# Good thing they weren't handing out iPods **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 17, 2005, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-thing-they-werent-handing-out-ipods/317360 "2005-08-17T01:07:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![JonScribe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3be4f8/32.png) [@JonScribe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JonScribe)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2005, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-thing-they-werent-handing-out-ipods/317360/1 "2005-08-17T01:07:14Z")
Yeah, we know you want to get your kid a laptop, but [Christ-on-a-memory-stick!](http://www.macnewsworld.com/story/jVfJD6siIG1GAu/Laptop-Sale-Turns-Into-a-Stampede.xhtml) > [@](#): > > A rush to purchase US$50 used laptops turned into a violent stampede today, with people getting thrown to the pavement, beaten with a folding chair and nearly driven over. One woman went so far as to wet herself rather than surrender her place in line. > [@](#): > > Blandine Alexander, 33, said one woman standing in front of her was so desperate to retain her place in line that she urinated on herself. Nice. > [@](#): > > Jesse Sandler said he was one of the people pushing forward, using a folding chair he had brought with him to beat back people who tried to cut in front of him. > > “I took my chair here and I threw it over my shoulder and I went, ‘Bam,’” the 20-year-old said nonchalantly, his eyes glued to the screen of his new iBook as he tapped away on the keyboard at a testing station. > > “They were getting in front of me and I was there a lot earlier than them, so I thought that it was just,” he said. I hope you catch a virus. Not your computer; you, idiot. ---
**Author:** ![Tripler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripler/32/21807_2.png) [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2005, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-thing-they-werent-handing-out-ipods/317360/2 "2005-08-17T01:30:10Z")
Was it any different with Cabbage Patch Kids back in the 80s, or Beany Babies in the 90s? I blame two parties: 1. The media for hyping it up, 2. The people for taking the bait and swallowing the hook whole. People get what they deserve in instances like that. Tripler No, I have absolutely no feelings or regards for people that put themselves in materialistic situations such as this. ---
**Author:** ![davenportavenger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f8ce5/32.png) [@davenportavenger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davenportavenger)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2005, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-thing-they-werent-handing-out-ipods/317360/3 "2005-08-17T01:43:02Z")
Who names their kid “Blandine”? What are her siblings’ names, Boringa and Mundano? ---
**Author:** ![JonScribe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3be4f8/32.png) [@JonScribe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JonScribe)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2005, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-thing-they-werent-handing-out-ipods/317360/4 "2005-08-17T02:14:45Z")
> [@Tripler](#): > > … I blame two parties: > > 1. The media for hyping it up, > 2. The people for taking the bait and swallowing the hook whole… I think individual greed can take all the blame here. Nobody in the Godless Liberal Media TM encouraged people to pee their pants or beat off line-cutters with a folding chair. ---
**Author:** ![ethanwinfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/96bed5/32.png) [@ethanwinfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ethanwinfield)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2005, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-thing-they-werent-handing-out-ipods/317360/5 "2005-08-17T02:23:44Z")
> [@](#): > > The Henrico County, Va., school district was selling 1,000 of the computers to county residents. Why didn’t they just list them on eBay like other school districts around the country do? They may have fetched more than $50. Or maybe they could have had a raffle. ---
**Author:** ![Tripler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripler/32/21807_2.png) [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2005, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-thing-they-werent-handing-out-ipods/317360/6 "2005-08-17T02:24:16Z")
> [@JonScribe](#): > > I think individual greed can take all the blame here. Nobody in the Godless Liberal Media TM encouraged people to pee their pants or beat off line-cutters with a folding chair. I beg to differ. I find the media at fault for baiting the hook, while knowing the public would eat that same hook at large. Granted, they probably didn’t know it would go to such ends, but the media _knows_ it’s a self-advertising, self-serving enterprise. Thus, they need to make hype to keep themselves in business. And sometimes, they don’t appreciate they effects of the hype they cause. Tripler I f\*cking hate the media at large. ---
**Author:** ![JonScribe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3be4f8/32.png) [@JonScribe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JonScribe)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2005, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-thing-they-werent-handing-out-ipods/317360/7 "2005-08-17T02:56:01Z")
Well, speaking as one of the larger members of the at-large media: How the fuck do you turn this into an opportunity to bash the media? I don’t live in Virginia, so I don’t know how this event was publicized before hand, but regardless, I don’t see how you can fault any stories about this event for how people acted. The media didn’t set the price. The media didn’t organize the event. The media didn’t freak out and start rushing the gates. Let’s put the blame where it belongs: on the greedy people who went beyond reasonable actions when they learned about a good deal for a 4-year-old laptop. There’s plenty of fuckups the media are truly responsible for. Why waste bandwidth on blaming them for this? ---
**Author:** ![RyJae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9d8465/32.png) [@RyJae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RyJae)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2005, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-thing-they-werent-handing-out-ipods/317360/8 "2005-08-17T03:00:32Z")
> [@ethanwinfield](#): > > Why didn’t they just list them on eBay like other school districts around the country do? They may have fetched more than $50. Or maybe they could have had a raffle. I agree with this it is was only for residents of that county, they paid the school tax to purchase the computers let them have a chance to get something back. That being said, they could of had a raffle or something less likely to cause a blue light special stampede. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2005, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-thing-they-werent-handing-out-ipods/317360/9 "2005-08-17T03:01:14Z")
> [@](#): > > Blandine Alexander, 33, said one woman standing in front of her was so desperate to retain her place in line that she urinated on herself. Two points: One, “Blandine Alexander” sounds like a drag queen got it really wrong; and Two, on whom would Blandine have preferred the woman urinate? ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2005, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-thing-they-werent-handing-out-ipods/317360/10 "2005-08-17T04:22:29Z")
> [@Tripler](#): > > I beg to differ. I find the media at fault for baiting the hook, while knowing the public would eat that same hook at large. Granted, they probably didn’t know it would go to such ends, but the media _knows_ it’s a self-advertising, self-serving enterprise. > > Thus, they need to make hype to keep themselves in business. And sometimes, they don’t appreciate they effects of the hype they cause. Sure the media need and love hype. I get as annoyed as anyone by some of the crap we see in the media. But it still doesn’t make the media responsible for the ridiculous actions of the people described in the OP. Even if you can somehow blame the media for the fact that these people knew about the cheap computers, and can thus hold the media partly responsible for the presence of those people at the sale, how the fuck is the media to blame for what these people did? Why should the fuckwits not be assigned responsibility for their own actions? ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2005, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-thing-they-werent-handing-out-ipods/317360/11 "2005-08-17T04:30:16Z")
All right: Media-fucking-shmedia. OK? This is about a pack of idiots. And what a pack of idiots! They’re four years old and used, these iBooks! That’s like eating a spoiled drumstick from the Jurassic, in techno-time, ferchrissakes. Where are these people when I’m having a yard sale? Shit, I’ve got lots of old crap I need to get rid of! Have a riot at my place! ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2005, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-thing-they-werent-handing-out-ipods/317360/12 "2005-08-17T06:00:45Z")
> [@ethanwinfield](#): > > Why didn’t they just list them on eBay like other school districts around the country do? They may have fetched more than $50. Or maybe they could have had a raffle. My scant understanding of the matter is that there are two theories: 1. The school district originally offered the laptops to the teachers for $50. They were then required to sell any leftovers to the public at the same price, to avoid lawsuits over unfair pricing. 2. The school district deliberately set an artificially low price for the laptops so they could justify them as being “obsolete” equipment and replacing them with new Dell laptops instead. Personally, the decision to ditch the iBooks makes no sense to me. Unless the students were doing high-end A/V work, they should still be more than sufficient for most school-related activities. ---
**Author:** ![Loopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loopus/32/15343_2.png) [@Loopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopus)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2005, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-thing-they-werent-handing-out-ipods/317360/13 "2005-08-17T06:25:22Z")
Okay, this just plain doesn’t surprise or shock me at all. Offer people something for virtually nothing and they’ll act like idiots. How much of an idiot they’ll act like is directly proportional to the size of the difference between the value of what they have to do (in this case, pay $50) and the value of what they can get (in this case, a freakin’ laptop). Duh. I mean, this is the principal that most game and reality shows are based on. It’s pretty simple. ---
