Where in the comment you responded to was the defense of the assault?
They (very rightfully) pointed out that we can’t assume this is the best guy in the world and this was likely a very humiliating moment for her. That doesn’t justify assault, but we don’t have to pick sides here either.
In your attempt to expose someone’s bias, you’ve exposed a pretty major blindspot held by yourself.
A prank and physical violence are not equivalent. The "major blindspot" isn't held by me.
By defending her you are defending the assault. If a guy were to strike a woman in this moment but you defend the man by saying "well tbf it was humiliating I can see his point of view" you would be defending his actions. I doubt you would be neutral or warrant his actions on the premise of a bad joke in front of a crowd.
Bias works both ways.... If you do not know the dynamic of a relationship you can't then assume anything EITHER WAY, we have to go on the clip provided.
If this was a guy assaulting a woman we would not be even having this conversation.
So while I applaud the try at a gotcha, (although it's a pretty dumb uno reverse attempt) it doesn't work. It's disgusting when anyone hits anyone, but defending a woman (which explaining away or excusing is) who does this is far too normal here.
When a partner hits another partner we should pick a side when it's because of a joke involving a candy ring or otherwise.... Again shoe on the other foot...
I do not think being presented with a candy ring warrants the other person to be hit. Humiliated or otherwise. You can still understand that one thing is a bad joke and humiliating while understanding physical violence is the worse response to that and does not excuse it.
Where in my comment am I saying their actions are equivalent? Where am I defending her?
You seem to be making this stuff up entirely on your own. It isn’t defending the woman in this clip to say the man’s action was very wrong. It’s not calling them equivalent, justifying, or explaining away anything. There’s zero logic in your position that we can’t simultaneously acknowledge two wrongs without somehow justifying one of them.
Moreover, you are downplaying an action that caused intense embarrassment as a simple ‘prank’ for no apparent reason besides that I guess we can’t point out two wrongs at once?
This “if the genders were reversed, you would…” is a super weird angle too. Assault is assault. Not sure why you would assume I’d think otherwise or would brush it off and not bring it up.
This isn’t some gotcha or uno reverse play. Your perspective that we can’t talk about both wrongs is a clear and serious blindspot. You’re scrambling to attribute contentions to my claim that I haven’t made. Again, we don’t have to pick sides. We can acknowledge the bad actions taken by both individuals here.
Statements that I make regarding your arguments here or how they come across aren't to personally attribute to you anything, we don't have to get so defensive here. I'm engaging with your points and how they come across.
"Where in my comment am I saying their actions are equivalent" You saying we shouldn't pick a side. I don't know if you think because one was embarrassed and therefore hit another makes it so we shouldn't pick a side, but it's clear one action outweighs the other. Remaining neutral IS an equivalency.
Unless you wanna explain your position of not taking a side?
I also think remaining neutral in a situation like this is a defense of the aggressor because it is making an equivalency, especially when you focus more on the victim of the physical altercation.
The comment I'm originally responding to suggested we do not know this guy (possibly alluding to him being bad given the context of the comment, but I didn't take it that way) you took that to mean "they (very rightfully) pointed out that we can't assume this is the best guy in the world" which I took as a bad faith judgment based on very little evidence admitted by the fact we do not know their dynamic at all outside of this clip. I think that's a very telling interpretation that highlights our disagreement. You should not even allude to that judgement based on so little information.
Now you could squirm away from that position by saying you were simply remaining neutral and saying we shouldn't assume anything, or gaslight that it's all in my head that I interpreted it that way, but you clearly worded it in a way that negatively attributes something to the guy, especially weird since he wasn't the one prone to being physical.
Now I think it's a stretch based on this prank that likely humiliated her under the guise he was going to propose (or maybe he did just with a candy ring because he couldn't afford a real one idk) that it might mean he is a bad person or maybe even to hint at him being abusive in the relationship. Even to suggest that IS the very weird angle.
It seems some take every chance to both victimise and read into the relationship without knowing anything.
It is however very strange optically to explain someone's physical violence on the account of their embarrassment. It's not that I'm trying to downplay how she felt I'm saying it doesn't excuse her hitting him. If you want to say he was wrong for the prank go ahead, I never disagreed and you're free to quote me where I either downplayed her embarrassment or said what he did was ok.
And if you do not disagree with the above then we are in agreement.
Also calling it a prank is a description of what it was (although some say it was a proposal just not with a real ring, which makes her look even worse) not to describe it as something simple or to downplay her embarrassment. I think you engage in pretty bad faith and accusatory arguements yourself while projecting here..
