LogFAQs > #972909422

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


I mean - if you're going to say something like that, should we just go ahead and make elderly people with severe dementia "totally accountable" for dumb or ignorant shit they say? You can tell a lot of people who are recorded in videos in public freak outs have signs of drug abuse or untreated mental disorders. To answer your question simply - yes, that should be a get-out-of-jail-free card. They should just be ignored - not instigated further. It's likely a fragile person thrashing in a corner and not a certified bully.
To give a real life example - there was a dude who lived in the town I grew up in who had his entire family die in a barn fire. As an adult he carried around a photo of a family member and a photo of Elvis Presley - and he'd talk to them in public, oftentimes having screaming "arguments" with them. When I was a kid we thought this was the funniest shit ever, and I've heard stories of other people going so far as to provoke him - usually leading to him threatening violence. He was incredibly unstable. Even if the dude was an asshole a lot of the time - what good would provoking him or trying to make him "accountable" do?

If people claim the point of recording people in public is teaching them a lesson or holding them "accountable," what lesson is being taught to someone who requires a lot of special attention to actually change? People who have bigger shit going on that they need help changing? The whole idea of "teaching people lessons" is just some excuse - because in most cases that's not at all the sincere end goal of people recording. They usually just want to get some clout or exert their own power and influence over others. You can temporarily embarrass a person or confront them without making it a public spectacle online. I've done it plenty of times with people treating workers poorly.