so this "knockout" game, how much bullshit will this turn out to be

Evidence for the prosecution

1. Kids are and will forever be stupid
2. Violence inherent in the system etc

Evidence against

1. Seems pretty cryptoracist
2. Remember when you couldn't flash you headlights at someone who had theirs off because they were obv gang members that would follow and kill you
3. Most of the anecdotal evidence seems to be kids talking about "oh yeah sure that's a thing reporter man" while laughing
4. Trendwatching + scaring people is like media catnip

Leaning towards bullshit

The only time I've seen anything about was links on my FB from relatives with already questionable "opinions" about thins like this, and in both cases they were linked to articles that bent over backwards to make sure we all knew it was only "black thugs" that do this.

In other words, I smell lots of bullshit.

I swear I have heard of this "new trend" at least a few times in the past. My guess is that it's a thing that actually happens and has happened for a long time and also a thing that very few kids actually participate in.

oh huh, there's a thread for this

anyways, i file under happyslapping as something a select handful of legit fucking psychopath kids do but not the hot craze that's taking over the nation. was just freaked out in that i was forwarded a news video of kids in my old neighborhood explaining how it's all the rage

this is called money bags

i like to listen to my local AM radio station while getting ready in the morning because why not and they were like "what is the media not telling you about this? allllll of the perpetrators are BLACK. and the victims are white!" not even cryptoracist!

http://metro.co.uk/2013/11/19/knockout-violent-sucker-punch-game-reportedly-on-the-rise-again-4192454/

"Metro understands there are no reports of it spreading to the UK but we sure hope it does so we can report on it outlandishly."

But reporting on this non-story would take away valuable page space that otherwise would be devoted to Nokia ads!

i wonder if Vine is why this popular again

http://i.minus.com/iNHDf8KPNGZQW.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT-ZCS-B740

Someone I went to HS with posted about this on FB the other day with the comment "This is why we need concealed carry more than ever."

they only used the black character :-(

the thing is if there are like three kids in a whole neighborhood who have ever done this, word is still gonna get around and especially if there are youtube videos of it. So every kid in the neighborhood is going to know what it is when you ask them about it, and then you string a bunch of clips together of them talking about it and explaining it and it sounds like something everyone and their friends do.

Is there a rainbow party thread?

Check out this lede

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/teen-knockout-game-continues-harm-innocent-people-article-1.1521185

http://media.masslive.com/edc/photo/11794774-large.jpg

I thought the knockout game was where all those teens would strangle each other to make themselves pass out.

that one is real i think

so they tell me

But many other knockout "players" have dodged the law and could even be planning to play again.

Phoebe Connolly, of Vermont, told ABC affiliate WJLA that she was targeted while riding her bike in the Columbia Heights section of Washington, D.C.

"My whole head went flying to the side… it was a hard punch," Connolly said. "One kid came from the side and pretty much cut me off. He threw a hook with his left hand and got me right in the face and he said, 'Wapow!'"

okay I wholly endorse this

"Wapow" is the new "Wa-hey!"

never heard of this til now.

I don't think being a cowardly pussyass is nec psychopathic, just attractive to thugs.

i wonder if andre breton would support this if the attackers always said "Wapow!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHZLzsiiduA

http://i39.tinypic.com/2vdrb0j.jpg

like I think if a kid sucker-punched me and said "wapow!" I would be mad at first, but then I'd probably look up at him from the ground and laugh a little and shrug

that one is real i think

― tɹi.ʃɪp (Treeship), Wednesday, November 20, 2013 11:07 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark

Treesh do you have first hand experience

and say "I fucked your mother" xp

i don't have any first hand experiences with anything xp

stl set the sad trend on these. this was a good multi-angled article from then. more to the story then "lol scaring white ppl" vs "why i need to carry my ar-15 when i go to applebees"

http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2011-06-09/news/knockout-king-elex-murphy-hoang-nguyen-dutchtown-murder/full/

Something the news made up so your family has something to talk about during Thanksgiving.

a friend of mine was attacked something like this on his bike in philly. I didn't think of it as part of some "new trend" I just thought it was a random teenage assault, which I think has always happened. When I was in middle school you worried about "getting jumped."

As an adult, I've been randomly punched by teenagers twice. Most recent one was about 10 years ago.

the first rule of the knockout game is...

I thought the knockout game was where all those teens would strangle each other to make themselves pass out.

― peace on earth and mercy mild (how's life), Wednesday, November 20, 2013 11:03 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that one is real i think

― tɹi.ʃɪp (Treeship), Wednesday, November 20, 2013 11:07 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there were kids in my Freshman History class that would do this during lunch. It was something like, they would sit flat up against a wall and hold their breath, and four or five dudes would press their chest area, trying to induce a temporary seizure, and watch how they react.

half the time any of them acted out it appeared they were just acting, but it was a very wtf activity

oh I've totally done the oxygen deprivation thing; kids who don't drink or do drugs will find some random way to simulate getting high

we did that in summer camp. it was 98-100% faking it.