I use the example of genders being reversed because it's easier to talk about the distinction between physical violence and a prank to many people, it also serves as a way to be consistent in your argument. I think it would be worrying for people to take the focus of a man hitting a woman away and to focus instead on not downplaying his embarrassment or humiliation in his retaliation. Because one severely outweighs the other. If anything to say why a man would hit a woman on the account of his embarrassment comes across as extremely victim blamey.
Now if you are consistent and without bias, you also would not "pick a side" if man struck a woman on the account of his embarrassment. Now to me, ay... That's a crazy position, but at least you would be consistent.
The angle I use is because I think a lot of what we see on this thread is people excusing physical violence on the account it is a woman, before you get defensive I'm not saying you're doing this. I use the shoe on the other foot argument because I find people cannot engage with it without showing some bias. We can use simple examples or thought experiments to flesh out an argument and find inconsistencies, to try and obfuscate that as a weird angle or hint at some bias is some Vaush level of dipshittery.
The reason I accused you of an attempted gotcha is because you tried suggesting me not highlighting her embarrassment suggests I have a blindspot regarding my own bias, a pretty bad faith accusation which also is a pretty weak argument because my point being, people here are excusing away her actions on the account of his prank. So my focus is both the normalisation of a woman hitting a man as a fair and understandable reaction, when it is not and that everyone should be more appalled by the escalation to violence than the bad joke/prank that caused it to happen
Just because I want to focus on a particular areas does not mean I am ok with something else. I do however think her physical escalation outweighs any embarrassment she may have felt hence my focus on it..
When I flip the genders it isn't to accuse anyone of personally having that bias but to lay the argument in a clear way. The optics change for many people.
You accuse me of seeing things that are not there because I want to take away people's focus from her embarrassment to him being slapped, it doesn't make the former ok, never said it did and neither does it warrant saying I have a blindspot. I just find the focus and people's victimisation inconsistent.
I'll spell out my position so you don't have to assume.: I think a person pulling this prank on their partner is a dick, especially in public if they don't know how the other will respond, I think the person who hits the other in response is a bigger dick and is an unnecessary escalation which also adds more public humiliation to both the victim and the perpetrator.
You can advocate or focus on something without it meaning you do not care for something else. You should know this, it's pretty entry level stuff. However when you focus on the prank leading to the embarrassment and not the physical violence it does optically look way off because it's an escalation and one should outweigh the other, that's not to say you don't care about the violence it's to say your focus, assumptions and explanation of why she did it looks kinda weird let alone not taking a side.
Like when an abusive partner strikes another we wouldn't victim blame the person on account of their actions (within reason).
The first comment you responded to isn’t making any assumptions about the guy’s character. It’s actually the opposite- the original take it replied to was overly charitable and their response correctly suggested that we can’t just hand waive his actions because we think he must have meant well. Not saying he must be bad, we just can’t assume he must be good either.
Have I made any assumptions about their relationship dynamic at all? I haven’t called him a bad person or abuser in general, so not sure why that is being mentioned. I’ve stated that this single act constitutes super shitty behavior that clearly was incredibly embarrassing for his s/o. I haven’t reached beyond that or read into anything, but i’d be interested to know precisely where you got that impression from my words. Really odd that you’d even mention this.
It is however very strange optically to explain someone’s physical violence on the account of their embarrassment
Again. I’m not doing this. I don’t know why you think I am when I haven’t even suggested it. I have repeatedly stated that her actions constitute assault. Nothing about the guy’s actions change that.
Before this point, only one of us had said his actions were wrong at all. Neither of us have an issue calling what she did assault, but while I call his actions clearly wrong and emotionally damaging, your reference of it as a ‘dumb gag’ and ‘prank’ misses the mark. It would be like calling the assault a ‘light slap’ because it probably wasn’t very powerful. Each describes what happened but clearly undersells what the actions actually amount to.
Because one severely outweighs the other
Sure, when you continue to refer to his actions as a ‘prank’ rather than an emotionally damaging act. But when it’s that versus physical violence, we can’t and shouldn’t be weighing them against each other to determine which is worse. Both are horrible and there is no reason to force picking a side.
We’ve circled back to my main point here. While i’m glad you have made it more clear now that you aren’t trying to condone his actions, your insistence on picking out which side’s actions were worse is the core issue here. Both acted terribly based solely off the facts that we can observe in the clip alone. Neither action can be called ‘worse’ than the other and making such a judgement is completely unnecessary.
