It's (Not) All Greek To Her

I have an ambivalent relationship to "kids these days!" thinking.

On the one hand, I'm a professor, so I'm constantly exposed to the "kids". And overwhelmingly, they're alright! Great, even! I have very little patience for the notion that the young people of today are some sort of uniform blob of incuriosity, intolerance, and preachiness. It just isn't my experience.

That said, I've always been a bit of a crotchety old man at heart. And it being age-appropriate to shout "get off my lawn!" is one of the few things that excite me about growing older.

So for someone with my proclivities, this story is outright dangerous in how much it pushes some of my confirmatory bias pleasure buttons regarding youthful idiot "activists" being idiots.

A 23-year-old woman has been arrested after she posted on social media about having gotten away with ripping down Greek flags at a New Jersey restaurant that she believed were Israeli.

The incident at Efi’s Gyro in Montclair, New Jersey, occurred March 11, but it wasn’t until Amber Matthews posted the video to TikTok on Oct. 15 that police were able to identify her. She was arrested on Tuesday and charged with bias intimidation and harassment.

In the video, Matthews, who went by the name “Ambamelia” on her now-removed TikTok account, can be heard berating employees about the “genocide” in Gaza. She posted the video with the text “The time I mistakenly thought the flag for Greek was for Israel and took the restaurants flag down OMG.”

Both Greece and Israel have blue and white flags.

Just to sum the above up, this lady:

1. Tore down flags at a random restaurant as a means of protesting "genocide" (which is bad enough on its own);
2. Didn't realize the flag she tore down was that of Greece (excuse me, "Greek") rather than Israel; and
3. Was only caught because she posted a TikTok video where she bragged about her idiotic crime burst.

It's too much.

Is it fair of me to tie this sort of stupidity to a particular generation? Of course not. After all, how many Boomer insurrectionists on January 6 got caught because they flaunted their treasonous jaunt on Facebook?

But when someone is this stupid, in this public of a fashion -- I'm sorry, I just can't help myself.