I haven't read throught all the posts in the thread, but am I to late for a "screen shot" joke?

LOL No one else made it :) +1

There's potential here to derail the thread by making it a parable of the gaming industry and starting another tedious pirate/DRM discussion, with the cheeky self-entitlement and rebellious nature of the gamers, the arrogant, vengeful stance of the industry and its violent reaction, self-righteous feelings and no understanding on both sides and it all adds up to nothing good. Gamers get grounded, their games get taken away from them and their rights get shot, while the publishers come across as jerks and get nothing but hate from the people they should care about. :P

/troll-mode off (sorry, I couldn't resist)


Anyway, to say something on topic, I can understand the father, but I can also imagine how it looks from the perspective of the daughter, regardless of what a brat she seems to be. And I totally agree with most of what Red_Avatar wrote. IMO, it's a bad idea to fight fire with fire, especially if you care about a good relation (but maybe he's one of those parents that "sacrifice" themselves and make their children hate them for "their own good" ...). He looks like a cool dude, but I for one am really glad I never had a father like him.

If this is the "justice" that he is prepared to display to everyone on the internet, I worry about what "justice" he will dispense when she "disrespects" him while the doors are shut and the are curtains drawn.

1* I thought I was going to be the usual heretic of this thread, but fortunately there's already a healthy amount of people seeing the issue the way I do. A special shoutout goes to Magnitus whose post seemed to be taken from the depths of my heart... as I read it, all I could do was yell "precisely !" over and over...
What I'm about to say is probably more of an aggregate of previous posts but that's only because I've reached the same conclusions.

2* Let's get this out of the way - there are things that strongly put me off about the guy in the video that shouldn't matter when dealing with the issue as a theoretical problem and his arguments as general statements. He was smoking - I HATE smokers with passion. He had the kind of accent I instinctively associate with uneducated, rural, "traditional" people. A bomb went off in my head with all the synonyms for "redneck", "hick" and "hillbilly" I've ever heard in my life. He is a man - I tend to be very distrustful of them. He was speaking with hatred and vindictiveness and appeared to be HEAVILY influenced, perhaps even DRIVEN by them; that's a disgusting and humiliating thing.
3* This guy has failed as a parent and is a disgrace to humanity. A wise man once said that a true measure of character is not how we treat our equals but rather our subordinates. Resorting to threats and violence may serve as a desperate attempt at asserting your superiority... but it also proves that you have become powerless and have no authority to rely on.
This point is the most subjective by far, so I'll leave this here and won't attempt to further justify it. Just note that I have absolutely no respect for this guy.
4* The Japanese society relies on profit-duty relations, with pretty much everything nice being considered a debt you're meant to repay. There are, however, debts you can never even out - those include one to your parents. Aristotle, in his theory of friendship ("love", whatever you want to call it - long story) argues that a parent provides material goods and the child repays with love. (Ugh, all of this hardly proves anything but is supposed to show that parent-child relations can be considered using quite different paradigms)
What am I trying to get at ? It's patological to tell your child that (s)he OWES you for the elementary care you provide. Being a parent is not supposed to be rewarding or even something you are trying to break even at. It's not an exchange of services, it's uneven, it's supposed to be selfless.
"What if the kid doesn't fulfill their end of the bargain and doesn't love you enough ?", you might ask. That's not how things work. It would indeed be wrong but it doesn't really relieve you of your duties as a parent.
5* I find the idea that a 15 year old is supposed to find a job quite disturbing. Yeah - I know enough about American culture to perfectly envision it but I still find it messed up. Back here we have a holiday in mid-winter called "St. Steven's Day" when parents give cash to their children so they won't "sell themselves into servitude to their neighbour" aka: won't go looking for a job. The idea behind it is the attitude of "our family may be poor but not SO poor that our children have to look for work".
Of course - you may argue against this saying that teenagers should be out of this equation. I'd disagree.
6* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mhuDQcXd64 - does this sound familiar ?
7* The idea behind property is that once you give something away, it's no longer yours. You can't take it away when you change your mind - pacta sunt servanda. Of course - you could LEASE stuff, meaning you reserve a right to take it away later... But that's NOT, in any way, how you're supposed to treat your child.
Also - DRM is an excellent analogy.
8* Invading your child's privacy is something we can draw a juicy paralel to as well - the State is sort of like a parent, right ? So it should be able to monitor the flow of information of its children... for their own good. (Don't disprove this, this is quite obviously based on fallacies).
What does this show ? There should be trust instead of control. Draw other conclusions yourself - the arguments against censorship and gov. control can be quite easily translated into reasons why you should treat your child like the human being it is.
9* You know what's wonderful, inspiring and the source of all evil in this case ? Technology. Imagine if the girl merely talked to her friends about this stuff. As others in this thread pointed out - it's "venting", ordinary stuff. The only reason things went south (even though they were deep South already) was because her father intercepted her expressed thoughts. Solution ? Avoid technology, focus on analog-based means of information transmission. Alternatively - secure the privacy of your information so that it will remain safe from prying eyes.
Of course - you could also argue that parents might consider giving their children the right to think and say to their peers whatever they like ;)...
10* You should REASON with your children, not order them round. They are human beings, their intellectual capacities are astoudingly high and when treated as people - they will act like them. It takes balls to step down and show HUMILITY and understanding but I'm fairly certain it pays off almost always.
Imagine if he politely asked his daughter to calmly discuss the issue, apologized for all the hurtful things he said to her, explained his side of the argument and suggested they work out a solution to all of this together. This would be treating her like a partner in discussion, not a slave that's meant to obey orders. Envision this situation. What would she say ? How would she feel ?
Of all the things a parent can say, I think the most powerful is: "I'm weak, I'm human but I love you and I'm trying my best".
11* Imagine this girl going to school, going to work, doing housework, doing her homework and using some of the time left to sleep. How much leisure time is she going to end up with ?
For all those who'd speak from experience - is this really how things should be ? If you had to go through this yourselves - wouldn't you rather spare your child this fate ?

