happy slapping

[dove]

these words indeed, make me want to shout.  lets not undermine whats going on, !

Its assault, abh gbh and everything else.

God,  its making my blood boil to even assume its fun!

there are innocent people out there, I know, im one of them, and so are my children.

Why make it a good, ok, saying?

It is criminal!

 

 Why isnt it called so?

[lindapinda]

I know,I totally agree with you. It just seems that acceptable behaviourable standards have dropped so much,that it creates a climate for this sort of horrendous,cruel carry on, to be treated as a gimmick almost! It is criminal action,period!

[flashpig]

I imagine everyone who knows what the term means knows that it is criminal, gbh, etc. And everytime I have heard it used there has been some kind of summary of what it is. It is very much a word in inverted commas, and there is no danger of it replacing the term 'assault'.

It is a good saying, if you want to put a moral interpretation on it, because it highlights the callousness of the 'happy slappers'. An assault reported in the papers would seem bad, if they had done it for fun it would seem worse, but to have it given such a flippant name shows just how terrible they are, that they do not even see what they are doing is anything other than fun.

It is a good saying in papers (because I have only heard it in the context of news or news discussions, I have never heard anyone say "I've been happyslapped") because of the reason above and because it is reporting facts and trends (the term 'happy slap' arrising is a news story in itself), and (I could be cynical here) because it makes an even more sensational headline.

And it is a good saying for the happy slappers (possibly the only people to use it outside of the news context) because they probably see it as fun. They probably don't see the term assault reflecting their pleasure.

It would be interesting to know whether this type of mindless assault (or happy slaps?) have increased since happy slapping has been used as a term in the news, and how the term has spread. Personally I think the term is an overused gimmick (like 'chav'), whatever the effect it is having.

[Cockney_si]

If you've ever tried to capture an image with a digital camera, moving or otherwise then you would know that it's near enough impossible to get it right everytime.

I'm afraid the original happy slapping craze was an urban myth passed around the playground to deter kids from taking their phones to school and getting them stolen and then used as a bullying tool.

Even now phone camera technology is so slow that the best course of action to take is either run or retaliate, either way the camera on a phone wont be able to prove anything as its so slow.