Every Thug A Star: Vancouver Riot Fueled by YouTube Wanna-Bes

The devastation last week when the Vancouver, BC hockey team, the Canucks, caused a riot by losing the Stanley Cup Final to the Boston Bruins, was shocking--and not just because sports fans can turn so mean.

Though it was appalling: A downtown destroyed, a hundred people arrested, nine policemen injured, 15 cars burned...because of a game?

To my feminine brain, the idea that team supporters could get so worked up that they go on a burning, looting, stampeding, violent rampage en masse--abandoning all morals!--is incomprehensible.  But when you start watching the YouTube videos, you're transported to the thick of it, and the outrageous mob mentality fomenting evil becomes real.

What was different about this monstrous reaction to something inherently minor in the scheme of life?  Canucks fans probably don't think their team loss was minor--after all, Vancouver has no other major sports team, and viewing the Finals' Game 7 was organized to be a city experience, with bleachers and seven huge screens set up on Georgia Street downtown. But sports, while a major business and industry, is merely peripheral to life's necessities, such as food, shelter, a source of income, family connections, and health.

The thing that made this urban outburst unique was that something new, beyond masculine idiocy and selfish thievery exacerbated the destructive mentality:  ubiquitous cell phones.

When you look at the YouTube videos posted, you realize that the mere fact of their availability means somebody was abetting the havoc and mayhem by standing there recording it.  Observers posting their videos undoubtedly felt they witnessed something significant--but failed to join with the overwhelmed police or lone citizens trying to quell the throngs to stop it.  In fact, their actions added to the difficulties.

The second thing you notice when watching is that nearly everyone else on screen not actively bashing or kicking or crashing something is also taking a video or a photo. No longer are news events "covered" by reporters sent belatedly to the scene. Now, when something unusual happens, individuals become device-holders; recording one's surroundings becomes integral to participants' experiences.

What that does, again visible on the posted videos, is encourage criminals' bravado.  You can see the thugs standing on overturned, burning cars, making muscles posing for a friend. You see them running in front of burning stores for the snapshot, then running back into the mob.  You see guys grabbing wooden planks, shoving them through glass into window displays, then raising their fists triumphantly, proclaiming their macho act, posing for the semi-circle of cell phone-holding spectators, heard cheering their subject.

And the hoodlums have no fear that their performances will bring reprisal, even as they show off for the phone-wielding hordes.  Instead of encouraging restraint, since they can be identified and more easily prosecuted, the cell phones seem to make every thug a star, every evening's anarchist a hero.

Rather a famous bad guy on this "reality TV" than a decent person with what used to be considered "normal" values.  Could it be that all the sluts-as-celebs and jerks-as-leading men on cable shows fascinate the public so much their despicable behavior is now seen as compellingly benign? What is it about a dozen cell phone cameras trained on him that makes a guy completely negate his upbringing?

It's true that religion in BC is in retreat, and latest census data shows "no religion" as the most popular option, selected by 35% of the population.  But don't even atheists have a concept of being a "good person"?  Wouldn't that include refraining from bashing in store windows with posts--and then when a singular man protests "What is this? Are you guys insane?" attacking him, kicking him and bashing him until he's a crumpled heap in the gutter?

I gasped when I watched that, a burly guy who'd answered the hooligans, beaten down by six or seven creeps, until he lay motionless in the street.

I was also agog to read the coverage of the riot in the press.  All written in the passive voice--so that nobody's actually responsible. By using that grammatical structure, the perpetrators aren't criminals or thugs or hoodlums or looters but rather, neutral forces:  "Windows were broken..." "A large two-by-four was jammed..." "A Honda was overturned..."  "It started with a couple dozen plastic bottles being thrown...then fireworks were ignited...a gray SUV was set on fire..."  All this from a single Seattle Times report of the mayhem.  What usually might say "A young man in a Canucks jersey stomped on a mailbox..." reads instead "A mailbox was stomped." The subjects causing the verbs are missing.  Can't imply these are bad guys breaking the law.

