Why has our generation become so heartless?

Recently, a video showing a girl being brutally beaten went viral.

The video begins with the two girls, both relatively young, talking calmly amongst themselves. It then gets a little heated as the attacker corners her prey and, before you can even blink, swings a right hook so powerful that it causes her victim to fall flat on the ground.

There is kicking, there is shouting and there’s a horrifying crunch as the attacker kicks her victim in the ribs. The victim is left lying on the ground as her attacker taunts her, asking whether she wants more. The video was disgusting, it was nothing more than an act of bullying, filmed and uploaded for the world to see.

Sharkeisha’s attack was caught on video

By the afternoon, the video was trending number one worldwide and remained so for the rest of the day.  You’d presume that this was mainly out of disgust and concern for the girl who had just been brutally beaten, right? Of course not! I’m sad to say this was not the case, people were so preoccupied with the attacker’s ridiculous name “Sharkeisha” that they failed to dismiss the video for what is was – a vicious assault and an obvious display of bullying filmed for the world to see.

Where was the outrage? The condemnation of the bully? Instead the video turned Sharkeisha into an overnight sensation as her twitter followers sky-rocketed and she revelled in her new found fame.

It almost seems as if social media has desensitized us. We care less about the horrific things we see because we see them so often. Things that we once found horrific are now, well…funny. We accept things that we wouldn’t normally tolerate because were not faced with the consequences.  We can sit and laugh at the name of the girl beating up another girl because it doesn’t affect us and it’s funny so who cares? It’s a vicious cycle really.

The Sharkeisha video is not a glitch in the system, it happens all too frequently. From the boy who took a selfie when his teacher was having contractions to the girl who fly- kicked her little brother for vine, we see the videos, laugh and rarely if ever criticize the actions of those involved.

It’s sad that we’re condoning violence, it’s even sadder that we actually share it for people to see. I don’t know what’s worse, the people who upload these videos or the people who sit there and laugh.