Well, my actual website is now fully operational. I assure you, it is quite deadly. A lot of the content from this blog has been copied over there already, not sure if I'll move the rest or not.
Right now we have a couple of articles, weekly columns, bi weekly webcomic. Soon we'll have some videos up there too. So go there... go there now. Add it to your favorites. Share with your friends.
Please... I beg of you. For the love of all that is good, visit my site. Now back to the old and out of date blog you've somehow found:
This is going be really quick since I’m crazy busy today, so there’s only one topic. I just wanted to chime in on this latest internet trend (or should I, keeping with the rasslin' parlance of my title, call him an internet phenom?): Casey Heynes, the Zangief Kid.I really prefer Zangief Kid to Casey "The Punisher" Heynes, but all the great pro wrestlers have multiple monikers, so I guess it doesn't really have to be a one or the other situation.
Anyhow, for those of you who are not familiar with the events, video is here, for those of you who prefer strange Taiwanese re-enactments of news events, you can see that also, here.
So here's how I imagine this whole thing went down, Casey is a little on the tubby side and is probably picked on all the goddamned time, this little kid is probably a "cool" kid who likely picks on Casey on an almost daily basis. Scrawny kid probably feels like this will be the sort of thing that years from now he will want to reminisce about the "good ole days" of picking on Casey, he'll probably even want to tell his kids about what a standup little fellow he is. Why rely on simply TELLING your kids though, why not video the whole thing, throw it up on the internet and save it forever. Nothing is better than public humiliation right? Why not make it super public? Strangely, this is the exact plot of the film Tormented. In that movie, the bullied fat kid comes back from the dead and kills everyone even remotely associated with his bullying, this scrawny kid got off light.
I was a scrawny little kid, and I got picked on a little bit in elementary school, and I have a bunch of friends who got really picked on and bullied, and often, the outcome is the same: eventually, a line is crossed, and the tormented lash out, often violently. Then the punishments are dished out, usually only for that single act (initial bullying, violent lash out). The bully gets a slap on the wrist, and the kid who lost it gets in more trouble since his actions were more severe. The fact that this bullying probably persisted for months if not years before the incident is rarely accounted for.
Thankfully, in this case, the punishments are apparently a little more fitting, I've read some reports that the little kid didn't get suspended at all, but I think this just might be internet folk fanning the fire. Supposedly, what actually happened is that Casey got a 4 day suspension, and the bully got a 21 day suspension (which of course his mother is up in arms about since her child you know, just punched a kid in the face a few times and danced around like an asshole, Casey powerbombed him). Casey's mother is a little surprised too, saying that she always raised her boys to "walk away from a fight". Why? I'll bet Casey walked away from a hundred fights before this one, and where did it get him? If the institution won't put an end to it, who will? Casey will. Like Big Daddy Cool he will fuck your ass right up.
Don't worry though Casey, even if your mom doesn't have your back,
someone else does... these guys. That's right, when they're not engaged in online battles with security agencies, they're defending little boys. Anonymous seems to think that Casey shouldn't have been suspended at all... a viewpoint I might want to agree with. By all means, sit him down, explain to him the consequences of his actions and explain to him that he shouldn't have done it. What other choice did he have? (Note: I haven't been able to find any fallout of the hacks, other than messing with the school's website, I'd like to know what, if anything, happened on the 15th).I've worked in elementary schools, kids who get picked on who tell a teacher get picked on even more. Teacher's can't be everywhere, and students outnumber them 30 to 1, and only a few of them are usually out on the school yard during recess, so they're outnumbered about 100 to 1. You can't really expect them to even be capable of accurately monitoring all the actions of that many kids, all running around yelling their crazy heads off.
How many times do you have to walk away and suffer the abuses of others before you have to stand up for yourself? It's a tricky situation. I don't think Casey should get off Scott free, he did resort to violence and that's wrong (bla bla bla), but I also don't think he had much of a choice. This way, there's a chance that his torment might end (though, given the way kids are these days, I doubt it), tattling wouldn't have done it, walking away wouldn't have done, maybe a body slam is what it takes?
I'm rambling now, and I don't have an answer. Remind me not to have kids.
-K