I was laughing my ass off. It probably won't solve much, but I like his stile.

Jebus, advocating not shooting a laptop and post on interwebz to get even with your kid is idealism? You people have no idea what you are talking about.
Do you really think he has no influence on what kind of a teenager his kid turned out to be?
Are you really sure he was a great parent but the kid turned out to be a brat? out of the blue just like that?

Shooting the laptop or not seems beside the point. My question is, what kind of father makes a youtube video to scold and humiliate his child? What kind of father doesn't remove that video when he realizes that millions of people are viewing it? What kind of father has that little regard for his family's privacy?

I have zero respect for this guy-- he can make whatever parenting choices he thinks best, but there's no justification for turning his family life into an internet spectacle.

Probably. If the DNA makes you something, no amount of "correction" will help. Happens all the time. All you can do is hope you won the lottery.
But upbringing can influence one way or the other. Now, if we take into account that every person or object (like the TV) in your life might have some influence over your future personality, you should REALLY hope your child has some tendency towards brainwashing techniques and that you are the perfect catalyst for his tendency. (as in, he listens to your advice with religious zeal).

Like with most things in our lives, we are at the mercy of brain chemistry.

After seeing this father shoot a laptop and post in on youtube to get even with his kid I do believe he had great influence on how his kid turned out to be. He sets an example for his kid, he is the rolemodel for the kid; I have no idea what he might have pulled before now that I see how he chooses to handle family issues.
And one more bullet for your mom? there you have it; a dysfunctional family with an inability to solve problems in a normal manner.

The funny thing is that he posted a Q&A on Facebook; he says they talked it over and the even she said the Internet is overreacting. And I honestly agree with that.

As for shooting the laptop, meh, who cares. It's just a laptop. It's not the cure to cancer or some holy relic because Steve Jobs kissed it while it was rolling down an assembly line. We hear of parents taking stuff away (XBox, PS3, whatever) and selling it on eBay, giving it away, or whatever... permanently removing it from the kid's use as 'punishment' for some kid's bad behavior. I don't see much difference although his method was quite a bit more dramatic, that's for sure.

And I agree with posting the video online. She sounds like a self-entitled teen. It's not like he overreacted on try one. He says multiple times she's done it before. Also I agree with the notion of she made the rant public, the punishment is justifiably public.

Saw this yesterday.

He's perfectly within his rights if he wants to destroy his own property, but it was a bit of an overreaction and wasted what was probably a good laptop. I'm sure there are better ways to instill lessons into your child. What is she going to learn from this? "If you don't like something, destroy it"??

The most horrifying thing about these statements is that I can imagine you actually believing them.
/me shudders

Explain. I'd really like to know kids with the same upbringing come out completely different. If it's not the hormones and natural character, then what?

Edit: Ohhh, I see, you thought my sarcastic exclamation as in "yes, you should DEFINITELY brainwash your child" was how I actually feel? Whoops.
I wanted to make a point there that some children come out very docile and some come out rebellious no matter what you do. I've screwed up with the wording though.