RICHMOND, Va. -- Instagram account “RVA_Fight" showcases hundreds of fight videos at Richmond-area schools. The social media account has attracted thousands of followers and generated concern among parents and teachers.
CBS 6 reporter Melissa Hipolit discovered the Instagram account while doing a story about a recent fight caught on camera at Varina High School.
“It’s very disturbing,” Emanuel Harris, whose daughter is a sophomore at Varina High School, said.
Harris had no idea the recent fight at his daughter’s school and hundreds of others were being cataloged on the Instagram account until we showed it to him.
“Why would you want to encourage violence in this day and age when people are dying?” Harris asked.
According to the page, it has 17,000 followers and 374 fights posted.
“It’s almost promoting it, like saying the fights are a good thing,” Harris said.
Christina Dick, a content strategist, uses Instagram to promote her client’s brands.
She said RVA_Fight uses some of the same techniques she employs on Instagram.
“We try to develop content patterns so people keep coming back, and that’s exactly what they’ve done with this, it’s almost like a formula,” Dick said.
It’s a formula that Dr. Bela Sood, a Senior Professor of Child Mental Health and Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at VCU Medical Center, said promotes violence among kids.
“This can’t make you succeed," Sood said. "You’ll get killed, or you’ll kill someone else and how is that good?”
Sood said it is up to parents to break the cycle of community violence by keeping tabs on what their kids look at on social media.
“We’ve got to keep kids safe, we have to keep them innocent, we have to help them, not infantilizing them, but do what is developmentally appropriate, and that [fight video] is certainly not developmentally appropriate,” Sood said.
Andy Jenks, spokesperson for Henrico County Schools, said the Henrico School Board is considering a revision to its cell phone policy that would prohibit kids from recording others without their consent during the school day.
Jenks said the board planned to vote on the issue next month.
