Pit these people all you want for their lifestyle choices or for serving Gatorade in tubs or for the bride being an hour late. Hell, I might have chimed in with my own “ain’t this tacky” story. I have no problem with anyone complaining anonymously about their pseudonymed relatives, friends and co-workers.
But to go to a wedding and take pictures of these unwitting people and their children under the pretense that he’s just capturing the joy of the moment, and then to post these pictures so that 40,000 people can gawk at them and call them “slack-jawed cletuses” – oh no, that is hitting far below the belt.
These people did not harm Bear in any way by shitting away $250k. They do him no harm by living in trailers, having cars on cement blocks, wearing jeans to weddings or failing to serve salt with their stinking cheeseburgers. He DID harm them by posting pictures of their wedding and wedding guests on a public forum so people could take potshots at them. That, to me, is reprehensible.
Considering these 40,000 tax payers and countless more are supporting these families through welfare, food stamps, free school lunch programs, free healtcare programs, not to mention the burden they’ll add to the jails and court systems.
I think these people have a right to know where their money is going. It doesn’t always go to help people truly in need!
Why? Why is that not as bad? So adding specifics to a story - adding a bit of reality - somehow makes an “aint this tacky” story reprehensible? I disagree. Why are you content with a story as long as it lacks identity? Is it because they can’t defend themselves? This message board - especially the Pit - is full of threads like that. No one has laid off Bush or leash girl or particular government contractors simply because they are not around here to defend themselves.
Telling anonymous stories about pseudonymed relatives lacks the reality that these pictures present. It’s no longer a “friend of a friend said that…” story. It’s a story about real people and real events.
That picture of the drunken bride that’s gone around the internet. It gets little more than a brow lift and a slight chuckle from people before they forward the pic to all their friends. Why? Because it lacks reality. It’s a gag to most people. It’s a funny picture and a funny scenario.
Excuse me for opening the eyes of many. Here are real people. People that I have had first hand experience associating with. People who act in every way as I have described. I’ve added the pictures simply because I am not articulate enough to describe the events in the necessary detail.
These are not anonymous people that may or may not exist. These are people that I know. And they are not unlike many people who choose to live the exact same way.
I really don’t get it. We can be mad and pit them, but we can’t get a chuckle from it? We can’t feel sad or sorry for the kids? We can’t attempt to figure out exactly what makes people behave like this?
I think the mom is wearing (very short) shorts. In one of the other pics, you can see them peeking out under the tshirt.
I kind of got the same feeling when I saw the one pic of the little girl smiling up at the camera. She probably hasn’t had her picture taken often, and looked excited, that someone was taking the time to do it.
Well, I don’t think we’re laughing at the kids-the kids are actually the high points. They’re clean for the most part (except for the little girl in the diaper and some regular kid dirtyness) and they look happy. They’re also dressed much nicer than the adults-in simple, picnic attire.
But the adults-they’re the scary ones. C’mon, dirty gatorade in a filthy bucket, cars up on blocks everywhere, kids playing on wood piles (which kids will do, but most adults will get them away from there), etc. C’mon. That’s not right.
They almost never have their pictures taken. As I stated earlier, had they only possessed pictures of their son, they would have received more in their wrongful death settlement. The respondant argued that the child was not loved and not an integral part of the family. The complaintants had a difficult time proving otherwise. Not a single picture of their teenage son smiling… Not one. Not even a picture of him frowning.
The bride was given a pack of 8 disposable cameras as one of her wedding presents. It never occurred to her to take any pictures. She just left the cameras on the table. I have one neice. And there most be thousands of pictures of her among my two brothers’ houses and my parents’ house.
And yes, no one is making fun of the children. They’re part of the total “documentary”. Children at that age have no idea that their living in poverish conditions. That concept is totally foreign to them. They only know one way to live. And they are happy and content. Children are naturally happy and playful. It’s the parents who need to encourage them to grow and make something of themselves. Once they get to public school, the teasing starts. Then it gets a little difficult for them. A clean happy home and a drive to improve will get them through. Lacking that, the children will almost never be more than their parents. And that’s just sad.
