Wah. Look at me, I'm a victim. He made a bullshit attempt at justifying his actions, but if you watch his body language while he's hitting the kid, he's toying with him. He's not angry, he's not defending himself, he's showboating in front of the crowd. He deserved everything he got, and it seems he still hasn't learned his lesson.
It's funny when he is first asked whether he's sorry (around the 5 minute mark) he thinks about it for a second, then says no. Then he looks over to his dad, realizes he said the wrong thing, and tries to change his answer to yes. This bully would have been a lot better off remaining anonymous to the internet.
Also, if you look at Casey's body language . . . if Casey was supposedly picking on the other kid right before filming started, why doesn't the first punch thrown start the fight? Also, you can hear voices from the taper. Usually, when these things are caught on video, you hear a couple "OH! No he d'int!" type comments when the first punch is thrown. It's like they knew what was coming. That whole video is strange - the backpack kid steps between Casey and the West Virginia Coal Mine rat tail kid to prevent further damage, and then a girl steps between Casey and Backpack guy?
Here is the interview with the boy who fought back. He comes across as a very humble and nice person. He tells a bit about the history of his school days and being bullied. It makes me sad that his 8 "friends" left him when he was targeted that first time.
Hah, I didn't even make the connection until I just posted. The story is very similar to the little kid in Bad Santa who ends up kicking his bullies square in the balls before riding away on his bike (my avatar). Also, I read an interview with the Bully's mom where she wanted an apology for her poor baby boy, and how he was always taught to be kind and never pick on other kids, that this behavior was not him. She also wanted the video taken down. Nevermind the fact it was her punk-ass son's friend who filmed and posted the damn thing. Kudos to the kid for finally standing up for himself. Plus those Streetfighter/Mortal Kombat versions are hilarious.
That seems like a very different attitude than what I picked up on from the video. She seemed to have a very realistic attitude about how shitty her son's behavior was. It's the father that comes across as being completely out of touch with reality.
Ah, I wasn't talking about the video. At work so I can't watch it. I read an article linked in a fark comments thread, I'll have to see if I can find it.
At the very beginning of the video, the backpack kid steps in front of the camera and it looks like he's heading toward Casey until someone pulls him back. Then when he grabs the little kid, you can see him again on the peripheral and after he slams the kid, the backpack guy gets in between them. I wonder if the little kid thought backpack dude was going to bail him out if anything happened.
If its the article I think you're talking about, it seems the paper misquoted her and she actually believes it's her son who needs to apologise, not Casey. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sydney-nsw/bullied-boy-at-chifley-college-dunheved-campus-suspended-after-fighting-back/story-e6freuzi-1226023526921" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/s ... 6023526921</a>
What the fuck makes you think the kid in the video is a coward? He is 12 and went up swinging against a 16 year old kid twice his size. Globally people seem to have invested their own emotional baggage into what in reality is a one minute vignette that tells very little of the background.
It looked pretty obvious in the video that the little kid was bullying/picking on the bigger kid. He grabbed him by the throat, punched him, and kind of showboated/danced around a little bit. The bigger kid wasn't aggressive until the end. He had ample time to crack that little kid in the face and he didn't until he snapped. The little kid just didn't look/act like he had any fear at all of the big kid. It never appeared to me that he was David going up against Goliath or anything. He never even put his hands up in like any sort of defensive posture or anything. He acted as though he never expected the big kid to do anything at all to him.
Have you never seen bullying before? A little kid would never go after a huge kid like that without backing from a pack of fellow tormenters. Like a previous poster mentioned, the kid with the backpack tried to intervene at the beginning of the incident and then stepped between them after the bully was introduced to the concrete. Bullying is cowardly because most times it is 5 or 6 kids taunting one kid so he/she lives in constant misery (see Durbanite's post above), without fear of the helpless victim fighting back. Don't pit this as a David vs. Goliath battle. I'm glad that this incident was caught on tape and hopefully these discussions bring some awareness to this issue, one that always seems to get swept under the rug until the victims snap.
The kid was a coward because he viewed the fat kid as weaker and easy to pick on, especially with the backing of his "gang". It's not like he went into the fight expecting it to be fair, or him the underdog.
