS, if we don't try to work out WHY this is happening, we're all fucked.

xpost

Actually, as far as I can tell, the term passed out of use in favour of "twocing" (pron: twocking), derived from the Police phrase Taking Without the Owner's Consent. I don't know why, but I would guess it was because the term joyrider was becoming well-known and street language likes to stay ahead of the game.

I'm not sure what effect this change in vocab had on the incidence of car theft.

If I'm right, the best way of ridding our vocabulary of "happyslapping" would be for squares like me to use it much more.)

Yeah, cos the evil press is to blame for everything in the world... What is this, Indyfuckingmedia?

another way: keep working for newspapers but try to change them from within. seriously!

i can feel a MASSIVE rant coming on about the kind of fuckers who meekly accept the editorial party line of papers such as the mail etc and do nothing to challenge it ... i've done enough ranting for today, so i won't.

(nb: bosses, if you're reading this: i'm not trying to change it from within right this second. i'm subbing the funny column for the back of the magazine. honest.)

Maybe if us squares actually DID happyslapping as well as saying it until it loses its cool, people would stop doing it. But I'm not recommending it.

but it does mean that you profit from them

xpost

i just meant that ranting about the social iniquities created by someone who's employing you is just a teeny bit hypocritical.

(i once briefly worked in mr murdoch's pay and made sure not to criticise him for the length of my tenure)

pash, sorry, maybe i didn't make that clear: what i mean is i know an awful lot of people who would claim to be decent, intelligent, socially minded citizens who've then taken jobs for the mail (and several other papers that espouse unpleasant/bigoted/dinosaur-style views), and have done nothing except shrug and go: "well, you've got to make a living." believe me, the rant i'm suppressing is VAST.

i'm not saying the paper i work for is perfect, but by the standards of most UK publications it might as well be the bloody morning star.

sycophant!

lol most policies probably did come from civil servants one way or another.

of course, people (in absolutely every social class and walk of life) actually THINKING before they have children - am i able, in every way, to bring them up to be decent human beings? am i willing to put in the effort here? do i actually want a CHILD, not just a baby? etc etc - would be a vast, vast step forwards too.

but i'm too tired and my brain is broken and i can't argue any more. really, i'm seeing double here. it's been a long couple of weeks.

i don't think i've ever said the country was going to the dogs. i think i've said western market capitalism is jizz, but that's different :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

How should this be fostered by, say, a government?

what a government needs to do is alter people's notion of "success": ie success isn't having a massive house and car and living in a gated community for fear of your life; instead it's about living in a peaceful, harmonious community built on mutual respect. but i'm fucked if i can see any way of bringing this about other than armed revolution and the execution of about 99% of the population. (nb for the hard of thinking: THAT'S MEANT TO BE IRONIC, OK? it's a poor attempt, but hey.)

a tiny, tired part of me wants to blame this all on thatcher, but i know it's not that simple :)

xpost - A lot of me does blame Thatcher

Social inclusion is definitely the key. Yes, people will act towards their own self-interest ... the trick is to get them to redefine that self-interest. People are social creatures -- and we work much better in tribes than in festering little family units. Leverage that, and you're on to a winner.

Years ago, geography forced those tribes on us. Now, we're connected by the net, by who we drink with, by whom we choose to see. There are people here who know the sex lives of posters they've never met intimately and yet don't even know name of the people living across the hall.

You want to make people make an effort for each other, for society? Redifine their concept of self so that it includes the people around them. I grew up in small towns and villages, and while they have manifold drawbacks, they're really good at community -- fall down drunk aged 15 in a small-town park and someone will know where you live. Do it in a city and someone will nick your shoes then piss on you.

Thatcher, may she die soon, did massive damage to whatever remained of those local societies in the UK -- hell, as soon as people bought their council houses they began walling off from one another and competing.

The shit thing about post-Thatcher Britain is the way it resembles the uglier side of US society: I'm all right Jack, and my chosen tribe is all right -- pull the ladder up.

absolutely. but what's the carrot here? "you'll get carried home when you're pissed" ain't gonna wash with mr and mrs chump in their shit semi with the endowment mortgage and buggered pension.

must ... not ... look at ILE today ... too busy ...

There. Vote Rumpie.

link?

Take any residential street. Imagine a con-man is going door-to-door fleecing homeowners. If they all know their neighbours, he'll get fewer than three doors down before someone's phoned ahead to warn everyone. But if they're all isolated little "I'm in my castle" types, our con-man is going to fleece the lot of them.

Modern society allows people to pretend they're not part of an interdependent tribe. They are. And happyslapping is another manifestation of the breakdown -- of our society working much more poorly broken n little units

seriously: they're going to have to put a fucking electric fence round the thing to stop me.

"but she's a human being," several people have mewled when i've said stuff like this before. to which i would counter: show me the fucking evidence.

oh my god so completely otm! grimly, you've been very good value here, thanks for popping in.

x-post: coo, ta!

btw, charlie, you never did e-mail me about that human league CD (qv YSI thread number 4 or 5 on ILM). if you still want it, do so. (use the webmail link.)

I assume it is a fake.

http://www.kitmeout.com/fashion/fake_london_jeans.jpg

I have not seen any of this before, I supopose I shouldn't have clicked, but we all make mistakes.

crosspost

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/11/16/potentially-fatal-knockout-game-targeting-strangers-may-be-spreading-to-d-c/

kids in this being photographed in my old neighborhood. hope this falls under the heading of OH MY GOD THE CHILDREN ARE GONNA KILL US pitchfork and torch carrying local news bullshit and not anything resembling an actual trend

Does this happen anymore (in the UK I mean) or did it only happen in 2005 and 2006?

just found out that one of my mates has a plate in his skull from a happyslap

must've been pretty fierce to knock a plate in there

is it a small plate or a big plate? would you want more than one for a main course?

no wonder so many from the land of the big bottom birds have joined the happyslap avantgarde of isis

Had it not been for ilx and this thread, I would probably have lived the balance of my life unaware of the happyslapping fad. Now I cannot unsee this.