Cheering and shouting “World Star, baby,” passengers aboard an NYC subway train were videotaped in November encouraging three young men to punch and kick a stranger who was hospitalized with injuries.
Rather than onlookers’ filming the beat down, victim Daniel Endera later told a reporter, “they should have at least called the cops.”
Either way, the highlights make ideal video for World Star Hip Hop, which is a YouTube-like video website where users submit amateur videos that are then selected by the site’s staff for publication. The videos fit into three neat categories: rap, sex or violence.
Another egregious example occurred Saturday in Atlanta, where two of the teens accused of beating a young man they perceived to be gay had video cameras rolling during the alleged attack, which was uploaded to World Star Hip Hop and other websites that alerted police and prompted a federal investigation.
“When I found out the video was online, I didn’t want to see it,” said Brandon White, 20, the Atlanta victim. “It was embarrassing, it was humiliating. Why? Because it was one guy against three other people. By them going ahead and wanting to release it and put it on the Internet, I feel they wanted the attention, they wanted to make themselves look like they were brave, they were strong. But in my opinion, I’m the brave one.”
Such violent videos, shot by amateurs witnessing or participating in fights, have triggered at least six criminal investigations since April 2011 and highlighted what at least one sociologist calls the normalization of violence.
Source: By COLLEEN CURRY Feb. 8, 2012 ABC NEWS