Every great civilization arrives at its tipping point. Perhaps it begins to decay under the weight of an insupportable caste system. Or perhaps it finds itself forced to reckon with imperialist invaders. In some cases, an intellectual revolution rewrites the rules that undergird society.
In our case, it’s fucking hoverboards.
Can there be any doubt that these hands-free gyroscopic scooters signal the end of the great neoliberal experiment? We’re talking about devices that routinely catch fire, tempt priests to sin, injure boxing champions, and cause movie-star freakouts on airplanes. There are only two ways the future can unfold: Either we survive, or the hoverboards do.
To that end, here’s the second of our weekly #HoverboardCrime roundups. Remember, to avoid becoming a #HoverboardCrime statistic, you can use feet or literally any other mode of transportation. Stay woke.
- Cascade Township, Michigan — March 5: Police responded to a report of individuals smoking marijuana in a store parking lot and found them also in the possession of “numerous gift cards, Visa Green Dot cards, 10 iPad Airs, four boxes of shoes, a PlayStation 4, a hoverboard, and clothing.” While we’re glad these three suspects weren’t naked while being arrested for fraud, we do have to wonder how high they were when they decided to transport that haul via hoverboard.
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — March 9: Philadelphia’s city council is considering a bill to “prohibit hoverboard use by anyone under the age of 12 years, unless the user wears a helmet, kneepads, elbow pads, and wrist guards,” with fines for violations set around $300. The first person to send us a vine of a Philly cop trying to issue a $300 hoverboarding ticket to an 11-year-old gets to run our site for the next week.
- Dallas, Texas — March 11: Dallas police still can’t find a man they suspect of randomly shooting someone and making his getaway via hoverboard, but they do have a photo of him not riding a hoverboard, which will likely just cause further confusion. Come to think of it, though, if hoverboards didn’t already exist, we’d have to invent them for this guy—for some reason he just seems born to glide, not walk.
via Dallas Police Department
- Beaver, Pennsylvania — March 11: A man accused of stealing a hoverboard from two teenagers at gunpoint waived his right to a court hearing because, let’s face it, everyone has better things to do. We’d tell you more about this story, but we’re not about to pay $1.99 for a trial subscription to the Beaver County Times.
- Akron, Ohio — March 11: Police received reports of two hoverboard robberies in a single day, and you know what that means! #HOVERBOARDCRIMEWAVE. In the first incident, a 17-year-old hit a 12-year-old over the head for refusing to give up his hoverboard and promptly ran away with said hoverboard. (We can’t imagine it was worth it for either of them.) In the second stick-up, two men stole a 9-year-old’s hoverboard by pointing a gun at him. I don’t want to tell hoverboard thieves how to do their jobs, but if you need two grown adults and a firearm to get your hands on a 9-year-old’s hoverboard, you’re really not cut out for this gig. You could have just asked for a turn.
Photo via Soar Boards/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)