Getting beaten up isn’t fun, getting beaten up on YouTube is even less fun, but being beaten up on YouTube and having Dr Phil bail out your attackers is a scorching new level of anti-fun.

So Victoria Lindsay much have thr right grumps at the moment. Not so long ago, Victoria Lindsay was viciously beaten by eight mostly-female teenagers who intended to post the video on YouTube and become the new Chocolate Rain or whatever. And when Dr Phil heard about this, he thought “Lummy, a child in danger! Only I can help her!”

Actually that’s not the case at all – Dr Phil thought “Whoopee! Easy ratings!” and decided to make an episode of his show about it, quickly helping one of the suspects post bond so she could appear on it. But now the episode has been cancelled because of Dr Phil’s suspect ethics. And now nobody’s lives will change because a fat bald man shouted a worn-out catchphrase at them. Literally nobody wins.

YouTube, it’s fair to say, is responsible for some really dumb trends. Who can forget the time everyone tried leaping out of their moving cars and dancing on the bonnet because a rapper made a song about it? Or when Paul McCartney invented nodding your head? And if we see one more dramatic chipmunk on the street begging for money, we won’t be held responsible for our actions.

But perhaps the stupidest YouTube craze around is the craze of beating people up on camera and putting it on YouTube. Not because of the physical and psychological trauma that the victim will inevitably go through – frankly those babies need to man up a bit – but because if the attackers are stupid enough to film their own faces on the entire internet as they beat someone up, then they probably deserve to be arrested.

This craze has already cost one aspiring singer her spot on X Factor, and now a bunch of people won’t be going on Dr Phil about it either. But that’s not to say that Dr Phil didn’t try really really hard to get them on anyway.

Recently eight Florida teenagers were arrested and variously charged with felonious battery, kidnapping and false imprisonment after attacking 16-year-old Victoria Lindsay and filming it with intent to post the video on YouTube. During the attack Victoria suffered concussion, eye and ear damage and was knocked unconscious.

As well as being a horrific individual case, the attack also preys on the general public’s fears of youth and technology, which sounds perfect for a Dr Phil episode – after all, if an overweight, dubiously-qualified man can’t save these attackers by shouting a lot of half-baked self-help slogans at them in front of a crowd of easily-convinced rednecks then all is lost.

Trouble is, some of the teenage suspects couldn’t meet bail – which is why someone working for Dr Phil decided to step in and and free them. And that little manoeuvre has arsed up the episode for good, as the New York Times reports:

Dr. Phil pulled the plug on plans for a story on the Florida teenagers jailed for participating in a videotaped beating after learning that members of his staff helped one of the eight suspects post bond…Terri Corigliano, a spokeswoman for “Dr. Phil” McGraw, wrote in an e-mail message that “in this case, certain staff members went beyond our guidelines (re the bail being paid). These staff members have been spoken to and our policies reiterated. In addition, we have decided not to go forward with the story as our guidelines have been compromised.”

It’s just another blow for Dr Phil, who just can’t stop suffering these embarrassing setbacks. First Dr Phil’s proposed Britney Spears episode was ditched because Britney’s family said he was exploitative and only interested in self-promotion, and now this has come along, too.

But don’t worry Dr Phil, we’re sure one day a terrible news story will turn up that you’ll be allowed to pounce on and profit from for the sake of nothing but a simplistic desire for ratings. Your time will come, you great big adorable bear.

Read more:

Intervention Scuttles a Dr. Phil Show – NYT