Before we get into this little nugget of dopamine, let’s get philosophical for a moment. It would be easy for us to mark this video’s second event as an overreaction, but few would judge the inciting action in the same way. Of course, when you really about it, the tenacity of the reaction is about as sensible as the socially inept mindlessness of the first action.
Does that mean we can justify the reaction? No, not exactly. Can we get behind it for other reasons? Yes, absolutely.
As documented in the 11-second video above from TikTok‘s @azilak0, our protagonist was shuffling around the great outdoors, metal detector in hand, hoping to snag some buried treasure or perhaps a mercury reserve. The journey carries on without much in the way of an event, but then a fellow hiker trudges past.
Our protagonist, with the same thoughtless energy of a content creator who goes to the supermarket and decides it would be funny to shop exclusively out of other people’s carts, whips the metal detector around and begins scanning this hiker’s backside. Well, the metal detector must have scrambled this hiker’s programming, because he awakens like a sleeper agent and begins charging at our protagonist with the undiluted rage of a million active volcanos, and our protagonist seems just moments away from being trampled to death.
In case this hasn’t been made clear, we’re siding with the denim titan and his quest for vengeance on this one, because our protagonist needs to be given a stern talking-to about personal space and social etiquette in general. According to Everyday Speech, personal space is a key component of every individual’s emotional and physical boundaries, and respecting it is an important part of promoting social-emotional well-being and creating a respectful environment. Yes, that includes on hikes.
Unfortunately, we live in the age of social media, where etiquette and prestige revolve around being noticed by as many people as possible, and respecting personal space is simply not an interesting thing to do. Waving a metal detector at a complete stranger, however, is precisely the sort of do-it-for-the-Vine energy that serves as the psychological base for those who are engrained in the matrix of liking, subscribing, reposting, and all the rest of it.
For those of us living in the real world, such behavior is rightly reprimandable. And sometimes, reprimanding this behavior has to come in the form of indignantly chasing the guilty party through the woods. How will they learn otherwise?