I posted about this on another forum I'm on, and very opposite response - the belief of the people on that forum was that the father was abusive, etc. One member of that forum claimed she even reported the video to youtube. Obviously, Youtube isn't taking an issue!
And a lot of people were all concerned about the young girl's embarrassment. Here is what I had to say:
On the embarrassment front... everyone is worried about the girl's embarrassment. What do you think those parents felt reading that letter, knowing that hundreds, maybe thousands of people had read it??? Some might think they were from the Joan Crawford School of Parenting if you went by the letter. Calling her mother "the cleaning lady" among other things, bitching and whining over maybe an hour of chores (if that)? Oh poor little girl that has everything she wants provided to her and she has to do chores! I weep... NOT!
I had pretty much the same rules (chores and what not), and I lived by them. Sure, there were times I didn't like them and cursed my old man, but NEVER in front of him, to my friends, or publicly, she did via Facebook. I respected my father very much, and there was a maybe a bit of fear too (which is not a bad thing in my book), because if I fucked up, he had the power to bring down hell on my shoulders FAR WORSE than anything I was expected to do day by day. I had rules, but I had a lot of latitude as well. It was only when expectations were not met that the fair bit of rope I had, got shortened. As for things, yes, my father never really denied me things, but once I was older if it was something bigger (my second computer was a big example of this - it was over $3000 dollars back in early 90s, and I chipped in about a third), I had to contribute to it. I had a part time job at thirteen, working at a local gas station on weekends, so I did that on top of everything else, including school.
The gun thing... somewhat over the top... he could have done it off camera and showed the result or used another means to wreck it to not make it as "violent" (a drill, for instance), as people seem worried about that. He paid for the thing, so he can do whatever he wants to it. It technically belongs to him. If he wants to wreck it, its his prerogative.
At no time during the video he did ever threaten her in anyway (if he did, I didn't notice, and I've watched it several times). Most of what he says in the video is right on, in my opinion, up to the point he shoots the laptop. If you took away the shooting of the laptop, I don't think people would be as up in arms about it. I think people are reading far more into that than there really is. I could see it if he made some comment like "I'll be doing this to you next" or something. But he didn't.
And he was bang on (no pun intended) saying that if wanted another laptop, she had to get a job an buy it herself.
And seriously? Reporting it to youtube? I doubt they'll do anything... just checked the video. Its still up. Its been seen by 2.1 million people, and liked by almost 83,000 people. Only just over 6150 disliked it. Says a lot.