90
lol people bringing up the extremely obvious eye safety hazards in the comments are being screamed down by whimsical brits
We have a long tradition of doing silly and dangerous things. Particularly in small towns. Some have formed out of old oagan (pre-Christian traditions), some for more questionable or objectionable reasons like this one. They keep going because a lot of people have good memories of them and it becomes part of a local identity.
I watched this video, and lots of people make mention of how the tradition started, and how the pennies used to be actually hot. And why. Its referred to multiple times. Your post implies this was glossed over, but you clearly got the info from the video, so it's not exactly hidden. Maybe that's why OP says, "no need to watch it", bevause they know they're telling fibs for outrage bait?
Look up The Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake. People get really hurt doing that.
A cold penny to the eye could still mean a trip to the hospital, so I don't see why that matters. Some safety squints don't seem unreasonable, but anyone who mentioned it was shouted down for ruining everyone's fun.
Yeah it's quite dangerous, there is moderate risk of mild injury and very mild risk of serious injury. But everyone participating knows that.
I summarised the video and didn't do outside research. The point is that they're celebrating something that should be shameful. They explain the mechanics of how it's horrible but not that it is or that it shouldn't be celebrated. The closest they get to a condemnation is saying they've adjusted the tradition to be safer.
They didn't say "and that is wrong". But I think that's because it's obvious. There were a few raised eyebrows or a change to the tone of voice, so it was certainly implied.
Like if there was a documentary on the slave they might not actually say, "and this was a bad thing", bevause obviously it was a horribly bad thing.
And so obviously they stopped celebrating it, right? The last line in the video is
We're about making certain that these wonderful old quaint customs continue.
Backed by the sound and visual of Tom clapping.
If you think I've misunderstood this documentary designed to bring awareness of a social ill, then fair enough. In that case my criticism is that Tom didn't make a video that communicated that well enough, and my criticism of the town remains unchanged.
Least pyschopathic day in Britbong Land
not every tradition need have a nice origin for it to be ingrained into the community.
this particular tradition is not still nobles trying to hurt poor people for their amusement, it's the townspeople throwing their pocketchange at each other in a vague remembrance, so long as they're having fun with it and wish to continue i don't think it's very problematic.
I was thinking about this video for some time now. Wonderful, old, quaint custom my ass. I'm sure all those collected pennies add up to a decent sum of money, couldn't that be used for idk at least feeding the homeless or smth? Also what's that mayor even wearing? The brits really went ahead and saved every deeply shameful tradition they ever had.
Jesus fucking Christ, I knew there was something wrong with brits but not this wrong.
There is a pattern I have seen in Tom Scott videos, he only makes videos about the "international community" countries.
Ah, western culture
Edit: I watched the video and the op actually does misrepresent it. Both Tom Scott and another interviewee both separately mention the origin of it. Also, I thought it was going to be folks just pegging pennies at each other on street corners, but no it’s a one day festival that people willingly participate as Pennie’s are tossed from balconies in an organized manner.
So although the origins are shit, it doesn’t seem to be the worst thing. The main issue I can see is safety. Tom Scott gets hurt at one point, and at another says “I hope I don’t get hurt.” You can see a couple shots of people covering their heads in the crowd, and Tom Scott also notes one of the throwers is not tossing pennies but rather throwing them down on people. One of the interviewees even says “we just have to hope nobody gets hurt.” So sort of fucked up, I probably wouldn’t participate, but not the worst thing that exists
For a whole bunch of "Good salt-of-the-earth Christians" WASPs are some of the most gleefully evil shitbags in human history.
The barbaric traditions of western tyrannical monarchies
I want to know which psychos idea it originally was to heat up a penny to scalding temperatures before tossing it to be fought over by the desperately poor?
"Traditions deserve to be preserved."
A YouTube link was detected in your post. Here are links to the same video on Invidious, which is a YouTube frontend that protects your privacy:
this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
90 points (94.1% liked)
GenZedong
4251 readers
6 users here now
This is a Dengist community in favor of Bashar al-Assad with no information that can lead to the arrest of Hillary Clinton, our fellow liberal and queen. This community is not ironic. We are Marxists-Leninists.
This community is for posts about Marxism and geopolitics (including shitposts to some extent). Serious posts can be posted here or in /c/GenZhou. Reactionary or ultra-leftist cringe posts belong in /c/shitreactionariessay or /c/shitultrassay respectively.
We have a Matrix homeserver and a Matrix space. See this thread for more information. If you believe the server may be down, check the status on status.elara.ws.
Rules:
- No bigotry, anti-communism, pro-imperialism or ultra-leftism (anti-AES)
- We support indigenous liberation as the primary contradiction in settler colonies like the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Israel
- If you post an archived link (excluding archive.org), include the URL of the original article as well
- Unless it's an obvious shitpost, include relevant sources
- For articles behind paywalls, try to include the text in the post
- Mark all posts containing NSFW images as NSFW (including things like Nazi imagery)
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS