I was really intrigued by this week’s cover story, mostly because I’m intrigued by social media, and I’m intrigued by crime—not intrigued enough, mind you, to commit it myself; I just find it interesting to learn what motivates people to break the law.
This is a wired world we live in, with our words and actions sticking around in a virtual library of sorts for far longer than any member of any previous generation could possibly have imagined. This column, for instance, will probably outlive me—especially in light of the rate at which I’ve been downing double-chili-cheese millet cakes recently.
But my point is that the Internet archives our words and actions for years upon years, and anyone with a computer or a phone or, soon, a pair of glasses can stumble upon or even seek out that information and hold it against its author or perpetrator for good or for ill. And despite knowing this, people still do stupid stuff and upload text or video to their social media platform of choice.
Of course, not everyone voluntarily ends up online, but—again, knowing that our culture is riddled with surveillance technology—people still act in ways that seem to indicate they think they’re invisible and invincible.
Take, for instance, the recently uploaded footage of what’s reportedly a man dousing the patrons of a Santa Maria bar with pepper spray after his being forced to leave the establishment.
I took a look at the video, and it’s appalling:
The footage is black and white. It’s a little grainy, but hey, it’s from a security camera. We shouldn’t be expecting high definition.
A large, shirtless man hurries into the building and through an interior door. He’s walking with a sort of angry purpose, using the sort of stride you see on jerks who realize several minutes too late that they’ve been insulted and have a comeback that’s less witty and more injury based.
Nothing moves for several seconds, and then the guy hesitantly backs into the scene again, waving a canister around like he’s spraying air freshener into a room he recently fouled. He’s aggressively nonchalant, if you can imagine such a thing. He backs into another door, spins, looks as if he’s about to sprint into a counter, then pivots and hurries out into the night again.
The guy looks like a jerk all the way, the sort of dude who can’t stand for a second to think that he’s been diminished in any manner whatsoever. I added my own dialogue to the otherwise silent scene: “Slight me, will you? OK. Fine. Enjoy these debilitating fumes.”
A press release from the Santa Maria Police Department indicated that the victims had difficulty opening their eyes for the next hour. The word “mucous” was thrown around, and I can bet its appearance wasn’t voluntary on the part of the bar’s patrons.
This guy in the video may be trying to come across as “this is what you get when you mess with me” tough, but he actually comes across as a dork.
Santa Maria police officers are looking for the suspect, and are looking for help in their search.
In other caught-forever-on-video news, I have to mention another down side to social media: You can’t trust it. As I was writing this column, a colleague made me aware of a March 18 morning broadcast by FOX31 Denver, which was covering a helicopter crash in Seattle.
The production team decided to display images from a Twitter feed of photos from the crash scene, and they decided to display these live. If you know the Internet at all, you probably know what happened next, and no, the embarrassing photo that popped up wasn’t of Hitler.
Everything seemed normal at first, or at least normal for such a tragedy. Then came a photo of Edward Scissorhands. Then an omelette. Then a penis.
The anchors—to whom the station immediately cut—looked horrified. The station has apologized, and the initial responses I saw from viewers fell mostly into the “Aw, it’s OK, mistakes happen” category.
Still, it just goes to show that you can’t trust the Internet. It will record any admission you’re unwise enough to make publically. It will allow police officers to disseminate your likeness to hundreds, if not thousands of ready and willing would-be detectives out to spot you. And it will show your private parts to Denver—assuming you’ve uploaded said private parts in the first place. And that thought makes me want to revise my sentiment.
Ahem.
Still, it just goes to show that people are stupid.
The Canary doesn’t even post pictures of her food. Send comments to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Mar 20-27, 2014.
