Kid on Bike Eats It: The Death of Compassion? (Video)

A home security video on YouTube, titled "Kid On Bike Eats It," has gone viral, grabbing nearly a million hits in just over a day, by showing a child riding his bike into a mailbox and wailing a bit before he picks himself up and heads home.

This kind of video has taken off before, although the quality of the image and the audio is much more impressive than usual. CCTVs have come a long way.

But it's the reaction to the incident, by the YouTuber who posted it and the thousands of people who have left comments on the channel which is most disturbing.

Nearly all are devoid of any sympathy for the child, who's obviously shaken up and scared out of his wits, and the whole thing is treated like a well-scripted slapstick routine.

Virtually no one asks if the child is okay and even the person who posts it can't resist a "LOL!" in the description. When did everyday American life become like a real sitcom script?

This "kid on bike" could clearly use some riding lessons. Since when do mailboxes move? But his surprised cries of fear are authentic, and it would seem that hearing them should produce a more compassionate reaction.

It looks like this child ended up not being hurt, just a little bruised in the ego department. But making fun of his trauma signifies a disturbing trend in the lack of empathy by web surfers, overruled by the search for unintended comedic bits posted to the web.

Oh well, at least Daniel Tosh, and others like him, will have a few minutes of show filler.

Here's the video: