Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2010

It would be really hard for anyone not to be able to search back into the folds of their memory and pull out from the days of their youth, the instance of a fight in the pale colored hallways of their high school.

Usually those fights include a quickly gathering crowd of spectators and a couple of quick to react teachers who pull the two brawling students apart, disperse the crowd and lead the two offenders down to the principal’s office where their parents are likely called and their attendance requested.

Times have changed.

Last week’s incident of a fight between two Brandywine High School students that ended up on YouTube was a reminder of a couple of things.

For one — how technology has made even the most troublesome events everlasting. Sure the link itself might have been pulled from the website but odds are it will find new life on a Facebook page.

The second and more disturbing reality that stems from the incident is the mirror these grainy, mobile videos have turned on ourselves.

There was a time when we could stand by and do nothing while punches were thrown and hair was pulled and simply go back to our daily lives with the knowledge of our do nothingness tucked neatly in our back pocket.

Now, we see that we have no problems standing by — even cheering on — the beating of one person by another in a harsher, digital light.

There’s nothing really shocking about two teenagers who dislike each other and fall victim to their immaturity so much as to take it to the street.

But there is something unnatural and disturbing that we seem to have forgotten that we’re supposed to break them up.

Not make them a two-minute bout of entertainment in our day.