Not music per se, but grime-related...

Noah Baby Food

Well-known member
...ITV News have just had a feature on the Happy Slaps phenomenon. They fear that it may culminate in the loss of life...for crying out loud. Some funny clips though, some dude in a hi-vis jacket getting chased down the stairs of a double-decker bus. BRRRAAAAP!
 

Noah Baby Food

Well-known member
Well, I enjoyed it anyway...

Where was I?..oh yes...As I was saying, I feel the semiotic qualities of Danny Weed's work in a way harken back to Musique Concrete and the early work of Cage or Stockhausen. Perhaps the polyrhythms are subconsciously taking us to a near-mythical world, where the revolutionary qualities of European Modernism were still untainted by commercial expectation. Hang on, my mum's on the phone.
 

Pearsall

Prodigal Son
Noah Baby Food said:
Well, I enjoyed it anyway...

Where was I?..oh yes...As I was saying, I feel the semiotic qualities of Danny Weed's work in a way harken back to Musique Concrete and the early work of Cage or Stockhausen. Perhaps the polyrhythms are subconsciously taking us to a near-mythical world, where the revolutionary qualities of European Modernism were still untainted by commercial expectation. Hang on, my mum's on the phone.

:D
 

Noah Baby Food

Well-known member
Glad my "witticisms" went down okay...nice day here in Leeds today, feeling cheeky...

Happy Slaps: This is where bored grimey youths in London go up to people randomly in the street, slap 'em, film it on their videophones then shot the thing out all over the web. Getting a big "moral panic" going here in the UK at the moment, so it seems. Like a low-rent gangsta Jackass. Some bloke got his eye hurt or something.

Just found this good article about the phenomenon:

http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CAAD3.htm

containing this quote:

"Perceptions of a happy slaps epidemic make sense because they are plausible in the present context. The panic mixes chav-baiting, fears about black youth crime and new technology, and celebrity culture. Their actual rarity is overshadowed by the broader culture of combining self-expression with degradation. Pundits and web-posters may complain of youthful, Dogme-style violent videocasts, but the blame lies with an increasingly voyeuristic media culture. Truly the fish rots from the head first."

there ya go cats...
 

Randy Watson

Well-known member
Yeah, randomly assaulting strangers, what a laugh. :mad:

You think it's scaremongering? The college where my wife worked was advised to give security for all staff after a female member of staff was assaulted by a gang of teenagers, beaten to the ground and had her bag stolen. All that was recorded on a video camera by one of the gang.

If you think that's funny then one of us is on the wrong site.
 

Noah Baby Food

Well-known member
'Course I don't think that's funny. Just found the story interesting, the fact that it was on the news, y'know from a sociological viewpoint...because I'd heard about this carry-on on grime forums a fair while back.

What you describe there is, obviously, bang out of order. But the guy running down the stairs of the bus? Sorry, that WAS quite funny. I like to try and observe these things without getting all moral, that's all, not trying to be inflammatory, just wondered if people had heard of this malarkey....
 

jenks

thread death
having been attacked on a train i'm not inclined to find random acts of violence amusing whatever gloss someone puts on it
 

Woebot

Well-known member
Thanks for posting this NBF, it does look kind of fascinating.

Followed the links through to here:
http://loneliestjukebox.blogspot.com/
which is the blog by the Media Studies Prof who The Sun interviewd on the "phenomenon"

The term "Happy Slaps" does kind of lull one into thinking its a big joke. I wonder how big it actually is. Also I suspect in 99% of cases I suspect it translates into "lets dunk drippy Johnnys head in the school loo only lets time lets film it" ie just a slick rebranding of bullying.
 

bun-u

Trumpet Police
No, this craze is very popular at the moment and has been for a while (surprised the media have only just latched onto it). I think it’s started off with kids filming each other jumping off garden sheds a la jackass type shit but has branched out to filming ridicule and bullying (see crazy titch’s film on practice hours). Apparently though the most popular form is going up to somebody twice as big as yourself and giving them a big smack in the chops (the clip will show the audacious youth performing the act, but will stop as they leg it to face the consequences)
 

tox

Factory Girl
Noah Baby Food said:
http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CAAD3.htm

containing this quote:

"Perceptions of a happy slaps epidemic make sense because they are plausible in the present context. The panic mixes chav-baiting, fears about black youth crime and new technology, and celebrity culture. Their actual rarity is overshadowed by the broader culture of combining self-expression with degradation. Pundits and web-posters may complain of youthful, Dogme-style violent videocasts, but the blame lies with an increasingly voyeuristic media culture. Truly the fish rots from the head first."

there ya go cats...

Found that article quite interesting. The media are often liable to jump on a bandwagon and exaggerate a phenomenon like this. Another example would be the emergence of "toothing". Although a completely fabricated idea, the media were pleased to show new technology being used for sexually devient purposes and so reported it as fact. Further more, the media reports seem to have spawned a community of toothers who actually do it... More here.

Not to say that the idea of Happy Slaps is fabricated, as the videos have been around on the internet for ages now, but the problem is surely being exaggeratted for the reasons suggested in that article.

Its also important to note that not every random act of violence is a "Happy Slap" nor can be blamed on the phenomenon of "Happy Slaps". Filming a crime, does not a Happy Slap make. This is not necessarily a defence of Happy Slaps, but some of the reporting about this does strike me as slightly hysterical.
 

Noah Baby Food

Well-known member
Now this is interesting. Don't tell anyone, but I work for ITV and we have access to the duty logs, the comments made by the public about the channel's programming. I just found this referring to the Tonight With Trevor McDonald show about "Happy Slaps":

"My name is (removed fro privacy) I am 14 years old and go to Longfield Comp, in Darlington. After
watching 'Tonight with Trevor McDonald' a few weeks ago, I became aware of 'Happy Slapping' and
its consequences. I am sorry to say that the problem is escalating. Before the program was aired
on ITV1 I had not even heard of such a thing. But now my school has been taken over by the
craze. You said on your show that the 'Happy Slapping' was escalating out of control, but that
was not the case. We HAD NOT EVEN HEARD OF IT!Thanks to your show, my school is now in
chaos! You can¿t even walk down the corridor at school without seeing it happen to someone. I
must admit that the 'Happy Slappings' at school may not be as brutal as the clips shown during
your program. But still we are 11-15 year olds who want to learn and do well at school, not be
kicked in by the few idiots that roam the corridors during lessons."

Responsible media reporting eh?
 
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