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English town says deeply shameful tradition is worth saving actually

This town throws pennies at people. They hurt.

https://youtu.be/nbafT2w0cCQ

The Honiton Hot Pennies ceremony is the result of 800 years of tradition: from when rich people would entertain themselves by throwing scalding-hot pennies o...

You don't need to watch the video. Tom Scott/None of the interview subjects ever point out how fucked this is, but basically the story is rich sadists would put coins in boiling water and then throw them at poor children to watch them endure injury for small amounts of money as a form of entertainment.

29 comments

queermunist

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lol people bringing up the extremely obvious eye safety hazards in the comments are being screamed down by whimsical brits

jossbo

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We have a long tradition of doing silly and dangerous things. Particularly in small towns. Some have formed out of old oagan (pre-Christian traditions), some for more questionable or objectionable reasons like this one. They keep going because a lot of people have good memories of them and it becomes part of a local identity.

I watched this video, and lots of people make mention of how the tradition started, and how the pennies used to be actually hot. And why. Its referred to multiple times. Your post implies this was glossed over, but you clearly got the info from the video, so it's not exactly hidden. Maybe that's why OP says, "no need to watch it", bevause they know they're telling fibs for outrage bait?

Look up The Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake. People get really hurt doing that.

queermunist

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A cold penny to the eye could still mean a trip to the hospital, so I don't see why that matters. Some safety squints don't seem unreasonable, but anyone who mentioned it was shouted down for ruining everyone's fun.

jossbo

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Yeah it's quite dangerous, there is moderate risk of mild injury and very mild risk of serious injury. But everyone participating knows that.

Aria

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I summarised the video and didn't do outside research. The point is that they're celebrating something that should be shameful. They explain the mechanics of how it's horrible but not that it is or that it shouldn't be celebrated. The closest they get to a condemnation is saying they've adjusted the tradition to be safer.

jossbo

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They didn't say "and that is wrong". But I think that's because it's obvious. There were a few raised eyebrows or a change to the tone of voice, so it was certainly implied.

Like if there was a documentary on the slave they might not actually say, "and this was a bad thing", bevause obviously it was a horribly bad thing.

Aria

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And so obviously they stopped celebrating it, right? The last line in the video is

We're about making certain that these wonderful old quaint customs continue.

Backed by the sound and visual of Tom clapping.

If you think I've misunderstood this documentary designed to bring awareness of a social ill, then fair enough. In that case my criticism is that Tom didn't make a video that communicated that well enough, and my criticism of the town remains unchanged.

UlyssesT

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but basically the story is rich sadists would put coins in boiling water and then throw them at poor children to watch them endure injury for small amounts of money as a form of entertainment.

I could easily see a version of this done by "MrBeast" with soypoint-1 framing in the thumbnail and it being called the "hot penny challenge" or something horrid like that, with "KIDS COMPETE FOR (.01%; of the rich asshole's accumulated riches to date)" hype text.

Gelamzer

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Lol we got people ITT defending this because "muh tradition" "let people hsve fun"

eatmyass

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“Let people have fun” and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race

thefreepenguinalt

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disagreed.

Gelamzer

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juchebot88

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Least pyschopathic day in Britbong Land

Dolores

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not every tradition need have a nice origin for it to be ingrained into the community.

this particular tradition is not still nobles trying to hurt poor people for their amusement, it's the townspeople throwing their pocketchange at each other in a vague remembrance, so long as they're having fun with it and wish to continue i don't think it's very problematic.

rjs001

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Dolores

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i don't think it'd take very long at all for us to single out something you like & engage in with problematic origins. everyone's all for complete cultural revolution until someone correctly associates something useful, harmless, or personally fond of with the bourgeois/feudal culture.

a lot can and should be critically examined, reinterpreted, and rejected, but this is a democratic process. the greatest argument for hot pennies is the voluntary perpetuation and participation in the event.

rjs001

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Dolores

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what materially does hot pennies reinforce? are the people throwing pennies nobles? are the people catching them doing so to avoid starvation? what is being normalized that is so offensive to our sensibilities here?

Neptium

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This is exactly my thought process. I really don’t see a big deal here.

I didn’t put forward an argument in my original comment because I genuinely thought there was nothing much to argue about.

It’s so trivial.

Let the people have fun and participate in community events.

It is, from what I gather, a small town anyways. It will affect like, what, 0.0001% of the entire population?

rjs001

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Dolores

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the idea of the nobles

it clearly isn't, the elected mayor and citizens are distributing the coins

The idea of money

no-one's eliminated that one yet, you'll need to be a bit more patient on expecting people to not put cultural purchase on the medium for modern life, even in AES

We shouldn’t do things that started as a nobel activity

turn over your keyboard comrade. writing was invented for the noble class' record-keeping and taxes. <---specious but i want to illustrate why we need to exercise restraint on stuff like this, especially before it gets to points like 'urbanism and intellectualism are bourgeois'

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I was thinking about this video for some time now. Wonderful, old, quaint custom my ass. I'm sure all those collected pennies add up to a decent sum of money, couldn't that be used for idk at least feeding the homeless or smth? Also what's that mayor even wearing? The brits really went ahead and saved every deeply shameful tradition they ever had.

polskilumalo

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Jesus fucking Christ, I knew there was something wrong with brits but not this wrong.

Redlogic

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There is a pattern I have seen in Tom Scott videos, he only makes videos about the "international community" countries.

eatmyass

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Ah, western culture

Edit: I watched the video and the op actually does misrepresent it. Both Tom Scott and another interviewee both separately mention the origin of it. Also, I thought it was going to be folks just pegging pennies at each other on street corners, but no it’s a one day festival that people willingly participate as Pennie’s are tossed from balconies in an organized manner.

So although the origins are shit, it doesn’t seem to be the worst thing. The main issue I can see is safety. Tom Scott gets hurt at one point, and at another says “I hope I don’t get hurt.” You can see a couple shots of people covering their heads in the crowd, and Tom Scott also notes one of the throwers is not tossing pennies but rather throwing them down on people. One of the interviewees even says “we just have to hope nobody gets hurt.” So sort of fucked up, I probably wouldn’t participate, but not the worst thing that exists

GarfieldYaoi

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For a whole bunch of "Good salt-of-the-earth Christians" WASPs are some of the most gleefully evil shitbags in human history.

lil_tank

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The barbaric traditions of western tyrannical monarchies

DesiDebugger

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I want to know which psychos idea it originally was to heat up a penny to scalding temperatures before tossing it to be fought over by the desperately poor?

fire86743

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"Traditions deserve to be preserved."

TankieReplyBot

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A YouTube link was detected in your post. Here are links to the same video on Invidious, which is a YouTube frontend that protects your privacy:

AnarchaPrincess

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Gelamzer

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Neptium

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I don’t really see a problem with this to be honest.

Just a quirky local tradition.

DeDollarization

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Neptium

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Yeah it's really weird. The British were inventors of a vicious form of financial capital that is holding the whole world hostage. A cultural tradition of short-term predatory lending and "indirect rule" that controls colonized populations through false rulers.

And we focus on... a local town somewhere just acknowledging their history and holding a community event that has been done for the last 700years.

DeDollarization

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