Ok, so I've kind of found here that this thread, with its 548 replies, is getting pretty ridiculous and pointless now. None of the arguments made for the father or for the girl even matter and have no basis, so lets all go together to the mystical world of logic land, and all find out why together shall we?
The video is 8 minutes long. In it all that we see or hear from this man, is that he is a father of a teenage girl, who has bitched about him behind his back on facebook, after spending money on her laptop for her. He then expresses his frustration with this, and shoots a laptop with a pistol.
Now, I think we should all know here, that relationships between parents and children on average tend to go on for a bit longer than 8 minutes. A lot of events and complications will happen throughout their lives and their relationship, they will feel differently about each other as time goes on, and certain themes will tend to emerge and dissipate as the child begins to grow up, and the parents will react to these themes and phases with the best interest of the child in mind (hopefully). This is a very complex cycle of emotions and conversations and living with each other, that in no way can any of us here comment on having seen the father shoot her laptop on a particular day (even if you do find it immature, angry or funny).
And that's the kicker. Any argument or statement for or against either party on this thread is based on extrapolation, do you see? Everybody watching that video is looking into an 8 minute window of this family's life and circumstances, some people here are assuming, based on this brief 'encounter' with the father here, that he is a gun toting redneck with no parental skills at all, and that he probably has a history of erratic behavior or violence, and that the events preceding this video consisted of bad parenting, him neglecting his daughter and making her work for nothing, and that the events proceeding the video will consist of harsh punishment, more neglecting his daughter and making her life miserable. Others are assuming that the girl is an ungrateful, spoiled brat who had it coming to her, and that the events preceding this video consisted of her constantly moaning at her father, talking about him behind his back and being lazy and not doing her chores, and that the events proceeding the video consisted of her being righteously punished, and her father having her find the values of honest work and independence.
We do not, nor will we ever know, that any of these things are true. Everybody here is guessing from this tiny, insignificant gesture, the true nature of this family's life. Some may be doing it because they have experienced similar spats with their parents, and empathize with the girl, some may be doing it because they dislike people showing disrespect. Either way, you see what you want to see with this video, you are making up your own timeline of this family's history and future either side of this 8 minute video. Some people are trying to psychologically analyse this guy from the way he behaves in front of a camera for a few minutes, some are trying to scrutinize the facebook posts, and I honestly have no clue why, this is none of your business, I'm sure you wouldn't like the rest of the world judging your family issues. These are all pointless gestures anyway, nobody wins from this thread, there's nothing to be debated because we know nothing else of this family, we won't know who 'wins' in the end, but we will know that a lot of people will lose their time when they could at least be discussing something more worthwhile and interesting on this forums, if not just taking a break from them all together (seriously, the level of 'heated discussion' here is getting ridiculous for such a trivial topic, sometimes some people need to take a look at what they're getting so wound up about).
Now I think I'm being too optimistic of the escapist community here when I say this, but it's worth a try:
/thread
