Wednesday, September 28, 2005

The Joys of "Happy Slapping"

From here:
Did you say dogging or blogging? Brits confused
Sep 28 9:57 AM US/Eastern

By Jeffrey Goldfarb

LONDON (Reuters) - Proponents of the latest Web trends were warned Tuesday that the rest of the world may not have a clue what they are talking about.

A survey of British taxi drivers, pub landlords and hairdressers -- often seen as barometers of popular trends -- found that nearly 90 percent had no idea what a podcast is and more than 70 percent had never heard of blogging.

"When I asked the panel whether people were talking about blogging, they thought I meant dogging," said Sarah Carter, the planning director at ad firm DDB London.

Dogging is the phenomenon of watching couples have sex in semi-secluded places such as out-of-town car parks. News of such events are often spread on Web sites or by using mobile phone text messages.

More people (56 percent) understood the phrase "happy slapping" -- a teenage craze that involves assaulting people while capturing it on video with their mobile phones -- than podcasting (12 percent) or blogging (28 percent).

"Our research not only shows that there is no buzz about blogging and podcasting outside of our media industry bubble, but also that people have no understanding of what the words mean," Carter said. "It's a real wake-up call."

Question is, would I rather be "blogging" or "dogging"? Come to think of it, some "happy slapping" would be darn right cathartic. Especially if practiced here: