Woman was told by AppleCare that he could walk in the store and a part

[am_fek]

All right, enough of this. Perhaps I made a mistake with my damn sentence structure, using the word ‘probably’ in the wrong place, which could to some extent mislead someone into thinking I was making some sort of categorical statement, but you are taking this a bit far now, particularly given that you clearly did make an unwarranted categorical accusation.

I did not call the store rep an asshole, I was making a hypothetical argument, and you damn well know it. My point, quite simply, was that on the one hand we have the possibility that this woman was tearing down the rep for no good reason in order to show off or to shame them, versus the certainty of what has been done to her since then. The Vine video, the retweets and the reblogging, the remixes all over YouTube, the Facebook posts… Millions of people will have seen this by now and you are deluding yourself if you think that this won’t come back to impact her quite seriously in her personal life, and maybe her professional life as well.

She might be a bad person. Or she might just be a normal person having a bad day at that point in time. As you said yourself, we don’t know the full story. But that didn’t stop you from declaring that she ‘must’ be an attention whore and was about to pull rank. Right before you accused me of being the one making up stories, of course.

Obviously no retail employee should be subjected to abuse given the low wages and crappy conditions that they have to endure every time they put on their uniform. That much goes without saying. However, what does appear to need reinforcement given the prevailing opinion here is that we are all human, and we all fuck up from time to time - including you, and including in public. Why should all of our indiscretions be broadcast for all the world to see and judge, again, as you so astutely noted, without the aid of the full story?

Maybe being an asshole (and maybe not) versus definitely being punished far worse than almost any other asshole you’ve ever encountered has been treated before. How can you defend it, honestly?

[grumblebum]

Hold on a moment. Why are you talking about 1850s frontier towns?

One of your main arguments seems to be that the potential social ramifications resulting from the broadcast of this woman’s behavior are somehow new and outsized. They aren’t. They are the same ramifications that have existed as long as human societies have existed. The circle of “people who were not even involved,” but weigh in anyway, is simply larger.***** If this lady had stomped into the Analogyville Five & Dime and thrown a similar fit, we wouldn’t get all scold-y when uninvolved townsfolk used reports of that event to shape their opinions of her. Likewise, we’d understand if they perhaps decided to decline her business at their bakery or withdraw her line of credit at their haberdashery.

Draw up a ledger in your mind…

I did. It balances out profoundly differently than yours. In my book, the discomfort and stress felt by the store employee (and, from just that camera angle, at least 20 surrounding people) absolutely outweighs her possible embarrassment. Her family, friends and employer probably already have an inkling of how she conducts herself, don’t you think? Their choice to remain her family, friends, and employer won’t likely be altered by other people seeing what they’ve already seen.

As for the children:

1. Seriously, you’re going with think-of-the-children?
2. Fine. The child is right there, while she’s yelling and pounding its stroller, fer chrissakes. I kind of suspect that the 15 second internetshaming of his/her mom is going to be the least of this kid’s worries, growing up.

***** If you think a little harder about this issue, I wonder if you might curtail your hand-wringing. For instance, the expanded circle of “bystanders” isn’t just a source of unfair, kneejerk judgement. It’s also a source for upwelling, unconditional support. It would not surprise me in the least if this woman is already enjoying significant sympathetic treatment from segments of the big, bad internet.

[am_fek]

Sure we’d understand if the local townsfolk would decline her business at the bakery, just as I would understand if the reps at that Apple Store would also wince at seeing her again. In the setting of the frontier town, they would know the woman very well and would form a holistic judgement of her based not just on the outburst but on the wider context of who she really is as a person. What we, or at least I, would not understand is if, three thousand miles away, another baker would do the exact same thing without any of that context, just because someone else who happened to be there made the decision that the situation warranted nationwide naming and shaming. I just can’t see how the frontier town analogy holds up. The ramifications are so clearly new and outsized with the internet that I find it incredible to have to explain it to someone. “The circle is simply larger” is a joke, right?

A few other quick points:

1. Stress of the employee: I can’t believe you pick apart my point
   about the kid’s inevitable reckoning with this video but also go
   back to this old classic. WE KNOW. However, the employee holds up very well under this scrutiny. He or she (I honestly can’t remember which and I’m not going to play it again) was composed and seemed to be doing all the right things as far as I could tell.
2. “Seriously, you’re going with think-of-the-children?” is not an argument. Are you trying to say that it’s not a fair point? If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the internet is that these things do not go away - ever. You could be right that this will be the least of his or her problems given a daily grind with crazy mom, but you might also be wrong. “Might” be the least of his or her problems versus “definitely will” have to live with years of humiliation when his or her friends are old enough to trawl Facebook timeline histories.
3. Stress and discomfort felt by the surrounding people: if the
   witnesses were so stressed and discomfited by what they saw, then
   why were they drawn towards it? Besides, even you would have to admit that this is clearly more of a reach than noting the consequences for the child.

