Obligatory Girls Gone Wild Savage Post

I held off on this all day, but if the Big A deems it newsworthy, I guess it is.

I guess my take is contrarian. Not about punishing these thuggish girls pretty severely. Obviously they deserve that. Do a man's crime, do a man's time. That's what Berreta said, and he murdered his wife and got away with it, but that's another issue.

But... this is being portrayed as some sick New Jack Crime, the pack beating only for the purpose of being posted on YouTube. Even as this juicy Brave New Online World angle is being pushed, the MSM admits... mostly it was motivated by typical "you dissed me" crap (the dissing occurred on a MySpace page, of course).

So it's not really true that the beating was motivated entirely, or even mostly, by a desire to become an Internet star. It was motivated by the same old nonsense that's been motivating school violence since they had 1) schools and 2) violence.

The internet thing? An added bonus, at most, and sure, an attempt to become a star via a dubious path. But that doesn't seem to be the real motivation here. Public humiliation is and always has been a big part of the beat-down, hasn't it?

The one thing about truly public humiliation -- beating someone up in front of a live crowd -- is that the situation tends to limit the amount of damage that can be inflicted. Someone, hopefully, will eventually step in to stop the beating. In this sort of ambush situation, with look-outs making sure no one will interrupt a group beating, there's nothing to stop it except the perps' own consciences. And yet they'll still reap their public humiliation, too.

On the other hand, there is something positive to be said about thugs videotaping their own crimes, too.

posted by Ace at 08:36 PM

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