Party Vibe

I think spin and sales talk (which started in the 80s, way before Blair) has made a lot of people cynical about any type of “good news” and lazy reporting causes a lot of extra fear of crime

I can read crime news every day and “not have nightmares” but this is due to 10-15 years of closely scrutinising media, Civil Service and police procedures and thus knowing where the errors creep in

for instance yesterdays local paper’s website reports a stabbing but doesn’t make it at all clear it was in East London rather than East Anglia, a casual reader (ironically, particularly those who don’t read the article because its “too depressing”) is often going to assume the crime happened in their neighbourhood

we get two “free” papers from the same newspaper company. These contain the same crime stories, and therefore its again easy to double-count the amounts of crime happening.

Yes, there is a problem with gang violence in cities. I am not surprised though, as since the 1990s tabloid media and the TV has increasingly championed “macho” attitudes amongst young men.

We have a national broadcaster which pumps millions of public money into a soap opera portraying Londoners as stereotypical violent and lecherous thugs (if its was about black people I would compare it to a minstrel show).

Reality TV shows encourage bullying and humiliation these days, or segregating people.

David Cameron whinges about what rappers and MC’s chat (fair enough) – but told the news he was up for a “bare-knuckle fight” with Gordon Brown, rather than a “debate”.

with all these mixed messages, is it any wonder young men in particular follow these examples?

There was a load of gun violence and gang violence across the UK around that time, I remember it too, I think it started after the authorities clamped down on the drugs culture of the early rave scene (that TBH caught them unawares) and the dealers fought for turf in a more competitive environment

That said, the internet/24 hour news has been around for 10 years now, I have been checking it for all this time.. I think what has definitely happened is that even if the levels of crime are are same, a younger group are using more violence against one another, in everything from playground fights in junior school to “gang” activity. Ironically this is a return to Victorian values as this sort of thing was rife (including shootings) until the First World War!

At least in the 90s people were waiting until their 20s to kill one another.

Amongst my younger friends I do feel a lot of them have become more desensitised to fighting and violence. Not that they are thugs, nor that they enjoy being caught up in it themselves (at least not the people I commonly hang around with), but they seem to grudgingly accept it even at places like free parties where once it was uncommon, and/or are unsure what to do about it (especially as they have lost faith in the Police and other government authorities).

I think that youths are feeling powerless and hopeless and being in a gang or fighting gives them some form of empowerment (and many weapons are carried for self-protection), whilst at the same time more positive (if mischevious) things like putting on raves (even legal ones) are discouraged by society

I also feel that within the media and establishment there are many “Angry Old Men”, middle aged white males are extremely pissed off with the amount of social power they have lost to others and those who have media access are using it to express their anger…

I am more worried that history is in fact repeating itself and it will take World War III to bring us to our senses (I don’t think this will be a nuclear annihilation though, at least not in our part of the world)