**Author:** ![bluecanary](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bluecanary/32/3614_2.png) [@bluecanary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bluecanary)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2005, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-thing-they-werent-handing-out-ipods/317360/14 "2005-08-17T09:54:02Z")
Er, what **Loopus** says. This happens quite often and isn’t really a surprise. ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2005, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-thing-they-werent-handing-out-ipods/317360/15 "2005-08-17T11:12:06Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > All right: Media-fucking-shmedia. OK? This is about a pack of idiots. > > And what a pack of idiots! They’re four years old and used, these iBooks! These people are idiots regardless of the product – they’re the ones filling the pews at the Church of Latter Day Consumerism. I assume they’re the same idiots who stand in line, excited at the opening of Wal\*Mart the day after Thanksgiving, because, “Hallelujah! We can shop!” I know this shit happens all the time. Funny thing is, the taste it leaves in my mouth never gets watered down. Rather, it _builds_ lke eating chili peppers. The way people will act for the chance to buy shit (or anything) is, in the truest sense of the word, sad. It takes a lot to disgust me, but this is the kind of thing that does it. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2005, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-thing-they-werent-handing-out-ipods/317360/16 "2005-08-17T11:27:17Z")
Sorry, guys, but I’d be right in line with the iRioters. I would hope that I would be a bit more civilized, but for a $50 laptop that normally goes for about $500 on eBay, I’d certainly wait in line several hours for one. A $50 laptop provides a little bit of relief in an era of $3.00/gallon gas, $9 movie tickets and $500,000 houses. ---
**Author:** ![Harborwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2005, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-thing-they-werent-handing-out-ipods/317360/17 "2005-08-17T12:11:02Z")
> [@Tripler](#): > > I beg to differ. I find the media at fault for baiting the hook, while knowing the public would eat that same hook at large. Granted, they probably didn’t know it would go to such ends, but the media _knows_ it’s a self-advertising, self-serving enterprise. > > Thus, they need to make hype to keep themselves in business. And sometimes, they don’t appreciate they effects of the hype they cause. > > Tripler > I f\*cking hate the media at large. I hate the media too, but I think you’re way off the mark on this one. The article mentions nothing about the media. How do they fit into this in any way? Know something that you ain’t tellin’? ---
**Author:** ![Cerri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3bc359/32.png) [@Cerri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cerri)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2005, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-thing-they-werent-handing-out-ipods/317360/18 "2005-08-17T12:11:28Z")
> [@Tripler](#): > > Was it any different with Cabbage Patch Kids back in the 80s, or Beany Babies in the 90s? > > I blame two parties: > > 1. The media for hyping it up, > 2. The people for taking the bait and swallowing the hook whole. > > People get what they deserve in instances like that. > > Tripler > No, I have absolutely no feelings or regards for people that put themselves in materialistic situations such as this. Where I grew up (I was in 5th and 6th grade during the Cabbage Patch craze) I can remember not one but _many_ mob scenes exactly like this one whenever a local toy store got a shipment in. I remember a pregnant woman having been knocked down (and no one helping her up in the crush), old people being shoved to the side or to the ground, I witnessed several knock-down drag-out fist fights between full-grown women who should definitely have known better. The day my mom and I got lucky enough to get our hands on two dolls, my first choice was _literally_ wrestled out of my hands by one of these crazed mothers. The second box I grabbed, another completely different woman tried to take it out of my hands (I assume because I was a child and she thought I wouldn’t fight back) as well. I kicked her so hard in the shins she screamed, fell against the opposite shelving unit, and didn’t try again. I did have the satisfaction of seeing her limping away, her bare ankle bleeding, and empty-handed a few minutes later as my mom and I stood in line to pay for the stupid dolls. Nothing new under the sun, people are just crazy. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2005, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-thing-they-werent-handing-out-ipods/317360/19 "2005-08-17T19:01:43Z")
Either way, though, are we supposed to have sympathy for the people trying to cut in line? “To the assholes go the spoils” is not the way I’d like to see life play out. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2005, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-thing-they-werent-handing-out-ipods/317360/20 "2005-08-17T19:17:53Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > Sorry, guys, but I’d be right in line with the iRioters. I would hope that I would be a bit more civilized, but for a $50 laptop that normally goes for about $500 on eBay, I’d certainly wait in line several hours for one. $500? Really? I don’t spend any time on eBay, so i’ll take you word for it. But there’s no way in hell i’d pay $500 for a four-year old iBook. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-thing-they-werent-handing-out-ipods/317360.md?page=2)