Drunken violence

[M Malice]

A few years ago, my best mate was hit from behind.

Luckily, he is 6 ft 4 and about 3 times as muscular as me (That's not saying much), but the little s**t that punched him because my mate was wearing a shirt he didn't like.

I agree with other users and what I've seen said in news articles. i don't think society has a drinking problem (Although I'm fairly certain I do.... thank you, depressing umpiring career!) but definitely we seemly have an addiction to physical conflict. Even on the footy field on the local levels, there are blokes that I have seen gone out of their way to hurt people. That is just poor culture, poor climate and poor attitude towards other human life.

if you go by statistics alcohol is a bigger problem for society ie. domestic violence than illegal drugs. it is a right of passage among a vast majority of young people, mainly males to see how s**t faced they can get. this is reinforced by popular culture eg. if there is an important event in your life you must drink to celebrate it.
i was a fairly big drinker in my late teens to mid 20's and the right of passage applied then as well, there was a bit of pot around as well but can't recall anything harder than that other than 1 eye opening visit to kings cross in the late 70's.
i am a very occasional drinker now (1 or 2 beers). last time i had 1 was at a mates daughters wedding over a year ago. people who i meet out socially that don't know me give the comment/look of what do you mean you don't drink, why? how can you have a good time and not drink.

The gym culture and social media I think has a fair bit to play. I remember the huge campaigns around girls and body esteem issues yet not a thing said about guys. Huge self esteem issues in young blokes now days in regards to they're muscles. Notice the boom in supplement and gym industries? Social media has exacerbated this greatly with the big meat head culture that's currently invading Australia in particular young guys from the ages of 16-25. The gym culture is incredibly narcissistic and unhealthy. Social media doesn't help it at all these guys are all over it. For these guys what your worth in life is directly related to the size of your bicep. I find them to be the most aggressive type of people you'll find at a night out. Look at the violence at festivals, stereo is extremely violent and look at the type of people that go there. Then look at sound wave where guys belt each other in the mosh then are best mates afterwards. I've experienced both festivals and I did not feel safe at stereo even walking around with my mates who aren't small, I'm the smallest of the lot! I saw plenty of fights. While sound wave I didn't see one. Same at places like splendour and falls. The ones causing the trouble are the big muscles up meat heads. What you have is a lot of big insecure blokes looking to prove themselves. That's why these punches are killing people. Cole for example look at the bloke who punched him. Also steroids are massive. It would shock you the amount of people on them now days. But still they're the 1% but I think that it is having an implication in regards to violence.

great post leemas, strongly agree. as you point out it is the small minority. my son works in the hospital system and says ice and steroids are a huge factor in the violence issue. you don't see many people in emergency departments hyped up on pot looking to bash anyone and anything that comes into view.
the pot legalization issue is for another time and thread though.