THE AGE OF TRAUMATAINMENT
Brutal events caught and shared on social media would make the ancient Romans proud:
An endangered silverback gorilla in the Cincinnati zoo, a screaming woman wearing a red sleeveless top in a Toronto Costco parking lot.
I repeatedly watched two viral videos of traumatic events that occurred last weekend starring each of these main characters.
And I can tell you that woman in the red top, screaming obscenities and doing her part to escalate a parking lot brawl that flared into physical violence, scared me almost as much, if not more, than the gorilla.
Welcome to “traumatainment” folks. It’s an interactive social phenomenon in which we videotape strange, scary and unusual incidents, post them and then spend hours if not days, replaying, analyzing and of course judging all the participants’ behaviour.
The ancient Romans would be so proud of us. Who needs gladiators and a special arena with baying toga-clad citizens betting on the outcome when we have today’s movable feast of venues — zoos, parking lots, airports, McDonalds’ drive-thrus (Remember “McFreakout” several years ago, in which the woman, growling, hissing and screaming, “Don’t make me assume my ultimate form,” smashed the drive-thru glass window when she couldn’t get McNuggets at 10:30 in the morning?), you name it; people either act very badly or inadvertently get themselves into big trouble faster than you can say, “Where’s my phone? This is amazing.”
Oh Harambe, we barely knew ye before you became a traumatainment superstar. The late and now virally great silverback, newly 17 years old and minding his own gorilla business, met a tragic end last Saturday, shot dead by a special team after a 4-yearold boy in bright little shorts managed to make his way through a wire fence and drop terrifyingly down into his moated enclosure.
No clip of King Kong or any other big scary animal movie could, in my mind, compete with those few seconds of video showing the little boy, amid a tropical backdrop of water, trees and a waterfall, completely at the mercy of a 204-kilogram gorilla, who appeared alternately protective and agitated as he held the boy, pulled up his pants and then dragged him by the arm.
The gorilla’s handlers tried to lure the gorilla out of the enclosure, but perhaps distressed by the understandably terrified cries of the onlookers including the parents of the boy (“Mommy loves you!”), Harambe dug in and refused to leave.
The zookeepers obviously had no safe way to quickly save the boy’s life but to kill the gorilla. He didn’t deserve to die. However, a little boy’s life was in danger. That fact hasn’t stopped social media baying for blood. No togas necessary, although I’m sure more than a few of those critics were cosily clad in pyjamas in the safety of their homes as they spewed out their invective calling the little boy a “brat,” accusing his parents of “negligence” and tenderly memorializing the gorilla.
People, people: please get some perspective. Over the past two years, as the Organization for Migration recently reported, an estimated 8,000 migrants have lost their lives trying to cross into the EU in search of a better life. Where is the outrage there?
No, it’s so much easier to zero in on a few sorry seconds of footage — an heroic and noble animal, dead because of human bungling or a group of men and women, alive and sentient on a sunny day in a parking lot, who, for a few minutes, acted as though a coveted parking spot was more important than their dignity, their physical safety and even their lives.
Just one gun could have turned this Costco craziness into a bloodbath. As it was, before an attendant and others responsibly intervened, one man got punched and the woman in the red top got knocked down on the pavement.
I am not blaming or making fun of this woman. Others were also responsible for the fray. But she caught my eye and I have a message for her: try to figure out why you became involved in this horrifying incident. Vow never to care about a parking spot that much again. Imagine if it had gotten even more violent. Hug the people around you. Have a nice cup of tea.
Are we the public further traumatized by watching traumatainment? I think not.
We are, in fact, energized. “You have got to see this!” I actually interrupted a conversation in a bar at a loved one’s birthday party Sunday night to say that about Harambe’s encounter with the little boy.
I did not take my phone out, but there were quizzical looks — and laughter. I couldn’t explain why everyone needed to see it now.
My husband, at his fitness club, spotted the Costco parking lot punch up replay on the big screen and phoned me, quipping, “So they shot the poor gorilla but the parking lot brawlers live on.” Thankfully.
What will be our next traumatainment? I don’t know, but I refused to even click on “Woman fails to save friend in Australian crocodile attack.” Judith Timson writes weekly about cultural, social and political issues. You can reach her at judith.timson@sympatico.ca and follow her on Twitter @judithtimson