Greece, N.Y. – Luis Recio Junior, the 13-year-old Greece student, who shot the bus bullying video that went viral this week says the kids involved were inspired by Comedy Central show Tosh.0.
In the show Daniel Tosh belittles people shown in YouTube clips.
Recio says the group had hoped their 10-minute video in which they berated a school bus monitor would make the show.
He added, “I’ve seen people recording bullying every day on YouTube so I thought, ‘Why would this be a problem?’”
The potential link between Tosh.0 and this incident is reminiscent of the days when violence among children was blamed on videogames like Mortal Kombat.
RIT media professor Liz Lawley objects to these correlations.
“Almost all of the real research on this has disproved that,” Lawley said. “Kids don’t emulate what they see in the media, there’s no provable connection.”
Several people who posted on 13WHAM’s facebook page argued the bullying is a byproduct of a changing society.
They claimed kids are no longer disciplined and, in turn, have no respect for others.
Lawley takes issue with this theory as well.
“Cruelty in children is nothing new,” she said. “We’ve seen this in literature, media and our daily lives for a very long time … What’s new is that we’ve got this citizen reporting.”