The child in question is about 3 and a half years old.
Because people, even ignorant rednecks who piss away $250k, have a right to privacy and dignity. Because you accepted an invitation from well-meaning people and then crapped on them. You not only posted pictures of your own family, who obviously have no idea of how contemptuous you are of them, but you took pictures of their unsuspecting guests-- little kids and strangers who have done NOTHING to you – to get a laugh.
As such, you owed them the courtesy of not stabbing them in the back while pretending to be their friend.
Oh, please. You didn’t post these pictures to enlighten us about welfare reform. You went because you wanted to amuse us at someone else’s expense. Or, as you said earlier:
Oh please! What harm did that cause? I haven’t harmed anyone.
And for that matter, I haven’t harmed you either yet you’re coming off as frustrated and offended. You seem to have elected yourself champion of the under-privileged and savior of the white-trash!
Dignity?? Do you really think these people give a fuck about your opinion of dignity?
Please tell me again the part that was well-meaning? The part where they invited 300 people to suck in as many gifts as possible? The part where she told my financially poor uncle he should have given her more money? Or maybe the part where she didn’t bother to write the proper name of her first cousin. Please, tell me! “Well-Meaning” indeed.
A laugh… among other things. This thread has been about a hell of a lot more than laughs. Who the fuck is laughing about the kids? No one is laughing at the sad conditions the children are subjected to. No one is laughing about Gatorade served from a freaking dirty bucket. I am not contemptuous of everyone in those pictures. However, I am of the bride and her treatment of her 8 kids. And I have every right to be. I have more right to be pissed at her, than you do at me.
Exactly what great expense was that? Are their feelings hurt? Are their egoes bruised?
It’s odd that when Jeff Foxworthy tells a joke, it’s just so damn funny. But when someone comes along and shows proof that it’s a reality, it’s just not funny anymore? I disagree. I think it’s funny because it’s reality.
Honestly, do you plan to enter every single “My mother-in law did ‘such n such’” or “You wont believe what my neighbor just did” thread and tell people to stop insulting or belittling others? If so, you really have your work cut out for you!
Bear, in any thread like this, there’s always someone to come along with the predictable outrage: “Oh, you think you’re better than them!” “You’re SOOO self-righteous and judgemental!”
Maybe they really are changing the world, one messageboard at a time. :dubious:
I, for one, found your thread to be amusing, but then, I’ve always known these people are actually out there. Hell, I lived in Rock Hill, South Carolina for 5 years! I don’t share the horror about the children, though. I’ve seen enough children that really were abused and/or neglected, to not sweat the small stuff. Different people have different parenting skills, and some are just trying to make it through. Sometimes the most you can hope for is that the kids are being fed, watched, and not beaten. The baby looks to me to be about 20 months or so… still diaper-age for most.
quote=Eleusis]But thanks to those pictures, I can see that ours will be mighty high-falutin’ in comparison. We’re having it catered and hiring a bartender, for starters
[/quote]
Eleusis y’all just puttin’ on airs!
I second what trublmakr said. There’s always one self-righteous asshole in every thread.
<snerk> Eve drinking a Busch beer out of a can while holding her pinky up. <snerk> Now that picture would be priceless.
I would have gotten two "well, reallys!"out before seeing the pantsless mother of the bride, the tattooed Jim Beam guy and the swill-chuggin’ babies, and fainted dead away into the pile o’ logs, where the children would have climbed me, thinking me a new kind of Six Flags ride.
Oh my. Thanks for sharing all this. I was riveted.
My son’s daycare teacher was running a special Saturday thing where kids would have a “movie day” while parents did some Christmas shopping. She also brought her nephew down with her (she lives in a town about 45 minutes and half a world away from our town). We were admiring how cute he was, and she told us his name was Ruger. “Like the gun,” she noted…and after a small pause she said “They don’t live around here…” (This is actually a pretty funny Ann Arbor story, but you’d have to know Ann Arbor).
Or how about Eve teaching some etiquette!
“Heavens, children! Why, we mustn’t let our elbows touch the bucket when getting a drink. It just isn’t polite!”
