Dad laughs at students falling on ice ...

People in our industry tend to lack compassion more than most. Which is why I find this hysterical. As with most viral videos these days, though, others have their panties in wad. Too bad for them.

I can't really tell you why this is funny ... we've all seen people fall. It just is.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/maycie/this-dad-sat-outside-his-daughters-school-and-laughed-as-he

 

I kept wondering why he didn't get out of the car and warn kids there was an icy patch. Having nearly given myself a concussion falling on ice this winter I'm a little sensitive.

 

1) Dickishness has consequences. I might have given a little sardonic chuckle when one or two people went down, but sitting there for minutes on end and just watching people take dives on concrete crosses over into active-asshole territory. Taping it all and putting it on Facebook removes any and all sympathy factor -- this guy is just another sniggering fratboy prick who deserves a full-throttle kick in the dick.

2) Other than getting out and physically flagging kids around the ice patch, I am not sure what he really could have done right there at the moment. Although I think almost all school districts have crossing guards/safety supervisors at bus-loading zones and the intelligent thing would have been to buttonhole one of them and say, "kids are going head over heels over here, somebody lands wrong and busts a leg and it could be lawsuit city for the school district."

Or even mention it to any cop who may be standing by. They usually have little enough else to do, no reason they couldn't buzz the main office and say, "hey you better send somebody down to the maintenance office to grab a bucket of salt and get out here."

 

I bruised a tailbone slipping on ice when I was in college and it was not a fun injury to put it mildly.

I watched the video and laughed. Obviously, it would have been different if someone was hurt. Fortunately, that was not the case.

 

I think I'm too annoyed that he didn't turn his phone sideways & film it properly to find any humor in it.

**The first time I saw this, it wasn't stretched to widescreen, like the one in this link is. I'm still bothered by it. :**

http://youtu.be/wGm3t3OCT7Y

 

People falling down will never not be funny. It's one of the three pillars of comedy, along with passing gas and nut shots. The Neanderthals laughed at it. Ten millions years from now, the blobs of gaseous intelligence that inherit the Earth will laugh at it.

 

This is the difference between, say, America's Funniest Videos and Tosh-O. The former is light-hearted while the latter can be downright gruesome. I would put this video in the former category.

 

I think us saying it's funny is independent of this guy deserving to have his dick put through a meat grinder and then someone pouring salt on it.

We laugh because the kids weren't hurt. But, in the moment, any one of those kids could have been seriously injured and he did nothing to prevent it in order to get laughter. I hope the guy filming it gets an STD from a horny grizzly bear. But you all laughing at it isn't really all that bad, since you have the benefit of hindsight.

 

Sure, I yuk-yukked a couple times, but after about the third kid goes down, you have to think, "Shit, glad that wasn't my kid going to the pavement and having to go in for x-rays," as well as, "shit, as a taxpayer of this school district I know it's coming out of our ass financially when sooner or later some kid does end up going in for x-rays," so continuing to sit there and yuckity-yuck definitely crosses over into kick-in-the-dick territory -- without even having to detour into hearts-and-flowers "boo hoo won't anyone think of the dear sweet children."

 

If this happened in Latham, Mass., he'd be sentenced to one year in jail and have the cell next to Elaine, Jerry, Kramer and George.