There’s a new craze amongst teenagers in England which is apparently influenced by American Shows like Jackass, Viva La Bam, etc. “Happy Slapping” has become all the rage amongst British yutes, and it’s a lot more sinister than it sounds. Here’s what a male 16 year old “slapper” (I have to make the sex distinction to avoid confusion with another popular definition of that word) had to say in defense of his new found hobby:
“Even though it might be quite painful (for the victim) and you obviously feel quite sorry for them because they’re injured or hurt or whatever and they’ve done nothing to deserve it, it’s still funny because it’s like seeing the sketch on TV.” Wicked funny, Niles.
What these little bastards do is akin to what we call swarming here in North America. A group of kids run up on, surround and then slap the shit out of unsuspecting bystanders – while one or two others record the assault on their camera phones. If that weren’t bad enough, some of the lower-level bottomfeeding British cable channels then compile these beatings into hour-long television shows. A concerned English blogger compiled some particularly violent excerpts. “I dug up quite a bit and hacked them together into a streaming media file. It’s not for the squeemish, these kids are clearly criminals“.
Jackass was all about a group of lifelong friends playing pranks on or subsequently beating the everloving Christ out of eachother – not ‘jumping in‘ random strangers on the street. It was their cameraderie which made the show so much fun to watch. Happy Slapping is frigging twisted – violent attacks can scar people for years – I know. I sincerely hope that the Old Bill puts the kaibosh on this ridiculous practice like yesterday. Please mark this moment on your calendars as the first time I officially rolled my eyes and muttered: “Kids today”.
I’m a big fan of jackarse, it’s exactly the sort of shit I did when I was younger with my brothers and friends. There nothing funnier than watching what they do to Ryan Dunn next (or in the case of Viva La Bamm – Uncle fat-arse-Vito). Speaking of, have you seen the Kenny Rogers Mad TV ripoff of Jackarse? THAT is BLOODY piss-in-your-pants funny.
But I believe there is a famous quote from the Ancient greek Aristotle a couple 1000 years ago, where he said something along the lines of “Kids today, they are much more immature than we were and have no respect for their elders.”