Sure, there is a possibility that this woman’s personal life and her career prospects might not be affected by this episode, but we are back to this old chestnut again: how can you defend someone making their own decision to administer internet justice, without having any kind of background knowledge about her (or the possible effects that decision might have on her) and most likely without even hearing the beginning of their conversation (my guess is that nobody else paid a lick of attention until voices were raised)?

There are thousands of accounts out there these days about the effects people suffer after this kind of exposure - no doubt many have been featured here.

[grumblebum]

You know, I started the day off with a rather massive argument with my girlfriend about this issue. She generally thinks I’m pretty fucking awesome, but she basically took your stance (sight unseen). This suggests two possibilities to me: 1) I am absolutely terrible at making convincing arguments, or 2) this is one of those topics where people of good faith can argue past each other forever.

I’m going with #2, not just for the sake of my ego, but because I do think I understand where you are coming from. I think we both can agree that the original vine-eographer’s decision to share this video was petty, and morally questionable. Just like we’d probably agree that the gossipy residents of Analogyville aren’t at their best when they inflict their forms of pre-internet justice. (Which, cozy notions of small town life aside, are just as likely to be unfairly divorced of situational context as an internet video.) And to be absolutely clear, I am not arguing that this woman won’t potentially suffer extra social sanctions from the exponential exposure (my gal raised the same point about the “other town,” and it’s a fair one, but more on that shortly…). What appears to be the major cross-argument, the place where neither you and I – nor my girlfriend and I – will be able to agree, is the actual/appropriate size of the sphere in which such social shaming does/should takes place.

For instance;

The ramifications are so clearly new and outsized with the internet that I find it incredible to have to explain it to someone.

Flip this, in all particulars, and you will see where I’m coming from. I find it amazing that anyone still thinks this is a “new” thing, or that it in any way changes our personal obligation to behave in a reasonably sane fashion in public. Public is public is public. The town is now the world, and this has been true for some time. I’m not saying that new technologies don’t increase the chance of personal embarrassment, and I’m not saying that everyone should deliberately enhance others’ embarrassment. What I’m saying is that whether only one person can see you, or one million people, your embarrassment is on you.

As to your quick points, in order;

1. I don’t think you do know. I would posit that this is a secondary cross-argument point. Opinions on this incident seem to break pretty clearly along lines of non-service workers and people with extensive experience in the service industry. Maybe you are actually in the latter group, and have simply forgotten how humiliating and enraging it is to have someone go off on you simply because they know you have to take it. Of course the Apple employee is composed. He/she is fired or otherwise punished if he/she isn’t. Interestingly, the employee and fellow staff members are actually probably at greater risk of measurable fallout from this incident than the yelling lady.
2. This is a tiresome claim. The internet is no more “forever” than the Analogyville Historical Society. Events may be recorded, but they only matter if someone goes looking for them, and knows what they are when they find them. We are talking about scale and time; the scale of the social sphere is indeed larger, but our attention spans are much shorter. Barring further developments, I suspect that people will be hard-pressed to remember this controversy much past the expiration of comments on this article. Yes, this footage could be rediscovered later, and prove embarrassing to the kid. Or it couldn’t. It’s funny that your hypothetical is the “definite” gospel truth, but mine is just a silly notion.
3. Why were the onlookers drawn to the uncomfortable public scene? Because someone was yelling like a crazy person.

So, to be 100% crystal: from my perspective, this really isn’t about “defending” someone’s video vigilantism as much as it is about understanding that public actions are public actions, and that the public sphere is just larger. The “other bakery” may be 3,000 miles away, but now it’s just in another neighborhood. You (and my girlfriend) seem to think that there is a magic line, an Analogyville town limits of sorts, outside of which public actions should somehow become private again. I can understand how that feels “right,” but nothing can convince me that it is correct. To me, it all comes down to an insanely basic, old-fashioned concept; if you don’t want to be embarrassed, try not to embarrass yourself.

This has been fun, but since I can’t make out with you when we’re done, I’m going limit any further unresolvable arguments on this topic to my girlfriend.