Last Updated on: 31st December 2022, 09:39 pm
Listen, mom of Russell Gortzig. YouTube is not responsible for your kid’s deciding to light himself on fire like the guy in the banana suit did on YouTube. You know who is? Russell Gortzig is, and partially, so are you.
If he didn’t see it on YouTube, he would have gotten the urge to set himself on fire because of something else. Maybe he would have decided to play a rousing game of kick the flaming ball or lighter tag. Maybe he would have tried to light his farts. Or maybe he would have wanted to do something else equally stupid and dangerous. the point is he’s a bit goofy, and goofy people will do goofy things, and have done them long before there was a YouTube.
And the reason you’re partially responsible, mommy dearest, is because you’re his mom. You need to know what he’s watching on the TV and the net, and teach him that that guy in the banana suit is trained and has probably taken a precaution or two or six. If you didn’t, then stop trying to blame YouTube and shoulder part of it yourself.
Steve and I have talked about this before in the context of the Victoria Lindsay story. Stupid people have done stupid things long before there was a YouTube. The difference is now there’s an entity at which the victims’ families feel they can direct their anger. It’s wrong, but they do it anyway. It makes them feel better. But the problem is one of these days, their dear little kids are going to get another stupid idea, and it won’t have come from YouTube. Then who are they going to blame?