Rude students apologize. Thai girl gets her fame

My last two blog entries have been about a very stupid incident that took place on the BTS (the skytrain) in Bangkok where a group of teenagers were being loud on a train and a young-ish Thai woman filmed the situation and berated them for being noisy. The situation spiraled into a confrontation as is often the case with large groups of teenagers and the the twist that I should have seen coming happened when the woman who filmed it an put it on TikTok kept herself in the news and kept herself viral by pushing the issue further by going to the police to issue a complain and the photos of the incident just happened to make their way online.

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Before this woman took this to social media and was using it as a way of directing people towards her accounts, I was on her side. But once she seemed to be enjoying the amount of people who now had eyes on her, my opinion changed. I feel as though she was not doing this to benefit Thailand or Thai culture, but to benefit herself directly.

In her last statement to the press she stated that she wanted the Italian group to apologize to the nation, not to her personally. This is exactly what the Italian students ended up doing, sadly.

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To me this seems like this woman (whose name I will not say and accidentally contribute to her followers online) is not only trying to generate traffic for herself but also is perhaps getting a bit of joy out of humiliating these teens in public. One by one the students all did a "wai" towards her, which they were probably taught as it is a sign of respect and even submission when done a certain way.

The students were also subjected to a lecture on Thai culture by a member of her family as well as herself.

I had previously said that while the students were a bit annoying, they hadn't broken any laws but I was wrong about that. They were all fined 1000 Baht (about $30) for "public insult" and the one student who flashed the middle finger was fined 2000 Baht for "committing an act causing public embarrassment." These sound like made up crimes but whatever man, I don't make the laws here.

I am quite certain that this money immediately went into some sort of charity for children and not into the pockets of the officers at the station.

The woman said that she filed the police report to protect her rights and the rights of all Thai people. What rights exactly? The right to a quiet environment? Maybe go have a chat with literally every single outdoor party that anyone in this country ever has with their enormous loudspeaker systems. Or I guess that is not an infringement upon her rights because it isn't the "correct" people doing it.

I will be happy once this is all forgotten about which will hopefully be soon. People becoming internet famous because of posting something online that they didn't have permission to film is just extremely angering to me.

On the news site that featured this article another article appeared well below it in the list about endangered Dugongs found dead on the beach with tusks removed. It seems to me as though that story should be getting a lot more attention than some loud teenagers and a TikTok idiot.