JANUARY 6 — At first I thought the pictures were Photoshopped. The pictures of a bunch of young Malaysian teens atop the huge Hollywood-style letters spelling out “IPOH” would not have been that difficult to create.
And then I saw the actual video on YouTube! Even George Lucas with the help of Industrial Light and Magic would not have been able to fake that sort of realism.
I felt queasy just looking at them confidently scaling the ‘Ipoh’ letters. The Ipoh Daredevil Teens were the real deal, whatever you may think of their stunt.
Perhaps it is because I am entering middle age that I am not cheering these teens on for their stunt. I admit, age has a way of rendering us less adventurous and we find ourselves participating in safer activities (like Scrabble, maybe!).
Back in my time, in the early to mid-1990s, we had our own adventures. Highland Towers, for example. The tragedy itself happened in 1993, just after my SPM. A bunch of friends and I were actually on our way to KL when we heard the news.
By the time I entered college the following year, Highland Towers was already a legend in terms of “hauntings.” There were many stories about how young folks were making their way up there simply to get a glimpse of the supernatural.
There were stories about a ghostly mother looking for her children which became something these young thrill seekers desperately sought to see. I will not go into whether or not I myself went up there. That would be beside the point (not to mention could land me in hot water, notwithstanding my age!).
The point is, though, young people have this tendency of adventure seeking.
Back to the Ipoh teen daredevils whose stunt divided social media. I observe a variety of opinion makers on Facebook and Twitter and rather surprised to see that many of them supported these teenagers.
Their reasons are as follows: these teens should be allowed to do as they wish. They had the guts to do what many of us do not (no dispute there!) and we should not stand in the way of such courage. I can agree with the courage part, at least. I do feel that it takes a special amount of courage climbing atop a tall structure while wielding a selfie stick.
However, we do need to realise one thing — this stunt was not without its implications. For a start, the structure is the property of the Ipoh city council and thus their permission was required to climb it.
Obviously such permission would never have been given but that is not the point here. The point is, we have laws and however glamorous these stunts may seem to be, we cannot discount the fact that laws have been broken.
Having said that, I do hope that the authorities would not be unduly harsh on the teens though. Their ages should be considered before passing harsh judgement, I feel.
And what of their parents? I would be rather surprised if their parents knew of this stunt and had given their approval. It is considerably less of a shock because no one was hurt. What if tragedy had occurred? The parents would no doubt be devastated, much more so if they did not know about the stunt in the first place. This is why I consider this stunt to be terribly irresponsible.
So what should our response be to this daredevil impulse? The impulse is very real but perhaps the best way would be to manage them safely. Why not have actual climbing tours atop certain structures? The view would be just as breathtaking except one has significantly less risk.
It is important not to suppress the high energies of youth but at the same time, we should provide them safe means through which they can express them.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