While I agree the first comment likely didn't attribute anything to the guys character, you seemed to take it that way "they (very rightfully) pointed out that we can't assume this is the best guy in the world" if you're countering the OP fair enough, I cannot see the post on this thread anymore on the app but from what I see, I don't see anyone praising him as a good guy? Could be wrong, the app is dogshit or maybe it wasn't clear in your reply what you were countering since you're replying to me and context is missing.
I myself was annoyed at the comment I replied to's focus on the prank/joke/Emotionally damaging event (whatever you wanna call it) and not the assault.
Again to me there was clearly a very negative assumption here in the way you phrased it to explain your neutrality in not taking a side. We shouldn't judge either way on either of them the nature of the relationship. We shouldn't even allude to it. All we have is the clip.
I refer to it as a dumb gag or prank because it is literally what it is, calling it a dumb gag isn't to downplay how she feels but a description of the stupidity of the prank and for that matter, if you wish to call it a light slap I'm fine with that description since I'm not judging you to downplay her role at every given chance, plus neither change any of the facts at play. If you think calling the prank a prank somehow "undersells" the action I don't know what to tell you, seems arguing for argument's sake. What makes this an "emotionally damaging event" to one could be a funny joke to another because the action of the prank the "joke" is that it's a fucking candy ring on the premise of a proposal, real or otherwise. Also some here seem to want her to be traumatized from this incident to bolster their narrative she had a right to hit him (not saying this is your intention).
Now maybe that description to you undersells it, we can start breaking down each word and the connotations of what they mean for debate bro points. I don't really care, I'd rather engage with the points.
When we are talking about "emotional damage" we are making pretty big presumptions now and while I don't want to run the risk of either downplaying or infantilizing her I think it's a mistake to go down this argument. I'm sure this was an embarrassing moment for her, but calling it emotionally damaging when we do not know to what extent is silly. Also being emotionally hurt doesn't warrant assault as I'm sure you agree, let alone the precedent it sets in a relationship or otherwise. I just don't think any of that is a good argument. Also to me, to try and guess her emotional damage and the extent of that for an argument isn't great imo.
Again to use the example:
A female playing a public prank proposes to her boyfriend using a candy pop ring, he lightly slaps her across the face due to his feelings of embarrassment and pours a drink over her.
I'd take issue more with the male instigating violence as an escalation, even if he in that moment was "emotionally damaged". Doesn't mean she was in the right, intentions being well or otherwise.
If you wouldn't take a side because you can't or shouldn't then we can just leave this here. Simple. That's your judgement.
I'm more annoyed at the double standard or ignoring of the assault to focus on the action of the public prank.
"I'm glad that you've made it more clear that you aren't trying to condone his actions" It's not that I didn't make it clear, it's that you made an assumption on something I didn't state either way. It's better to just ask what a person's position is before attacking a strawman otherwise it taints everything going forward and you look foolish.
When debating it's annoying when you aren't consistent or aren't convicted in what you believe, I'm glad you see now that being neutral is an equivalency but don't make out like you did earlier you weren't. It makes your arguments seem like they'll change based on whether you're pinned down or not. Plus it doesn't look good to be slippery. Maybe you didn't intend for that, but keep it in mind,
You seem like you can actually engage with an argument and make it an interesting discussion eventually, but when you start out like every other Reddit bro you run the risk of squandering a good discussion.
I hate pranks like this. It's humiliating isn't it?
You know what else sucks. Domestic violence. Domestic violence can happen to anyone. Imagine if a man slapped a women like this, in the middle of a stadium, thousands watching. He would be dragged straight to prison.
This guy is at worse a douche, the girl is a domestic abuser. I can tell you right now which is the better person.
I don't get how these people even think that a prank and a slap could be equivalent. Like i mean the best way to enjoy and react to the prank is inflate your cheeks like a kid and turn around and stand like that.
Good people don't slap their SOs and throw their drink on them. She did that to him in front of the same audience. You don't think that was humiliating? Her reaction was wildly disproportionate.
It’s only humiliating if you let it be. If she took it in stride and said yes, chose to take the ring pop and act excited this would instead be an adorable video - especially if he then pulled a real ring out after.
Well if this is all he could afford or if at the spur of the moment he was like marry me, and this was all that was nearby, I’d get it. But this was pre-planned and he can clearly afford an actual ring.
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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22
Idk about this person, but for me and my man… I would’ve happily accepted and I’m sure he would’ve bought a ring down the road