To be sure, many Vancouver residents are ashamed of their neighbors. Volunteers assembled to clean up the mess.  But the chutzpah of rioters to brag about their criminal acts on their Facebook pages, and post shots of themselves in the midst of burning mayhem shows the devolved character of too many people in chaotic circumstances.

My husband thinks the Canucks' loss was just the excuse for pent up anger, perhaps a "spring fever" delayed by bad weather, like what used to appear as annual college campus protests.  That suggests that the riots would have happened whether the Vancouver team won or lost.  Certainly the setting was right--crowds compressed into a tight downtown area, loosened by alcohol, anxious over their athletes' success.  But these were not downtrodden societal underdogs rebelling against broader injustices--rather, they were a mix of ordinary Canadian sports fans, more of whom should have stood up to blatant criminality occurring before their eyes.

Now, however, eyes are electronic, removing their owners from responsibility and direct connection to what they view.  At this point, the Vancouver riots are another form of entertainment; something else to raise our eyebrows for a moment, before we upload other scraps of life into the ether.

Writing Avoidance and "Social Media"

The New York Times' business section is something I usually scan and toss--until today. I kept reading articles--one on Tumblr, touted as a cross between Facebook and Twitter. Another on author Buzz Bissinger's conversion from Twitter con to Twitter pro, as in he used to despise it, now lives by it.  As psychological release during writer's angst.

Reading the first piece, my visceral reaction was: "Both Facebook and Twitter are such colossal time-wasters, and they're turning everyone narcissistic. Now there's another tiresome 'social network' to soak up the day for suckers." Simultaneously, my other brain is thinking, "hmm, better join Tumblr."

Because unlike Buzz Bissinger (right), who wrote the sports classic "Friday Night Lights" 22 years ago and, while yet to duplicate that success, keeps churning out product, I use any number of procrastination, distraction and obfuscation techniques to keep from completing projects I could be whipping out.

Do I need Twitter to jump-start my industrious spirit?  Do I need to emulate Buzz Bissinger, who Tweets, "When people call me over-the-hill I react with profane defensiveness. But maybe it is true. It crawls into my head every minute, every day" and then, unburdened, returns to his keyboard?

Um, maybe. Writing is lonely, but if there's something to say--and someone waiting for it--you really can't dither around much.  But now there's Facebook and its tempting voyeuristic sense of skulking around people's lives.  Email, the old standby, provides an hour of diversion.  Web links, another hour, and then it's time to pick up a kid, or listen to the can't-miss radio show, or start cooking, or get to the market lest we're out of milk.  I wonder if Buzz buys the milk in his family?

On the other hand, Twitter and Facebook and now Tumblr and any number of their competitors can be seen as promotion.  Authors need audiences; even more, they need purchasers.  You don't make money on Twitter, and probably not on Facebook or Tumblr, but supposedly they're required to promote the author "brand."

Truth is, for many of us, the psychological bugaboo is probably low self esteem; fear of failure; the same fear Buzz Tweets about--being told you're no good, over the hill, unworthy.

The over-the-hill idea fits because anyone who grew up with My Space and Facebook and YouTube doesn't have that fear.  Used to being "right out there," casually insulted, and publicly teased--and even more often, praised and "friended," kids just don't care about others' judgements.  Their self-esteem is so secure, so lauded, so intact, they'll easily put up a video of themselves singing off-key the 3,000th "cover" of a song, just because the world can see it. Once you can click onto a website and see yourself singing, you're famous; you feel good.  Now, just get other people to subscribe to your channel and "follow" you. No need for any authorities to validate your worth.  These are the seeds of the out-of-control egos and "look at me" mentality that are everywhere.  America's got talent, and YouTube's got everybody.

Note to self: get over it and learn some bravado from your son, who just had his 18th birthday Friday and has many, many followers of his YouTube channel.

What? Counting followers?  The world's laughing--maybe. Better check Facebook.