My feed
Premium

Please
or
to access all these features

AIBU?

To feel a wee bit sorry for the bully girl in the new "happy slapping" video?

92 replies

Bluemonkeyspots · 17/01/2013 12:43

I mean the one with the girl jolene bullying the autistic boy.

The video is disgusting and makes very uncomfortable viewing, I felt sick watching it and putting my own dc in the place of the poor boy, if it was my dc I would want to rip her head off but I'm also really disturbed by all the comments about the girl that are online.

She is only 14 and I can't help but feel a bit sorry for her, maybe she is just pure nasty through and through but none of us know her background story.

While it would not make what she did ok what if she is abused at home by her own parents? What if there is nobody to support her through this and it pushes her to take her own life?

Maybe I'm just going soft due to pregnancy hormones but I really don't like all the hate groups springing up on Facebook etc with adults calling her all the nasty names under the sun and listing the disgusting things they would do to her. Can they not see the irony in what they are doing.

OP posts:
Report
VoiceofUnreason · 17/01/2013 12:47

YABU to feel sorry for her. Any sympathy should go to the guy on the receiving end who didn't retaliate at all because she was a girl.

There are plenty of people who are abused in some way, shape or form who don't behave like this. I don't care about backstory - even if there is some backstory, it's still not right even if a touch more understandable.

As for the comments, yes, it is another form of bullying. A lesser form of "I'd cut his balls off" to a paedophile. Understandable, but not right.

Report
Flobbadobs · 17/01/2013 12:49

Haven't seen the video and not planning to. I hate this craze of everything going viral. To my mind it encourages a type of vigilante pitchfork and flaming torches mentality. These videos are around forever, these people captured in them could change or grow up to be perfect model citizens but will be forever stuck with the images caught on someones camera phone.
And before I get roasted, yes I feel incredibly sorry for the lad and hope he is getting help to recover, and no my DC's don't 'happyslap' anyone.

Report
fluffywhitekittens · 17/01/2013 12:53
Report
Catchingmockingbirds · 17/01/2013 12:58

Sympathy should go to the poor boy she viciously attacked. My son has autism, he is only 5 and has already experienced bullying. Try and imagine what this boy, who already has a neurological disorder which makes understanding and fitting into the world around him much more difficult, has to experience. I sadly doubt this is the first time he's been bullied.

Report
MissyMooandherBeaverofSteel · 17/01/2013 12:59

I've just watched it and feel no sympathy for her at all, I wouldn't join in with those saying nasty things about her but really I can see why people are so outraged by her behaviour and certainly can't blame them for feeling as they do. I feel a bit sick after watching the video, the only person I sympathise with is the lad she attacked.

Report
Flobbadobs · 17/01/2013 12:59

Just read it. Wow. Just wow..

Report
Flobbadobs · 17/01/2013 13:02

What she did (still haven't watched it) was a disgusting thing, theres no doubt and the lad deserves much sympathy but does anyone actually deserve comments like "she should apologise and then kill herself"?. Especially a child? From adults? Theres an argument that the affect of social media is getting out of hand and I agree with it.

Report
Catchingmockingbirds · 17/01/2013 13:04

I don't think the boy deserved comments such as 'spastic' either.

Report
Bluemonkeyspots · 17/01/2013 13:06

I do feel sorry for the boy, I hope his life at school will be so much more pleasant for him now and he handled himself with so much dignity in the video. His family must be heartbroken about this and I hope they get the support they need to deal with the media frenzy around it, but I still can't help but feel a bit sorry for the girl. The other child filming is just as much to blame but it's the girl jolene who is getting all the hatred directed at her.

OP posts:
Report
Flobbadobs · 17/01/2013 13:06

No he didn't catching, not at all but should she be told to kill herself because of it?

Report
HecateWhoopass · 17/01/2013 13:06

ok, so this may not even be true? Why do people do such things?

Assuming that it is true and even if this particular instance isn't - there is still the issue of vulnerable people being abused in many ways by others within society and so speaking generally about that issue (and sorry blue, I can't remember whether it's one or two autistic children you've got, but mine both are and so that's where I'm coming from) - I cannot dredge up one ounce of sympathy for anyone who thinks it's ok to do such kind of things to someone who is as vulnerable as my own children are. I know that sounds heartless, but all I see are my children who can only look forward to a lifetime of being cared for by others, who will never have a job, or a home of their own, or children...

