Oh look it’s 2012! What a difference! No.

Hello internet, it’s been a while. First off, I’d like to share this video:

From the looks of it, it’s gone pretty darn viral already and these guys will probably get caught within the week (that is assuming this is a real video and I don’t doubt that it is real). This video doesn’t show it, but the victim does end up running away. If the video outrages you, good. You still have some sense of morality. If it doesn’t, well I dont’ have much to say regarding that. However, now that some of you are outraged I’d say take a minute (or a dozen minutes if you have a slight temper) and just chill. Relax. At first one would like to see these guys (punks, cowards, losers, assholes, scumbags, pussies, pick your adjective(s) from the lot or add your own) have the same thing happen to them. Probably not the best as it only just makes the problem worse and make violence justified. Will they end up getting what they deserve? Yes and no.

It is likely that those responsible may get a light sentence (relatively speaking). I do not believe the legal system works 100% of the time, but that doesn’t meant these guys won’t get what they “deserve” in court either. Now the question is: who do we blame? It’s simple to say that it is entirely their fault. I could also be the devil’s advocate and say that the victim in the video did do something to evoke that sort of response from the “attackers”. That is highly unlikely of course. One could also blame societal structures, bad parenting, education, the music industry, the government, xenophobia, poverty?, human nature, aliens, or the bad burritos they ate beforehand. Some “causes” are more plausible than others and the point being is that while it is easy to place quick blame, it isn’t so true in reality.

What do these guys deserve? Death penalty? Life in prison? An equal sort of beating? Public shaming? A combination of everything? It can be both easy to say and hard to say. Why this video was uploaded onto Youtube originally is beyond me. One would imagine people would have been smarter than that by now. What I do know is that events like this happen more often than people realize or care to admit. This video was just luckily (or unluckily from the other viewpoint) found on Youtube and a combination of circumstances allowed it to spread and be re-uploaded after the original was taken down. Is it good that videos like this pop up every once in a while rather than all the time? Probably. Otherwise we’d most likely be accustomed to seeing events like this. We might not be so shocked if that were the case.

Right now, I see an online petition going around. The phone numbers, addresses, Facebook accounts, and Myspace of some of the perpetrators (and their parents) available in the info of the video. Public vengeance is…quick. This could easily get out of hand in the near future. I do not doubt peoples’ abilities to obtain personal info using online methods, nor do I doubt the ability for people to harass these individuals and their families for the next month. Do they deserve it? Maybe, maybe not. I am not the judge of that. I do not believe in the “eye for an eye” idea, but there is a fine line between a slap on the wrist and excessive punishment. How fine? Probably more than razor thin.

Yes, this act is disgusting, terrible, horrible, unnecessary, devastating. Throw in any words that you would use. Is humanity going down the drain? No. Let’s say these folks do get caught. Justice is “served” and public shaming online goes on. What then? We give ourselves a nice pat on the back? Feel whatever it is you’re feeling, but don’t give yourself that pat on the back when they do get caught. Keeping ill thoughts does not make one any better.