A kid did that in my 8th grade history class. He slowly slumped out of his chair and blew about a half pint of snot out of his nose. It was gross.

omg i am never leaving the house again

Some teenagers in my old neighborhood drove by a little kid on a bicycle and shot him with red paintballs. He fell off his bike and, seeing the red paint, thought he had been shot for real.

One time I was standing at the corner of my street, waiting for a friend to pick me up, when some other teenagers drove by and threw a strawberry milkshake from McDonalds at me. Kaplow!

Phoebe Connolly, of Vermont, told ABC affiliate WJLA that she was targeted while riding her bike in the Columbia Heights section of Washington, D.C.

"My whole head went flying to the side… it was a hard punch," Connolly said. "One kid came from the side and pretty much cut me off. He threw a hook with his left hand and got me right in the face and he said, 'Wapow!'"

okay I wholly endorse this

― deX! (DJP), Wednesday, 20 November 2013 16:09 (3 hours ago) Permalink

SPANKO!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whipping_Tom

that riverfront piece is pretty solid

One time, I was walking along the side of the New Jersey turnpike, and a bunch of dudebros drove by and threw a beer can at me while they yelled, "HEY MALKOVICH, THINK FAST!"

No wait, that was John Malkovich.

shitty thing is that with the ton o' attention this is getting, you can count on a few more kids doing this now

Yeah, but those kids would've probably just found a less novel but no less violent outlet for their sociopathic impulses.

Something I really hate about myself is that I watch that "Happy Slap Goes Wrong" post right up there and I have a mildly actual biological reaction. Like, I feel an adrenaline surge as the badass guy beats those dudes up. I guess it's some kind of combination of sense memory and wish fulfillment remembering a small handful of physical altercations where I either got my ass kicked or didn't do enough. Nearly 20 years later I still play some of those things over in my mind and wish they had played out differently!

I would pay a large sum of money to be able to fight like that

got shot with what i think was a potato gun five years ago walking down the street at night? It left a huge swollen bruise that hurt like hell and didn't go away for a week.

young people are awful.

Not exactly 'knockout', but when I was 17/18 I was walking down the street and some ten year old kid came up to me and said "Do you need something?" and I was like "what?" and he repeated "Do you need something?" with gritted teeth emphasis on "need" and I was "what the hell are you talking about?". Then he threw a baby's dummy in my face and ran away.

http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/153583/elderly-jewish-woman-punched-in-knockout-attack

http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20131122/midwood/orthodox-man-attacked-latest-report-of-knockout-game-midwood

And somehow, an even more depressing pattern emerges.

Seen Vines of these.

This, or something similar, has been getting a lot of press in Australia over the last couple of years - quite a few people have died in unprovoked 'king hit' attacks.

A guy who apparently took pride in being able to knock people out with one punch was convicted in the UK yesterday of murdering a stranger:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-25040988

It is difficult to see what is particularly new about it though.

the media also reports on "molly" as if it is a new thing in 2013, so basically they just aren't hip to the streets

Or the Phish shows...

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/11/23/nyregion/knockout-game-a-spreading-menace-or-a-myth.html

nyt: knockout game - actually a game or just leisure violence?

Any NYers remember the equally tabloid-friendly scare in the 80s of AIDS-infected needles being used to poke subway riders in the butt when ascending the stairs?

my mind is kind of blown at how this stuff can't be fact-checked in the internet age

or, more accurately "won't"

Even the articles that cite "facts" are like stringing together one attack from Pittsburgh plus another one in DC in a different year and a few things in New York to make a "trend"

Of course, it can hardly be surprising that such a callous and deadly game emerged from a community where even mama said knock you out.

xp yeah, like this one from my neck of the woods. http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/knockout-game-sucker-punches-have-turned-deadly_61991932

GOP state Assemblyman Jim Tedisco said. "Life isn't a video game."

what a liar

I love when news reports ponder whether a certain attack "might be connected to the knockout game." Like as though it's some organized national sport that can be distinguished from random nihilistic assaults.

it's almost as if the media reports likeminded stories in clusters.

nothing was worse when that "bath salts" shit happened and then similar articles showed up and FB was once again filled with people claiming the "zombie apocalypse was upon us

!!!

