There are some pussies on my Facebook feed who like to post stories about any black violence- no matter how stupid- and right now they're obsessed with the knockout "game"- which just shows how idiotic some people can be. Want to be afraid of something? Guns. Be afraid of guns. The knockout game? Not so frightening (except for big pussies)- so if anyone posts to you in complete seriousness about this, just file them as a pussy and move on:
‘The Knockout Game': Real Threat or Viral Legend? Facebook feeds and cable networks are full of coverage of innocent people being sucker punched. But there’s not much evidence of this “game” sweeping the nation.
Posted by Catherine Crawford , November 25, 2013 at 10:44 AM
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Once a day, Patch tackles national news that affects your community. If you have suggestions for tomorrow’s story, email catherine.crawford@patch.com.
It’s difficult to avoid the recent onslaught of media attention to the disturbing “knockout game.” On the off chance you missed it, “the knockout game” has been defined in the flood of recent coverage as a game where a random, unsuspecting person becomes the target of a “sucker punch” by a teenager. The goal, as teens describe it, is to knock the easy prey unconscious with one punch.
Articles about the game claim that it’s “spreading like wildfire” across the country. A quick glace at the headlines is enough to scare anyone from ever taking a solo stroll. Someone might knock you unconscious if you do!
A closer look suggests this is more of a viral story than an epidemic. It exists—teenagers have spoken to reporters about it—but there is, so far, no reason to fear it’s happening very often.
According to John Miller, CBS special correspondent, “If you look for it in the statistics, there's no cutout for the knockout game in the numbers; they're categorized as assaults, so you can't search backwards for them effectively.” One of the most common viral video clips accompanying recent stories on knockout is the assault on James Addlespurger, a 50-year-old high school teacher in Pittsburg. While the footage is certainly disturbing, it occurred over a year ago. Another oft-cited instance of knockout violence in Missouri happened two years ago.
Bob McHugh, a police spokesman in Jersey City, NJ, which is often cited as a hotspot for knockout activity but has yet to report a knockout incident, was quoted in a New York Times article last week as saying “If there ever was an urban myth, this was it.”
Certainly, there are documented cases of the disturbing practice. But the story has probably gone viral because it scares people. (Much like the urban legend that people will murder you if you flash your headlights at them.) Jeffrey Butts, director of the Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, thinks that part of the problem is that the practice is referred to as a game: “If these things were called 'random attacks' or 'sudden assaults' or something other than the word 'game' it may communicate a different message." But call it a game, and it seems like a movement sweeping the nation.
If you spend a lot of time on social media, you may have noticed that viral stories often don’t require critical thinking. Keep that in mind when you see something too bad (or too good) to be true. If you don't see it being reported by a local source you trust, keep your skepticism high. |
