Newsworthy: parkour hero scales four stories in like four seconds in order to rescue child hanging off of a ledge in Paris. French president applauds his act of heroism and immediately expedites his pursuit of French citizenship and immediately offers him a job with the Paris fire brigade. A wonderful story of bravery and a reward fitting of a hero who deserves it.
Brogworthy: child ended up in the precarious situation because his dad left him unsupervised so he could go to the market and play Pokémon Go on the way back. Dad faces two years in prison for child neglect. Because of Pokémon Go.
Even before it was revealed that dad was out being an idiot, this was still a fantastic story of a legitimate hero who did something extraordinary. It’s a happy ending for all, because the kid didn’t fall to his death, and the Malian immigrant who scaled the building like Spider-Man to rescue the kid is instantly rewarded with the French citizenship he was aspiring to gain.
There’s not much to talk about in a situation like this, and it’s easiest to simply marvel in the incredible feats of human bravery and feel like our collective faith in people can gain a point or two for such selfless courage.
But then it comes out that the kid was left unsupervised by a deadbeat of a father who went out to the market, and then decided to leisurely take his time coming back so that he could play some Pokémon Go. Now, it’s something to brog about.
Full disclosure: I still play Pokémon Go. It’s literally taking me an entire year to go from level 34 to 35, and there’s a litany of life milestones that I’m fairly confident that I’ll hit before I can get to the maximum level 40, and knowing my luck, Niantic, if they’re even still around in six years, will raise the max cap to like 50, and then I’ll be fucked and proclaim I’ll stop but then probably won’t anyway.
And I don’t even have kids. But even I know that kids, when left unsupervised, have all of their physical stats juiced, because there’s no other way to explain how kids get into all sorts of shit, only when left unsupervised. Kids who topple furniture, or scale kitchen counters and then knock over the refrigerator and shit; kids left unseen are kids capable of unspeakable amounts of destrucity.
So shame on a dad so stupid to leave a child unattended and expect that nothing was going to happen. Of course when he leaves the house to try and catch some Pikachus is when the kid is going to smash through a window but not realize that there is no surface on the other side, and then be left hanging onto dear life off of a ledge. Fuckin idiot of a parent, that I’d expect such stupidity from an American, but I guess the limits of stupidity really do know no nationality in the end.
I hope it was worth it too, but I’d wager that it wasn’t. I’ve played Pokémon Go in Europe, it’s really no different than it is anywhere else; tons of Rattatas, Pidgeys and other common shit, and it’s not like Mr. Mime is a big deal to them, considering it’s their own regional exclusive. While his kid is dangling off of a balcony, dad is probably raging at the juiced Weedle that’s refusing to go quietly into the ball, because Weedles have had their escapability juiced tremendously over the last few months.
Anyway, it’s kind of appropriate that one of the last free acts that dad did was playing Pokémon Go, because when he gets put into the slammer for child neglect, he’ll be spending the next two years kind of living like a Pikachu, depending on if the prison system in France is similar to how it is in America – kept in confinement, but occasionally let out to workout and fight.
Meanwhile, after he gains his citizenship, Spider-Man may as well just become Spider-Man; dude is in fantastic shape, and clearly has a talent for scaling buildings and doing heroic shit. Given the occasional terrorist acts that unfortunately happen to Paris, the city could very well use a real-life friendly arrondissement Spider-Man to protect the people.
