14 DAY TRIAL // YouTube is the perfect medium for exposing things some people would like to keep hidden due to its huge fan base. A video of two women looting the shops in Belgrade has circled the web and has turned them into overnight celebrities. Not sure that's one of the things one might want to be famous for, but the two seemed not to care very much about the amateur cameraman following them around.
The video even made it to national television, and the humiliation involved should be the modern equivalent of the punishment fitting the crime. And for what? Some candy, shoes and designer bags that were left for grabs when the stores' employees fled the coming protesters.
The chance was provided by the attack of rioters of the Western embassies during a mass rally to protest at the United States' and general European support for Kosovo's independence. Idealists gather to show their support for keeping national unity, while others see in it a window of opportunity to stock up with some goods and then pride in the way they were acquired.
The video was a reason for the Kosovo online community to generalize and show the world what they are running away from. One user even commented that apart from being happy that his land is now free, he would also like "to do to Belgrade what the Americans did to Hiroshima" and wipe the whole city off the face of the Earth.
Another user, claiming to be Serbian, makes a case of showing the world that "being a jerk" doesn't have anything to do with nationality. Despite that being true, the video kind of says everything about the way things were at one point. Decadence in a decadent city, if I may, is the best metaphor to sum everything up.
Here's the video I could find. I'd tell you to enjoy it, but it would be wrong.