Last night I received a phone call from my good friend Meagan who I have not spoken to in a very long time (she's responsible for the little photos of me you see before each entry). It's always great to catch up, but I find my jealousy soaring because she's been mucking about Asia for the past month and I've been stuck at home. She then tells me that her next vacation will absolutely include the UK, which (oddly enough) is someplace she has never been, despite a lifetime of extensive international travel.
Dave: Well, just be careful when you go... I don't want your picture turning up on the internet from a "Happy Slapping" incident!
Meagan: What the heck is "Happy Slapping?"
Dave: Haven't you heard? It's all the rage in the UK... angry youths run about slapping people in the face and recording it with their picture-phone. Then they pass the best photos along from phone to phone.
Meagan: Whaaaaaat? Are you kidding?
Dave: Oh no. It's a serious deal. They're apparently banning phones in schools to stop "Happy Slapping" bullies.
Meagan: That's so... strange. Can you imagine just walking along and somebody runs up and slaps you in the face?
Well, of course I can. And being in the UK, it's probably all very civilized after somebody has slapped you...
But it's when you start thinking about what would happen if something like this were to become popular here in the good old U.S. of A. that it starts to get interesting, because the reaction could end up being very, very different...
And please don't think that I'm making fun of the British here... on the contrary, I think it must be liberating to live in a place where you can go around slapping people and not have to worry about somebody pulling a gun on you. Heaven only knows I'd be bitch-slapping a heck of a lot more people if I weren't so worried about having a cap popped in my ass from some trigger-happy redneck.
Oh well. It looks like I'll have to travel abroad to do all my slapping. I wonder if there are organized tours for things like that? Or at least a guide book... "How to Slap in Europe on Just $50 a Day" and "A Bitch-Slapper's Guide to London" for example. I'll have to give Frommer's a call.
And, in other news... dang I look good in a bowler hat!
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I always knew Barney Rubble was a slapper, hey fred?
I was thinking the same thing of that brown derby suit. If happy slapping were practiced here in the US, there’d be WAY too many fools doing it though. The market for it would get saturated so quickly that you’d have many slappers slapping other slappers, which would lead to territorial slappers and slap wars.
“Don’t you know that this is my block for slapping, bitch. Get your own block.”
I’m more worried about it being “re-imagined” here in the USA and becoming “Happy Shooting” or something even more awful. “Ha ha! The look on this guy’s face as I shot him is priceless! Here… I’ll send it to your phone…”
Hmm, that must be a ENGLISH thing, it’s the first I’ve heard of it, here in Little Ole Scotland…..
Yeah it’s been on the news a few times – I think the main concern is how hard people have been hit and damage caused to their hearing. Fortunately, I haven’t been a victim. They tend to pick on people sleeping on trains.
Oh and your quote is bugging me. I’ve heard it very recently, but don’t want to say the film that’s in my head in case I’m wrong and look stupid.
What about the Welsh? I’m betting they like to slap just as much as the English! Can’t much blame them though… if I had to learn words that were 37 characters long, I’d want to slap somebody too.
The Scotsman has an article on it: http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4030257
I simply don’t understand it. Is slapping supposed to be funny? And you’re absolutely right Dave, it could end up in permanent injury which is not a good thing
I seriously hope that it doesn’t catch on here. Mainly because if anybody dared to slap me, I would gladly shoot them in their disrespectful ass… and then I’d end up in prison and have to worry about my own ass being slapped.
I hope that it does catch on here because that would give a person total license to t-off on some of these little a$#hole b%^tard whipper snapper smart a$$es. Let um send a picture of the inside of their colon to their friends. Yeah baby……anarchy. 43% gay my ass. Wait I didnt say that right. Well……..sh(t.
Dave, can you blog from prison in the US? If not, I hope you restrain yourself and throw something at them instead – a cellphone perhaps?
Don’t even think about slap someone here in Florida now. Gov. Bush signed a bill intended to make it clear that people have a right to defend themselves on the street, meeting “force with force” without fear of being prosecuted.
The bill says “”the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so, to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another.”
So if you slap me, I’ll kill you. And not even the whole Law & Order crew can put me behind bars.
Gee Art, I can see that growing a year older hasn’t mellowed your disposition any! Though, I must admit, I would really like to see somebody TRY to slap you. Though I have to wonder if the flash on a mobile phone camera would be powerful enough to get a good colonic image.
Can you blog in prison? Knowing the US prison system… I’m guessing yes. Not only could you blog, but you could probably set up your own production company and create a blogging documentary and best-selling book to go with it.
Florida so rules! Though I do worry about getting out alive the next time I visit. I’m packing a handgun when I go to DisneyWorld just in case Goofy steps on my toes with those big-ass feet of his.
I like those pictures at the start. Sometimes thats all I read.
🙂
Dave…yes there are bloggers in prsion. Here’s one I found by googling “prison blog”:
http://prisonpete.blogspot.com/
As for happy slapping: The British can be so very polite and wonderful, and i have seen the best examples of it every time i go. But there is a subset (and I hate to say this, but of “youths”) that have no respect whatsoever for other people. One New Year’s Eve I saw a bunch of teenagers go around and set fire to trash cans, throw them at shop windows and key cars, in CHELSEA. I was at a nice restaurant and saw them do it. It made me scared to go outside, they were being very agressive to anyone walking by them. Small violence is as scary as the bigger forms.
People may not get shot in Enland, but they do get knifed, as one young mother was recently killed while walking with her toddler. Toddler survived and witnessed the whole thing.
Sorry, I am still skittish from the recent burglary…my crime sense of humor is on “low” right now.
Happy slapping? Scary.
Fletch! Love Chevy Chase. It’s the chin dimple.
So it *was* ‘Fletch Lives’??
Anyway, the main reason for happy slapping is to get a startled picture of someone having been slapped. I must admit these pictures are probably rather amusing. Agreed that it could get you shot if you did it to the wrong guy – those armed police for example (they’re not all armed here in quaint UK).
When you next coming to the birthplace of Hard Rock Cafe in London, Dave??
I just can’t imagine someone thinking they have the right to harm another person, even if it is just a slap. To impose your will on someone like that and take away their pride and feeling of security. I just hope that it doesnt esculate like you mentioned. I could see this leading to a “one-up” atmosphere very easily.
Never heard of it – and I work with 10-13 year olds on a faintly regular basis… I can imagine some of them believing they have the right to harm someone else though… And it won’t be civilised. It’ll be a reaction involving flick knives… ~x~
I live in London and been hearing this on the news and in the papers alot, to tell the truth it is another case of the media hyping these incidents up.
I have never seen this happen and I am in the city everyday, nor has anyone I know. I am not disputing this has happened but I think the media is blowing it out of all proportion for a “story”. I mean, sweet jesus.. if some kid tried that with me they would be plucking their teeth out the back of their mouth for the next week.
The term “happy slapping” makes this crime sound like some kind of lark, but there have been a number of fatalities in the U.K. where victims were kicked in the head or struck their head on the pavement. Not very happy. Here in Portland lately, we’ve had a couple incidents of mobs of teens attacking single people or couples without provocation. It seemed to lack explanation before, but now I have to wonder if it wasn’t done for filming.
I agree with xider – it’s just another form of bullying that would happen anyway. The incidence of strangers getting slapped is low – it just depends what sort of nasty little f%$ker is doing the slapping.
Why not slap NAZIS instead – they deserve it – everyone should slap a nazi for SLAP A NAZI WEEK