While colloquially known as Zangief for sharing the signature suplex of everyones favorite Russian Street Fighter, the 16 year-old Australian student Casey Hayes took the internet by storm by taking out impressive revenge on his small tormentor. The video quickly went viral, causing multitudes of remixes and voice overs, and all those "internet justice" types such as Anon and 4Chan had a field day obtaining private information and raining hell upon the bully Ritchard Gale. The primary issue brought to light by these groups was the punishment of Casey Hayes. Casey recieved a suspension nearly as harsh as that of his pint sized bully. Clearly from the video we can see that Casey is under attack and the fact that he kept calm so long is a feat in its self. Society's stance on school yard fights remains unmoved; violence is never an option, even if provoked. No matter how vividly Casey is portrayed as shinning beacon of support to the bullied, as an adult complying to societal rules and such, we must place him in the wrong. We simply can't glorify real violence between teenage kids. Deep down inside, I still wan't to give this kid a high five.
I think Gabe and Tycho over at Penny Arcade hit this nail on the head. 
I would argue that probably this enjoyment of Casey being able to defend himself is just our attachment to the underdog. I mean who doesn't want the underdog to win, if the more dominant person wins all the time, it's so boring and expected. Now, I'm sure many of us have had times where we have been buillied or teased to some extent. Because so many of us in our own lives have been underdogs at one point in our lives, we identify with Casey. Casey fights back and destroys the bully. Isn't that a dream come true? To stand up for oneself with such a statement is surely in need of applause.
ReplyDeleteOne part of me feels almost bad for the little kid because he got humiliated on a national level but then the other part of me is like screw that casey rocks. This video has been up for a while yet I recently came across a video showing the little kid basically defending his actions and saying that casey was actually bullying him first. obviously I have no idea what is true, but just from watching this video you can see how opposed casey was at first to any sort of violence and then he just snaps and goes at him. bravo casey
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc_Vp9CkYko&feature=player_embedded#at=19
ReplyDeleteI found this great animated video titled "Casey the Punisher scores victory against bullies". It seems to have aired on the Chinese news, which proves just how much universal appeal the story of the underdog has. Evidently the Chinese commentary is on Casey's side, because the last bit is a funny cartoon of Casey's assailant limping on crutches, with the wise advice "Pick on someone your own size".