Ah Humanity
"Karma is just sharpening her nails and finishing her drink. She says she'll be with you shortly." - Unknown
Poetic justice and instant karma are magnetically interesting to me. And the best viewing platform for those is https://twitter.com/SteveInmanUIC. Yes, a guy named Steve Inman applies the vocal styling of an overly caffeinated livestock auctioneer to cellcam videos of random street conflicts and attempted crimes around the world.
Trigger Warning (literally!) : Go there at your own risk. It’s often brutal, raw, not responsible for any adverse psychological reactions. But just think, if you watch those, suppose your child, or an elderly relative, were attacked in these ways - and many of the videos do show that kind of situation.
Actually, his content falls into several categories (my analysis):
Attempted crimes with instant vigilante street retribution (70%)
Attempted crimes with police resolution (20%)
General prat fall types of fails (7%)
Animals doing goofy stuff (3%)
Only Category 1. above is interesting to me. Having cops involved takes all the real human interest out of it. Prat fail vids are all over the web, who cares, and I feel sorry for the people involved. Often you can tell they were seriously injured, without having meant to hurt anybody. The animal stuff can be mildly amusing as far as it goes, but gets stale quickly.
The street stuff though! I’m an addict. Watching these is the ultimate guilty pleasure. But why?? Part of it is just Inman’s hilarious vocal style and the content and timing of his commentary, like a crazed UFC ringside fight commentator.
But it runs deeper than that. For some reason I absolutely HATE bullying of any kind. The assumption, that because I may be bigger than you, or have a weapon in hand, that I can control and damage you. Any kind of bullying triggers a lunatic visceral response in me, and it’s NOT because I’m any kind of saint. I’m just an ordinary scumbag like anybody when it comes to real moral virtue. My reactions are much deeper than that. That morality stuff is for “good” people. One of which I never claim to be.
It’s more organic than that. It just inflames me, the arrogance of bullies. And it’s strange, in that I was never a bully myself, nor ever bullied in my long and tedious school career, or anywhere else. So it isn’t even personal or PTSD or anything. It’s just me. I feel intense satisfaction in watching a bully’s shock and surprise when the tables are suddenly turned and all their assumptions and fake bravado go straight out the window. And yes, I do classify school bullying and attempted street crimes all under the same heading - somebody thinks they are a badass and are stomping on a presumably weaker one with assumed impunity. Then there’s the sudden TURNAROUND AS FAIR PLAY!
As I said this does NOT put me on any kind of high horse. Probably the opposite in fact. A truly “good” person would recognize mitigating factors and might even accuse Inman himself of being the baddie.
Consider if you will:
Only a minute or so of video is ever shown. There’s no context. Frankly most of them seem morally and actionably unequivocal to me, but you never know. Maybe with more context the apparent victim and bully roles would be shown as reversed! Or there could be all kinds of extenuating circumstances that drove the perps to it.
Does the punishment really fit the crime? Not gonna lie, many times the street justice dealt out, up to and including severe beatings and even straight execution, do exceed what the perp would have received if properly arrested and convicted. But for some reason, the extreme satifaction of that TURNAROUND action outweighs all else in my viewing pleasure.
Isn’t it kind of twisted to take any kind of pleasure in another person’s brutal downfall, deserved or not?
Nah, I don’t much care. As I said, I’m bad. Yes, a guilty pleasure. All I can say in my defense is that I recognize the immortality of the soul, and the soul’s ultimate goodness, buried deep in all of us even those perps. Just buried more deeply in some than others. It will just take them (and probably me for enjoying this stupid shit) some thousands of eons or lifetimes to dig ourselves out of the karmic shithole into which we’ve inserted ourselves. In medieval times, theologians opined that the chief pleasure in heaven was witnessing the tortures of the damned in hell. *sigh*
Anyway beyond all this virtuous hand wringing, as a martial artist I also find these vids tactically instructive. To see all the crazy situations. They’re a reminder to STAY AWARE at all times people! Furthermore, you often see the good in people, as heroes often step up to protect the weak. I like that idea.