Avon Lake High School officials said disciplinary action would be handed down to several members of the boys' baseball team who posted a vulgar "Harlem Shake" video on YouTube last week.
The 30-second video opens with about a dozen members of the team readying for play, while one dressed student simulates a sex act on a trash can. After approximately 15 seconds, the entire team is featured dancing, some in compromising positions and some simply dancing.
The video was taken down March 11 as soon as the school was notified.
Several Patch readers took to the comment boards to either support or chastise the risque video.
Here's what they had to say:
Shame on them for having fun and disgracing the always golden Avon Lake High School by posting a video of semi-inappropriate dancing as teenagers! High school dances are so much more chivalrous and no adult has ever engaged in anything half as "offensive." Expel them from the school and let them get into actual trouble! Can you sense the sarcasm dripping there? Give me a break...actually, give them a break.
I am a parent here and I saw the video. I understand why Patch did not post it. While it certainly looked like fun and games and it might have been suitable for these kids "private collection" it had no business on a public website. Had that been my child I would have been so embarrassed. Kids riding each other like cowboys with your sons "cheeks" showing is not what you need being shown on the internet. This article doesn't begin to describe the locker room antics I saw.
And I won't even start with what they were doing with the baseball bats. Harmless fun? Yes it was, but not all harmless fun is meant to be broadcast for anyone to see. Trust me, these boys parents did not want to see the full video.
As an Avon lake grad, I'm literally repulsed that my alma mater has no ability to take a joke. You can look up Harlem shake videos for hours; there's nothing offensive about them, it's just a trend. But of course, when you have a bunch of stuffy old bureaucrats who don't deal with students in a daily basis, you get idiotic decisions like this. Students don't check their rights to free expression at the door. The administration would be wise to remember that.
We did that stuff and more in school and dances, just didn't have cell phones or cams to tape; and I went to an all girls Catholic school! Relax people-Steubenville has a problem, this is nothing. Laugh sometimes!
Nick Perry
5:17 pm on Wednesday, March 13, 2013
kids are so incredibly stupid with fads..I hope each and every kid gets bitch slapped with every disciplinary action possible that was involved...The best is when they look back in a couple years on how stupid they were and the fact that no college will want them with this BS on their record! HAHAHAHAHAHAA!! Thank god i wasnt this stupid and got in trouble like this as a kid..
Rebecca Smith
6:25 pm on Wednesday, March 13, 2013
The Avon Lake administration should take into account the fact that they let very similar behavior (if not worse) go on at every school dance, without punishment, and that there are a lot of girls showing up to school in shorts that show almost as much rear end every day in warm weather and they aren’t sent home or punished. This video was stupid and definitely not the shining moment of these kids lives, but my son is friends with most of them and I know they are all good kids. If I was one of their parents, and this was the worst trouble they are getting into, I would be very grateful. With the amount of drugs, theft, violence and other serious issues going on in every high school today, this little video is hardly worth mentioning. They are teenage boys, as a whole they aren't known for making incredibly smart decisions all the time. I hope the school administration and the athletic department puts this into perspective. No one was hurt, no one was being bullied, none of them intended any harm. They probably shouldn’t have posted this video, it was dumb and mildly inappropriate, but hardly a capital offense.
Myssi Justice
10:56 pm on Wednesday, March 13, 2013
To the bureaucrats that run the school, this type of behavior is an embarrassment. OH FREAKIN' WELL. Teens will be teens. The school officials are probably wondering where they went wrong. Hmmm, NOT YOUR JOB or CONCERN, people. Parents are the ones who are supposed to raise the kids. Schools should not get involved in what the kids do in their own time. What teenage boy isn't running on hormones and soda? This is the world we live in. Who are YOU to be embarrassed by it or to even judge it? The kids wearing their baseball uniforms should be a non-issue as well. It's not like they are civil servants who need to set positive examples. They are KIDS! They didn't hurt anyone. They didn't break any laws. RIGHT? So, butt out of their Facebook lives. Let the parents deal with them. It's so sad that we have death and rapes and missing kids in this day and age but THIS crap makes news. WOW!
Myron Thomas
9:47 am on Thursday, March 14, 2013
The thing was recorded in a school locker room. How should it be dismissed as nothing of their concern.
Where was someone to at least say, "Ah, I don't think so guys"? Apparently their wasn't.
If it is recorded at Blesser park than you may actually have a point.....
opinionsarelikenoses
9:49 am on Thursday, March 14, 2013
It wouldn't really be any bigger of a problem if the writer would have just written about something important instead of kids being kids...unbelievable, a story about this in the local papers and on line?...pure BS. Is a pulitzer prize in order? Leave this where it belongs, with the parents. This has gone way too far because of an over zealous need by some writer to feel important.
Brad Hutcherson
12:06 pm on Thursday, March 14, 2013
Maybe all of the haters would rather they had stolen a car, crammed it full of kids and wrapped it around a pole! Give me a break; these kids did nothing wrong. We should be ashamed of ourselves for allowing this generation to become exposed to all the immoral television, politicians, and athletes. We created this.