What's your opinion on the Epic Beard Man incident? How 'bout the Internet's reaction to it? NSFW for language.

It’s a viral video. Is it really worth commenting on?

Amber lamps!

Who started it?

That’s what you get for talking shit to an old man.

You got knocked the fuck out!

They don’t mess around in Oakland.
Apparently Epic Beard Man’s t-shirt was pretty accurate.

The beard guy made an effort to get away from the situation and the dude with the cornrows couldn’t let it go and had to continue their verbal sparring. It was a situation that was easily avoidable. I’ve been in a lot of cities and the one rule that remains constant is don’t fuck around on the bus.

There was cursing going back and forth but I think I saw the cornrow guy took the first swing. That guy got jacked up.

Moral of the story :- Be nice to people. If you choose not to….you may end up regretting your decision.

Of course well before this there was the infamous Bus Uncle, Hong Kong viral hit. Bus Uncle puts the young punk in his place for tapping him when he was on the phone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsYRQkmVifg

I don’t see anything “epic” there aside from the epic stupidity. See how they both escalated the situation?
The girl shouting “beat his white ass” didn’t help but the white guy was pretty off base with all the “shoe shine” crap.

This was all started by /b/. And we all know why they love EBM and what he did.
white old man beats up a black guy. a great event to bring out the pervasive racism still prevalent in many americans and not seeming racists because of the circumstances that serve as deflectors, such as the white guy seemingly being the good guy and the young vs old conflict that they can point to as an excuse

OK this is bizarre.
Epic Beard Man is in another viral video where he was tazed at a baseball game.
This guy has a serious attitude problem.

Wow… EBM might actually deserve his name. Are you sure this isn’t engineered? How were both of these random events recorded?

Obviously EBM is at fault in some way for creating these situations. Sigh- it’s a different world now. EBM is famous.

These local characters used to just be local characters- they’ve gone worldwide.

I don’t understand. An old white guy engages a black guy in a verbal altercation on a bus. Black guy gets pissed, spectators encourage him, things start getting heady, white guy punches black guy in the face and breaks his nose. What is epic about this?

This guy is just an asshole who happened to be caught on camera. I’m sure shit like this happens all the time.

Also, his beard is not that epic. My 21-year-old fiancee’s beard is longer. Just sayin’

@Captain_Fantasy I think tazering is a form of torture. It is also a violation of a person’s right to due process. The only thing I can make out from that video is that a man is being harassed by several police officers, arguing with them, and gets tazered. I can’t tell who the man is, EBM or not, or what they are arguing about.

You can’t put all the blame on EBM. It looks like they were both at fault.

I only watched the bus video with the kid. I have a little trouble with hearing. I can’t understand the entire conversation. Obviously both parties said things that were instigating anger and threatening. But, the bearded man tried to move away. He was followed or pursued. He tried to get close to the bus door, which tells me he wanted to get off the bus when it stopped. He was trying to get away. The boy that pursued him, hit first. I could see that. It might not have been a strong or nose breaking punch, but he laid hands on the old guy first. We don’t necessarily have the right to strike in anger even when something wrong, insulting, out of line is said. A verbal insult is not justification for violence. Someone pursuing you in a threatening manner as you try to distance yourself, and physically attacking you however, is. Am I wrong?

@ragingloli pretty much has it.

The best part of that whole video is Amber Lamps, though. She is so indifferent. Like we should be.

Well, an elderly gentleman was on his telemophone, at which point he made a comment regarding his ‘boy shining his shoes’ with which the african-american gentleman in question took issue.

A short verbal altercation regarding race, and other highly cerebral issues, ensued. Following this, space between the two parties was extended, so as to calm any nerves.

However, old wounds were reopened upon gentle encouragement from other patrons of that transport facility. After exposing what appeared to be a blade of some sort, and a quick knock at the jaw, on the part of said african-american gentleman, the situation ended in fisticuffs.

The elder gentleman being the victor.

Bitch got owned.

@daemonelson (how do you get the at thing to work when you reply?) Thank you for helping me understand what I had trouble hearing. Appreciate it.

BTW

it has since been verified that there is no Amber Lamps. The black guy who got hit was calling for an AMBULANCE. Due to pronounciation issues, it was misheard by others as either M+Ms or Amber Lamps.

The whole thing is pretty ridiculous. A perfect example of the incredible amount of stupidity which can be found on certain parts of the Internet at times.

I think Loli is right on with his observations.

I also think it’s pretty obvious that EBM has mental health issues of some sort, so making him an object of either praise or ridicule serves no useful purpose. The black guy was just basically being an arrogant punk.

The entire thing is ridiculous. It’s fortunate no one had a gun. As it is, others on the bus could have been seriously hurt what with a nitwit waving a knife around and all.

The voice of the person egging on the whole thing belonged to the woman filming it all. Another nitwit.

@Buttonstc

Um, people refer to her as Amber Lamps because it’s a convenient way to refer to her, not because anyone actually thinks her name is Amber Lamps.

Laff.

@holden
Eeeew, get her to shave!
The name might mean that he is a Beard Man, who is Epic.

I think generally speaking, most people should not copy what Epic Beard Man did, or they’ll have their asses kicked.

But Epic Beard Man was In The Zone, so to speak, and he knew exactly what he was doing, and he knew that he was the one man who could teach the Racist Angry Black Man With a Knife a lesson. Epic Beard Man is deservedly a hero, but his actions, and their morality, are unique to him alone and normally shouldn’t be emulated.

@ragingloli
I got the story off of the Drudge Report, and then did some poking around for the rest. I don’t see where /b/ figures in, beyond the guy’s new nickname (which I got off of the SpikeTV website).

@Nullo What is /b/?

@ragingloli , I don’t think /b/ as a whole is racist anymore than /b/ is a pervert.

But then again, I don’t know much about /b/

But whenever /b/ spreads a prank or meme into the normal culture, I’ve always found it hilarious.

I also think /b/ is still a sleeping giant who one day will spread its reach into the highest offices of planet Earth, if not higher.

@essieness
/b/ is an imageboard on the website 4chan that claims authorship of the majority of internet memes (and houses Anonymous, of Anonymous v. Scientology. The IMDB seems to corroborate this.
/b/ is not a nice place.

@Nullo How do people find this shit?

@essieness You just need one person to find it, like it, and pass it on… It’s a lot like a virus. The woman who made the video probably has a number of regular viewers that frequently check her page for new content, and they all have friends to pass it along to, and so on. By the look of things, it hit /b/ and other social sites before it found its way into the MSM, but the MSM has more coverage. Normal folks hear about it and tell their friends, and then the rumors of a bus fight send more people looking for the video… and it starts all over again.

Two days, and a mundane event has become the subject of national interest. This is the power of the Internet.

@Nullo I meant how do they find shit like /b/... But I see what you mean ;)

@essieness Oh, I see. It’s the same thing; you hear about /b/ or 4chan some way or another (a link, a comment, the news, an innocent Google search…), then you go visit.
It’s a phenomenon that has captivated the marketing industry.

Epic Beard Man is Epic.