Publications
Partners
So, unless you’ve been hibernating in a cave, you’d have either stumbled across or been made aware of the Stop the Knot video, a film sketch which features Derick Watts and the Sunday Blues team.
In the clip, the video shows them denouncing and mocking the top knot hairstyle on men (according to Hairstyleonpoint.com, it’s defined as a “mixture of the undercut and the man bun.”)
Personally, I think it’s also quite possibly one of the worst hairstyles known to mankind.
However, unlike Derick Watts and co, I wouldn’t make it my life’s mission to go out and hunt down unsuspecting people - with a pair of scissors in my hand – all in order to cut their hair off simply because I don’t approve of it.
Nic Smal has in the meantime, confirmed to Channel24 that the video is real, although speculation about its authenticity still remains. *
The irony here, of course, is that Nic Smal, the one responsible for all the hair chopping, has the most obnoxious moustache I’ve ever seen.
And yet, if you had to ask me if I’d go out of my way to make sure he no longer has one, my answer would be a resounding no.
Because – and here’s a mind-blowing concept for you – I believe that he has the right to agency over his own body and he can make his own choices.
As for the people in the video, as far as we know, they didn’t give consent to have their hair cut and THAT is a gross infringement of their human right to freedom of expression.
What’s worse is that there are some people who actually find this funny. Telling me to lighten up and saying things like “but their hair will grow back.”
That is not the point here, and no, I won’t lighten up about it.
Just because you find something funny, does not make it ok.
The fact that people are finding this amusing speaks to me of a society who actually enjoys witnessing someone else’s misfortune for pure pleasure.
Schadenfreude.
When the complete and utter glee over someone else’s bad luck suffocates any form of empathy we might have.
It’s reminiscent of schoolyard bullying tactics and reminds me of seeing kids at school putting gum in the hair or pulling the pants down of children they a) don’t like or b) envy.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that if you were one of the people who found this amusing, then chances are that you were probably one of those people who bullied other people at school, work or just in general.
My colleague and I were having a discussion about the effects that this video had on us, and as victims of bullying ourselves, one of the first things we said to one another is something along the lines of how much we wanted to warn the people of what was to come.
I physically became anxious at the thought that something bad was going to happen. I mean, running around with a pair of scissors? That’s a dangerous situation waiting to happen.
And regardless of whether or not this video turns out to be a hoax*, the message that it sends out is that this brand of bullying is ok. In fact, I think that even if this is staged, it actually only makes it worse because it’s designed to evoke a knee-jerk response based on emotional manipulation.
And now that it’s gone viral, they’ve remained mum on the issue. It’s like their silence is a way for them to draw even bigger attention to the video.
I love comedy as much as the next person does, but I like to think that even humour has lines that it shouldn’t cross.
Smal and co went running around with a sharp object that constitutes as a weapon, asserted their dominance over someone’s free will and by chopping their knots off, took away their fundamental right to express themselves in their own way.
That, for me, goes beyond the entertainment value of comedy.
*Derick Watts and the Sunday Blues have admitted that the video was fake and that their victims were actually their friends.
Follow Tammy on Twitter.
Follow Women24 on Twitter and like us on Facebook.
