Social Question

Hypocrisy_Central's avatar

Punch out game for fun, how did parts of the US come to this?

Asked by Hypocrisy_Central (26879points) April 17th, 2014
6 responses
“Great Question” (0points)

disclaimer This is not an indictment that all inner city youths are vicious, that it happens in many US cities, or that only ethnic or African American youth are the cause.

So, you have bored young people assaulting innocent bystanders, slugging them with no regard how they land or how they might be injured. How did it come to this that slugging someone with the intent of rendering them unconscious became exciting? I hate to have to say it, but I find it true from my childhood, that this behavior would not have stood when I was a boy. Once it got out on the grapevine or in the news, the parents would have been all over it and any one of us kids caught doing it, would have reaped the whirl wind. To stem the growth of it, since the ship has already sailed, should those caught doing it be severely punished, punished not so harsh but for a greater length of time? If the parents were made to be liable for some of the crime in these types of incidents that their children do, would they get more involved to nip it in the bud at home? Allowing more people to pack heat to protect themselves against this and other crimes which might be committed by bored teens? To do little or nothing is to embolden other because they feel the excitement out weights the punishment.

Observing members: 0
Composing members: 0

Answers

zenvelo's avatar

It really isn’t widespread, there have been a lot of fake news stories about it according to snopes.com.

But really, it’s no more that “wilding” was in the 1980s in New York, or teens beating homeless at various times and places in the last twenty years.

I am not excusing this or accepting it; just pointing out it’s not a matter of “how did… the U.S. come to this?”

Hypocrisy_Central's avatar

^ If there were no “wilding” would we still have had “punch out”?

Dan_Lyons's avatar

I don’t know why you think this is some sort of a new phenomena @Hypocrisy_Central

Kids were doing this in the 60s and 70s when I was growing up, and surely long before then.

There was this one big deal the idiot high school junkies were doing back in the early – mid 70s… They called it, well, I forget what they called it; but what they did was go out and beat up the gays (they were known as queers back then).

It was a terrible thing to do, but they did it anyway. They rolled the gays for their money.

And they were getting away with it because hey, they were just doing it to the weirdos.

(Every weekend they would have these gay/lesbian dances, which is when I saw men dressed as women who were by far prettier than most women in town).

These were white boys from well-to-do families in a very middle to upper class neighborhood.

rojo's avatar

This is a result in growing up in a restrictive Christian society. This does not happen in agnostic societies. When, if ever did you hear about this happening in Sweden?

KNOWITALL's avatar

@DAns right. I’ve heard of bored white kids doing that. Bam Margera makes his money from that stuff, Jackass movies.

Afos22's avatar

Inner city teenagers are not very bright, they have no role models, and they want to fit in. This is not the only stupid thing that teenagers have done, and it will not be the last.

Answer this question

Login

or

Join

to answer.

Mobile | Desktop


Send Feedback   

`