Providing cover for hoodlums is a disservice to everybody, including members of every race, and even the hoodlums themselves. Better that they should be suppressed and punished now, rather than continue on a path that is likely to lead to prison, or even to the execution chamber.

http://nypost.com/2013/11/19/thugs-target-jews-in-sick-knockout-game/

ny post answering thread title

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/11/25/guess-what-the-knockout-game-is-america-s-latest-phony-panic.html

i don't understand these "phony panic" stories. obv the phenomenon is characterized by random street violence w/out motivation (generally no theft in these cases) - so who cares if the participants call it a the "knockout game" or anything at all? these articles are not arguing that these random violent acts are not happening - they're just claiming that they aren't always called a game.

when I was in college and living in oakland I remember walking home from the store to my house and a kid jumped out of the bushes where he was hiding and punched me in the side of the head really fucking hard and then I heard laughter from another nearby spot and realized that there were two kids who then ran up to what must have been a waiting friend's car, dove in and drove off. mission accomplished. it was really weird, and felt very much like typical teenage bad-ass behavior. I did not alert the media to a disturbing new trend or whatever, just picked up my stuff and went home. It sucked, but it wasn't newsworthy. I think that the image of the scary black teen gets you clicks / sells papers / drives web-traffic and that's what's up here.

One of the kids who punched me was just skipping up the sidewalk in the middle of the night as I walked home from work. I just bemusedly watched him skipping up to me and then he punched me right in the chest. He just skipped on down the road too. I checked myself to make sure that I hadn't been actually hurt and then went on my way.

i don't understand these "phony panic" stories. obv the phenomenon is characterized by random street violence w/out motivation (generally no theft in these cases) - so who cares if the participants call it a the "knockout game" or anything at all? these articles are not arguing that these random violent acts are not happening - they're just claiming that they aren't always called a game.

― Mordy , Tuesday, November 26, 2013 11:56 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The "phony panic" is that there's no evidence so far of a trend. There have always been random assaults on strangers. I haven't seen an article yet that has shown evidence that these incidents have become more prevalent lately.

As for the seven assaults on jewish people in Brooklyn, at least some of them weren't really "knockout" attempts, for example the one in the video is just kind of a passing swipe.

So I guess what I'm saying is that there may in fact be a recent spate of potentially linked assaults on Jewish people in Brooklyn. But I don't see evidence that they're part of some larger national trend or that they're part of a "knockout game." Maybe there is a group of teenagers in Brooklyn who are targeting Jews for assaults?

the thing that gets me is how sometimes these things are phantom trends that don't exist until the news reports on them, at which point a bunch of bored teens go "oh hey that looks fun" and poof! trend validated

mordy: organized gangs of kids roaming the streets intending to attack passersby without any motivation is clockwork orange stuff and allows for dehumanization of anyone who "looks the type"
and yeah media echo chamber, etc. this stuff seems like dog whistle justification in the face of Martin and McBride -- "how was i to know they weren't playing the knockout game; better safe than sorry"

also what Dan said. Another reason this kind of "reporting" is deeply aggravating.

When I was looking into this more I fell down the internet hole and starting reading about all the fox news and worldnetdaily types who "track" incidents of "black mob violence" and the like. I find it bizarre that there are white people who are so invested in believing that there is a race war being waged against them, and I don't get what even motivates pundits to push this stuff. Maybe it's a kind of perverse way of seeking absolution from racial guilt? "See, WE'RE the victims now."

Hurting:
1) Racism
2) Other forms of stupidity
3) Ruling class thrives on keeping suppressed people at odds with one another or else THE GREAT REVOLUTION

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/christandpopculture/2013/11/the-knockout-game-myth-and-its-racist-roots/

Yea this is just the media forcing a narrative through linking loosely connected events and framing it as a "trend", while also being dishonest about the scope of the prevalence of the situation.

Colin Flaherty needs to be drowned in a sea of his own piss

http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20131204/crown-heights/councilwoman-blames-knockout-attacks-on-tension-between-blacks-jews

i realize there's the predictable conservative white christian thing going on where they're jumping on this whole thing and blowing it up into something that's bigger than it is, trying to scare people and support bogus reverse racism stuff.

however

this whole topic is uncomfortable for me because, as some of you may know, a group of teenz beat the shit out of me last year while i was running. they did end up taking my phone (which i was wearing on my arm to keep track of how i'm faster than carl lewis), but it seems very bizarre to target a runner for theft, because they're generally not carrying much. and in fact, even during the incident, just after i was clotheslined out of absolutely nowhere - literally didn't see it coming at all - and before they went for the follow-up punch that split my lip open and made me look really tough for life, i said "i don't have anything, why-"

at the time i just chalked it up to senseless violence. as i was running toward the teenz on the trail the first time, they were throwing rocks at nearby buildings, and even at each other (they were throwing them straight up, at themselves). i just thought they were crazy. and then when i came back, stupidly, on my return route, that was when they popped me. and sorry, i know that everyone i know is currently rolling at their eyes at the thought of "the knockout game" being a real thing, but it was just like videos of the knockout game i've seen. they were just standing around about 2 feet off the side of the trail, talking, i didn't even think they noticed me, and then as i passed about out of NOWHERE, the clothesline.

