While not exactly new, happy-slapping is one of those truly sick and bizarre things that kids have dreamed up to ensure that stupidity is not lost from the gene pool. It’s just too funny, as far as these kids are concerned.

Happy-slapping is a random attack on an unsuspecting person that is filmed so that the perpetrators can enjoy the memories over and over again, and share it with all their friends to prove how brilliant they are.  It comes from our brothers across the pond, where spiked hair is considered way too ordinary to prove one’s machismo.

But for this young lady, it isn’t going to be very happy.

The 15-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the manslaughter of Gavin Waterhouse last September when she filmed the attack on a mobile phone.

The girl admitted filming an attack on Mr Waterhouse, 29, of Keighley, West Yorkshire, in which he was punched and kicked. He died of a ruptured spleen.

The problem with this fad, other than the obvious harm it does to its victims, is that it reflects a broader disease that inflicts youth (and others).  In its more benign form, it can be seen in television shows and movies like “Jackass”, and even such “family entertainment” as “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” where videos of people being injured are the fodder of great humor.

Is it funny to watch someone do something stupid and suffer serious physical injury as a result?  Do we really enjoy seeing others hurt and in pain?  If so, what does this say about our society, and what message do these shows give our youth?

Reading up on the happy-slapping phenomenon, it appears that the perpetrators view it as harmless fun, a beating of an innocent, wholly unrelated victim, of no real consequence.  In the case noted above, the victim died, but the outcome usually isn’t death and so, to those who relish the happy-slap, it’s an anomaly and not representative of the usual circumstance.  What’s a mere beating, they figure.

The promotion of physical violence and harm as a form of entertainment is a disease, and it comes as no surprise that children have seized upon it as humorous.  When they end up prosecuted, such as this young woman for recording others inadvertently killing a man, it likely comes as a shock.  But they didn’t mean to hurt anybody, they proclaim.  It was an “accident”.  And she didn’t actually “do” anything to hurt the man; she just recorded it.

I don’t doubt for a moment that they mean what they say.  But they are wrong, and the problem is that they don’t realize they are wrong before they cause harm.  There is a fundamental disconnect in their minds between intent and conduct, and I believe this disconnect is the product of the message that pain and harm is funny.

Society has enough trouble dealing with crimes caused by malevolence.  It’s inexcusable to add crimes caused by the promotion of stupidity to the mix.  This has really got to stop.

H/T  Susan Cartier Leibel for this story.