Fair comment on being cowardly if that was the case*, but again there is little to firmly indicate it was. The fact the kid who filmed it uploaded it to the internet suggested they probably aren't that close. Without expanding anymore energy on it, I guess my original post was more a scattered musing on the incredible vitrol that has been directed at the little kid. Many who view the video seem to have in their mind drawn a backstory influenced by their own experiences. This little kid has then transformed into their personal Johnny Lawrence to spray online hatred against. I personally view it as little more than what it was to me, small amusement at little kid taking on humonger, greater amusement at humonger body slamming the hell out of him. * I personally probably do.
Did you watch the interview with Casey? This wasn't some harmless isolated event. He said that he's been bullied almost every day for three years, including an instance where they put duct tape over his eyes and duct taped him to a telephone pole. He said he considered suicide as a result of the bullying. I don't know if you're being contrarian or what, but come on dude. There is context to this situation—the 30 seconds leading up to his reaction where some punches him without provocation. Try to be as creative as you can and come up with a situation in which Casey isn't being preyed on in that video, and see if your scenario makes any damn sense.
Not being contrarian at all, I think I couldn't be more apathetic on the issue. The vast majority of replies online weren't support for the fat kid, they were unadulterated hatred towards the little kid. This was long before any interviews or revealations of backstories. Tens if not hundreds of thousands of people worldwide viewed that 30 seconds and responded with absolute vitrol towards the little kid. That to me suggests many are transfering their own experiences onto the situation. I was never really bullied so maybe I am missing something, but as mentioned above all I took away from the video was a short laugh at the little kids gumption and Ali shuffle followed by a bigger laugh at the ensuing smack down. I had no emotional attraction to either yet alone one to take to the interwebs and rage.
I'm going to piss someone off...but we breed and encourage bullies everyday. I realize that nobody wants their little baby to be taunted or tortured, I sure as hell hope I never have to look my crying little boy in the eyes and tell him that for whatever stupid reason, he is a target. But I will tell him it's okay to fight back, preferably with the least amount of violence. I was a target because I was white. I was afraid. I remember getting stomach aches so bad at the thought of school that I would throw up. Stress. Bruises. I would prefer to stay home, which is saying something due to the many abuses I suffered there. One day I started thinking. Why was this pack of girls after me? They thought they were funny, that's why. They were a bunch of gangbanger latinas and they were doing what they likely saw on a regular basis. Once I started thinking, I realized that I had to do something in this scenario. It wasn't being a tattletale. It wasn't telling my mother, when I had she had shown me some shit in the Bible about turning the other cheek. I had been turning my other cheek for too long. I had to grow a fucking backbone, and I did. As a society, we mock things that we do not understand. We laugh at everything as long as it's happening to someone else. Until it all becomes too much, then we gang up and take out murder fantasies on our dusty memories. Are we not bullying this child now? I realize that there are extreme cases, but if our children are confident and have a strong sense of self, they will be okay. Sometimes you have to learn it the hard way. I did, getting that crazy mexican bitch off my shoulder by myself was one of the most satisfying experiences of my life.
I think the issue everyone has is that Casey has been getting picked on for a really long time, and this video shows his breaking point. Bullying should be taken care of before it gets to this point, if at all possible.
With the attitude this board normally has I'm surprised you all don't side with the bully because the kid getting picked on was fat. Anyway, I was bullied by two people in Junior High and High School. One of the guys I beat the shit out of because I was bigger than him. That fight resulted in me no longer being allowed to ride the bus. The other one was ten times stronger than myself and regular fought anyone for fun. He smashed a beer bottle over my Korean friend because he had slanty eyes. This man was pure evil. He ended up being banned from public school, so that ended that. I guess I ended up with the last laugh. Before I turned 20 both were dead, one in a reckless driving incident, and one from an oxycodine OD. AND THAT IS WHY BULLYING DOESN'T PAY.
Same thing happened to me. I was bullied for a while, told my Dad, who told me I had to fight him. I'd probably get my ass kicked, but if I at least put up a fight, he'd most likely leave me alone and pick on someone who wouldn't fight back. Next time he started on me, I punched him in the face. He laughed, punched me in the face, and shattered a glass lens (actually I remember it well, it didn't so much shatter but there was this huge knuckle hole in it). I got a black eye but for whatever reason he never fucked with me again. I don't think it was so much that I fought back but maybe he felt bad for me.