Man Walking Into Glass (An Oldie But Goodie)
Back in the not-so-distant past, it was possible for someone to casually walk away after smashing their face into a plate glass window. Maybe a few people saw you do it, but once you got in your car and drove away that was pretty much the end of the story. For the most part, an embarrassing moment like that stayed between you, the plate of glass, and maybe the guy who corrals the shopping carts. It was a simpler time and we liked it that way.
But that was the not-so-distant past, and this is the not-at-all-distant present: one teeming with surveillance cameras in every public nook and cranny. In this crazy, futuristic dystopia, if you walk into a plate glass window and smash your face, there’s a pretty good chance that it’s going to be captured on camera, and if you get caught on camera smashing your face into a plate glass window, there’s a pretty good chance that it’s going to end up on YouTube. Bad news for you, the person whose face just got smashed, but for the rest of us here on the internet it’s nothing short of a blessing.
I feel bad for this guy to a certain extent. I’m sure that smashing his face on that plate glass window hurt like hell, and having thousands of people laughing at him probaby isn’t helping matters either, but at some point doesn’t our laughter make up for his pain? After a few thousand people have laughed at him on YouTube, doesn’t that outweigh his one moment of agonizing face-pain?
If I’m wrong we’re just laughing at other peoples’ misfortunes, but if I’m right? If I’m right we’re improving the net amount of happiness in the world by watching this guy smash his face on a plate glass window. Let me put it another way: We’re basically saving the world the world right now. Pat yourself on the back.
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March 27th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
this reminds me of this time that i was meeting this girl for the first time that was good friends with my brother. When we got to her house i we hit it off instantly. Me, my brother, and another friend of ours were in her backyard playing football and she called us inside to get something to eat. I was running full speed to get into the house and i ran into her screen door and broke it.
March 19th, 2008 at 12:15 am
No, that would still be pretty fucking funny.
March 18th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Birds do this all the time at my office. Only they’re quite delicately constructed, and frequently die.
….Gosh, I’m sorry—was that like a sort of comedic buzzkill? Man, this humor thing is tougher than it looks.
March 18th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Since when did ABBA have a drummer? I kind of hope he did say something about severed arteries, because I personally find irony the greatest form of comedy known to man.
March 18th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Stiles: I actually had to ask a friend if he knew what you were talking about to figure out what you were referencing because I completely missed that news item. I wish I could say this was a subtle and carefully-constructed reference to that event, but I seriously didn’t even know about it until just now.
Dude’s name was Ola Brunkert. Shitty way to die, and there’s nothing really funny about it… unless Ola Brunkert once said that people severing their jugulars on broken glass is the greatest form of comedy known to man. Which I’m pretty sure he didn’t. Then again, I don’t know much ABBA trivia, so who knows?
March 18th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Now I’m kind of curious to see whether or not this turns into a full-fledged “if they didn’t feel bad when they posted… [insert hilarious atrocity here]” fest, and whether or not it actually does result in drawing a negative enough overall pattern of behavior to elicit some kind of reaction.
March 18th, 2008 at 10:52 am
If they didn’t feel bad when they posted that video of the old guy falling up the escalator not long after Kurt Vonnegut fell and died aren’t going to feel bad about this.
RoWo even linked the fact that Vonnegut died by falling up with the video, since he was once quoted as saying people falling over was the greatest form of comedy known to man.
March 18th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Yeah, I’ll bet the creators of the same website that joked about a dead child found in a dumpster feel absolutely horrible about posting a video of a man faceplanting into a plexiglass wall on the same day that a relatively obscure (to preempt any debate of this; without reading that article, what’s the deceased drummer’s name?) aging musician is reported to have died in a somewhat similar fashion. Well played, sir.
March 18th, 2008 at 9:07 am
Oh, on the same day that as teh reports that the drummer for Abba died walking in to a glass door:
“Brunkert hit his head against the glass door that led from his kitchen to the garden, breaking the glass and cutting his neck severely.”
Oh no, do you feel bad.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3571682.ece
March 18th, 2008 at 8:45 am
I wonder how many times the employees had to clean face marks and hand prints off that glass? I am hoping that someone runs into that glass at least once a day…but I know I am dreaming.
March 17th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
I miss Lex.
March 17th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
The video looks staged. I’m calling St. Paddy’s Day Shenanigans on the guy in it.
March 17th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Is it wrong that I watched that 4 times back to back?
March 17th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
I imagine Lex gets pretty lonely at that desk Glendoor…..
That poor guy bouncing off the glass was a total ‘look round, check for witnesses and stroll away as if nothing happened’ moment.
Ahh, good times.
March 17th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
I miss the old layout. The one that had the news with a freeze frame of Lex Friedman looking like he was constipated or in the middle of an orgasm that stared me in the face for two days.
The video was funny, nothing like seeing someone else look like an idiot to feel better about yourself.
March 17th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
I’m not particularly proud to say that I had a Stinkymeat t-shirt circa 2000. I also had a Mullets Galore t-shirt (and matching bumper sticker). Needless to say I was very, VERY popular with the ladies.
March 17th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Classic? I guess so, but for me classic internet means the T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. experiments, or the original Stinkymeat projects.
March 17th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Aah, a storming return to classic comedy. Super-ironic webcomics are all well and good, but you can’t beat the holy trinity of face smashes, nut shots and auto-erotic self-asphyxiation… Err… I mean cats falling off stuff… Anyway, moving on - Internet, we salute you!
March 17th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
The new layout? I saw it briefly, now everything’s back to the same old ugly red and grey.
I’m kind of glad no one I know has a video camera, getting back on topic, as I regularily embarrass myself like the face smash guy above.
March 17th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Hmmm, going a bit Jeremy Bentham on us at the end. No qualitative distinction? It is better to be a discontented Cracked reader than a contented Youtuber…
March 17th, 2008 at 11:27 am
it is shitty- I really really really really hate this format- I can’t even see who authored each entry. Fuck you Cracked- give some credit to the writers
March 17th, 2008 at 11:17 am
No one has yet said anything about the new layout of the blog…
March 17th, 2008 at 11:09 am
At least he wasn’t running.