Catfight

Last Sunday I stayed up until about 3 in the morning churning through YouTube videos of girlfights. I'm not sure what came over me, but I was at it for a good three hours or so. Videos like "Vanessa vs. Chantal" and "Betty vs. Melissa" came up in the column of suggested videos on the right. Of course these were mostly high school fights with dozens of girls gathered around, cell phones out and recording, shouting encouragement at the two girls grappling. Sometimes cheering for one or the other, most of the time just rooting for a good fight in general.

There is a lot of hair pulling and most videos degenerate into what looks like a two-person rugby scrum, with both women leaning over at the waist, with arms extended, hanging on tight to their adversary's hair. In boxing the ref would break them apart and yell, "Box!" and the crowd would boo at all of the hanging on and resting.

But this is not boxing, and it rarely ends in much punishment although I saw one girl make the mistake of wearing a hoodie into battle and getting it pulled over her head where she was pummeled for a while, sightless. One girl was getting her head lifted up and smashed on the pavement a couple of times before the thing was broken up. But it's mostly pretty harmless.

It's great to see the skinny girls kick ass on the beefy bullies. In fact, I learned there's a whole strain of street-fight videos that deal with Nerds Kicking Bullies' Asses. Which is gratifying of course, very gratifying. Why wouldn't it be?

It is a little embarrassing, though, and I started to worry I would be discovered spending my time watching this stuff. But then I seemed to remember an article in the Believer magazine that dealt with this very thing, Kimbo Slice, backyard brawls, etc. This seemed to justify my behavior in some academic sense. But I couldn't find this article, in the Believer or anywhere else. Maybe I never read this article, maybe I imagined the whole thing.

Not that I need a scholarly essay on YouTube fights to justify my viewing choices, mind you. But I do wish I could find something sweeping to write that would tie all of this messy, low-resolution fighting (and my viewing of it) into a pretty little thesis about life. But I can't, really.

So for now I'll just watch. And shake my head in disbelief.

Thank you for listening.