Teens Destroy iPad
Have you seen this YouTube video that’s making it’s way around the Internet? It shows a group of teen guys outside of a Best Buy intentionally destroying a brand new iPad with a baseball bat after one of them paid for it with his own money.
So is this is a youthful rebellion against the idols of their parent’s generation? Is it a bold statement about rejecting the technological materialism that is endemic in our society?
I kind of wish it was, but it turns out that the 19-year-old who posted the clip actually loves Apple and bought two other iPads to keep and use. He just knew that someone would be the first to repeat with an iPad the Internet meme of destroying an eagerly awaited object of desire, and he wanted to be the first.
His name is Justin Kockott, 19, and he’s taken a lot of heat for the act of violence in the comments to the video on YouTube. I thought this brief Q-and-A with the LA Times was revealing, as he seems to be trying to answer objections about his management of resources and the wisdom of spending $500 in this way.
For instance:
Some people are saying I should’ve donated the money instead of wasting it. But my family donates money all the time. Last year we gave $10-15,000 to the Make a Wish Foundation (my little sister is sick). It’s not like we’re greedy, it’s not like we did it to rub it in and say, “We have the money, oh look at us.”
You’ll hear some off-camera strong language in the clip, but it might make an interesting conversation-starter with your child about the value of objects, use of money, and what wisdom has to say about managing resources—or you could talk about what it looks like to smash our idols. Or the long-term consequences of Internet foolishness and instant celebrity. Or what they (or you) would like to smash with a baseball bat on YouTube.
Whichever way you go, there’s some kind of powerful object lesson in this somewhere.
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