They can look forward to a lifetime of crap thrown at them, it seems. Already socially isolated. People tolerating them. My eldest has no friends at all. So vulnerable. And yet somehow we've got to have a big warm forgiving heart for those who would make our own children's lives harder? No. Sorry. I can't do it. I've got nothing in my heart for those who are dishing out the crap to children like mine.

People who think it's ok to sneer, steal from, attack, etc, vulnerable people are the reason I don't intend to ever let my children anywhere without someone to support them, even if they got to a stage where they would be able to be safe themselves - eg not running into traffic, they are sitting ducks and I won't let that happen.

Report
Jins · 17/01/2013 13:08

Sorry I can't feel sorry for her either.

Report
MissyMooandherBeaverofSteel · 17/01/2013 13:09

No-one deserves to be spoken/written about in that way, but in all honesty she didn't care about what she was doing to the lad she attacked, at least she can choose to turn a computer off or not to read whats been written, that lad had no choice other than to listen to her and have her attack him.

Report
McBalls · 17/01/2013 13:09

Why did you watch the video? What did you get out of it?

Won't be watching (obviously) but of course a bully has probably had their own shite to deal with, which maybe have taken a toll on ability to empathise or similar.

Just as a rapist will probably have experienced some unpleasantness, ditto child abusers, drug dealers, murderers, drink drivers, racists, bigots and common or garden tosspots.

So what? What difference does it make? Does that make it easier to the victim? Or mean that others who have suffered but manage not to be a nasty git deserve a medal?

Yes, she's probably gone through shit, no I don't give a toss (and I think the only ones who should are those in a position to devise/offer rehabilitation).

Report
Catchingmockingbirds · 17/01/2013 13:13

She will be forgotten about when the next video goes viral, but he will have to deal with these attitudes forever.

Report
BegoniaBampot · 17/01/2013 13:13

no sympathy for her. already saw this on fb and some comments. i choose not to comment as don't see it's helpful. wasn't sure if it was real , looked set up and theatrical.

Report
PeachActiviaMinge · 17/01/2013 13:16

Bullying is never right I'm sorry but I have no sympathy for the idiots that go out there and do this sort of thing to anyone no matter how shit your homelife is it will never give you a right to do this to anyone.

No she probably doesn't deserve the nasty comments but then she is a nasty little piece of work herself and theres always that old adage of you shouldn't be willing to dish out what you can't take she thought it was fine to abuse that boy it could cause him to take his life as it does hundreds of bullied children every year and I bet she never thought twice about what she was doing. I have no sympathy for people like her.

Report
PandaOnAPushBike · 17/01/2013 13:17

YABU

She deserves no sympathy what so ever. If she didn't want to face negative reprecussions for her behaviour, she shouldn't have done it.

My autistic nephew left school at 12 because of this kind of abuse. My autistic husband stayed at school but says he was 'hunted down like an animal every day and beaten'. Their childhoods were ruined by violent, abusive youngsters like her who think they can do what they like to whoever they like and walk away.

Report
Catchingmockingbirds · 17/01/2013 13:20

"it could cause him to take his life"

Suicide rates for those on the spectrum are high too.

Report
Nancy66 · 17/01/2013 13:20

don't agree with all the abuse she is now on the receiving end of (although I do think it's a shame she'll be too thick to appreciate the rich irony of it.)

But no sympathy for her. She's a horrible bully of the worst kind - ie she picks on the vulnerable.

Report
Birdsgottafly · 17/01/2013 13:24

YABU and need to stop using the term "happy slapping", that was changed along with "joy riding", to spell out what it is, assault.

There have been deaths caused by being hit, supposedly in the name of fun and so there was another video to post on Youtube.

I am sorry that people have backgrounds that cause them to need help, but don't feel sorry for anyone that actually acts on their feelings, iyswim.

Report
merlincat · 17/01/2013 13:31

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

FellatioNels0n · 17/01/2013 13:35

I don't have any sympathy for her whatsoever. I have not watched it and do not intend to, but hopefully its going viral will help people have more compassion and understanding towards people like the young lad, and less tolerance of behaviour like hers.

I'm not really interested in whatever problems she may or may not have. It's no excuse. And as for all those comments quoted on that blog - if she'd laid a finger on my younger, defenceless child I'd have called her exactly the same and worse.

Report
MissyMooandherBeaverofSteel · 17/01/2013 13:36

^ I agree with Birds about the term 'happy slapping', it makes it sound like its funny and everyone is having a jolly old time when in reality there is a (usually violent) crime being committed against someone.

Report
happynewmind · 17/01/2013 13:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.