a few months later, a 37 year old guy on a bike was on the same trail, and a group of about a dozen teenz surrounded him and beat the shit out of him. he had a backpack on, a watch, phone, other goods, but they didn't take anything, they just took off. (btw the comments section on that WashPo article was among the worst things i've ever read in my entire life)

anyway, i haven't read everything on this relatively short thread, nor have i read through all of the articles that have surfaced over the last few weeks. but the vibe i get even from glancing is an almost instinctive "this isn't a thing, this doesn't actually happen, the conservative media is taking just a few isolated accounts of this and trying to make it a big deal so that they can ammunition in their case that it's actually white people who are oppressed, not the other way around" reaction. which i totally get - normally i think i would probably be in that camp! and no doubt, as you're reading this, you're probably thinking "well **I** have a much more nuanced, informed reaction!", so fair enough. and maybe it is all isolated, and i just happened to win the reverse-luck lottery and was one of those one in a million people who was beaten down.

sorry for the ramble, but since a lot of what is on this thread (and elsewhere in the media) seems to be people reacting to news that they read elsewhere, i thought i'd throw in some personal experience and hope that it explains why i might be a little more skeptical on this one.

full disclosure: i realize that part of the reason that i may be open to the idea that what happened was an example of "the knockout game" (god i hate writing that, sorry) is that it fulfills a sort of subconscious desire to provide meaning. while it happened, and after, the hardest thing to deal with was that it felt meaningless. just senseless violence, which is kind of the most scary kind, maybe. so when reports of the knockout game started blowing up, i was open to it because at least it provided an explanation. as always, i try to proceed through life with the knowledge that there is a far-from-zero-probability that i am totally wrong about everything and that i am thinking terrible things that are the result of subconscious desires.

sad lol:

http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/christandpopculture/files/2013/11/998301_534487243313216_265288128_n.jpg

that's from the article crutis posted. and it reminds me that when i told my dad about what happened, his first reaction was to mention that i should have had a gun. WHILE I WAS RUNNING

http://gawker.com/the-knockout-game-is-real-1476675904?utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_facebook&utm_source=gawker_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

xp http://www.naturalnews.com/043091_knockout_game_concealed_handgun_teenagers.html i saw this story doing the rounds on righty facebook (no idea what this website is). seems like an excuse in advance for the next george zimmerman.

...it was just like videos of the knockout game i've seen. they were just standing around about 2 feet off the side of the trail, talking, i didn't even think they noticed me, and then as i passed about out of NOWHERE, the clothesline.

― Karl Malone, Wednesday, December 4, 2013 1:54 PM (34 minutes ago)

pretty much exactly the same thing happened to me & a friend back in the early 90s. staggering home drunk, not running, but w/e. bunch of kids clearly just out having fun, punched the shit out of my friend's face as we walked by, broke his tooth, spitting blood. i said "what the fuck?" and they beat me down, then ran away laughing when the boot party attracted the attention of passers-by.

now i'm sure kids have been pulping drunks for laughs since bible days, but it seems reasonable to think that youtube & vine & facebook & so on could make a mini-trend out of such in no time flat. not saying that's what's going on, but i wouldn't dismiss the idea out of hand just because it happens to play into some asshole's racist fantasy narrative.

(no idea what this website is)

natural news is some kind of catch-all paranoia body-fear website, traffics heavily in anti-vax and miracle cure diet type ish, ie "what THEY don't want you to know" general health fraudulence. i think has some tie to the alex jones universe (it was banned from facebook for a while, along with alex jones' presences)

from that article:

WILX in Lansing reports that the teenager, Marvell Weaver, who is black, tried to knock out a father who was waiting at a bus stop on Feb. 26 for his daughter to arrive.

Feb 26? what gives here?

The station itself has run another writeup of the story (which natural news just flagrantly jacked btw):

http://www.wilx.com/topstories/headlines/Dangerous-Game---Point-em-Out-Knock-em-Out-231443411.html

A game called "Point-em-out, Knock-em-out" has made its way to Lansing, and it's exactly how it sounds. The game consists of someone being randomly targeted, then attacked.

It's a game that has been growing with popularity on the internet, with teenagers filming themselves punching unsuspecting victims. Lansing had its first case of the game brought to light this summer, but it's possible that it has been happening under the radar for months.

"it's possible" yeah great work

wilx site and the article in general seem to be legit though (i realize how much lifting that "seem" is doing). assailant allegedly admits to playing the game and having played it before. file under "who knows?"

I'm still in touch with a lot of people I know from small-town NE Ohio, and my in-laws are fundagelical FOX watchers who are always posting on FB about ObamaHitler. The latter made sure to bring up the knockout game at Thanksgiving, so mission accomplished, Hannity. The former, from what I gather, just cannot wait to shoot them a black kid.