There is still lots of emotion around “kick a Ginger” day, with many orange haired kids and young adults reporting acts of violence and ridicule targeted at them.  If we think back, all of this emerged out of a South Park episode.  If you google “Kick a Ginger”, a long winded Wikipedia explanation is available explaining the story line from the South Park episode and confessing that the intended outfall was not supposed to target anyone. 

But Really?  With the popularity and accessibility of Facebook and other social networking sites it is so easy to choose any day and give it some fancy name.  The fact that so many people were negatively affected by “Kick a Ginger” day is a testament to the power of South Park, Facebook and other media giants who have 24/7 access to those on line. 

And it’s also a testament to how gullible we are, and how easily we are led to acts of violence as entertainment, all at the expense of another.  Sad, really, isn’t it? 

I think more and more we are being asked to provide our own information filters to the masses of data we can access thorough the internet, but how do young kids develop those filters without first having the life skills necessary?   It used to be when you looked something up in an encyclopaedia, or a national geographic, or heard it on the news, the reliability factor was considered to be high.  For example, people generally believe the weather forecast that they hear providing it falls within normal expectations for the time and place, but may check several weather sources if some weather anomaly is reported.  It is hard to filter out truth from fantasy from fabrication.  South Park writers maintain that anybody who watched the “Kick a Ginger” episode would have understood the message.  However understanding the message requires a person to get all the information, and just to hear “It’s Kick a Ginger” day” gets some all excited about the chance to ridicule another. 

As a general rule, internet consumers should, by design, ignore, pass over, delete or otherwise dismiss ANY reference to ANY violent act for celebration as wrong – an idea not meant to be.  The implications for escalating violence are scary when we think of the impact this day had. 

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