In China, videos of people vandalizing elevators, public facilities, or shared spaces pop up regularly — from kids stretching doors off hinges to adults punching panels or smashing buttons.

One recent clip: A person destroys the elevator control panel. Not an isolated tantrum. This reflects deeper societal rot.
Why does this happen so often?

1. Zero personal agency under the CCP: Your life is dictated — hukou system, social credit, censorship, arbitrary lockdowns, property seizures, corrupt officials. You can’t vote, protest freely, or challenge the powerful without risk. Smashing an elevator button? That’s one tiny domain where you decide. Instant gratification in a life of helplessness. “Finally, something listens to me.”

2. Low-trust society: Decades of propaganda, lies, and “everyone for themselves” survival (famine memory, Cultural Revolution betrayals, modern cutthroat competition) erode civility. Public property feels like “nobody’s” — or the state’s, which screws you anyway. Why respect it when the state doesn’t respect you?

3. Moral decay + learned helplessness: Education emphasizes obedience, not responsibility. Combine with economic pressure, inequality, and “996” grind — frustration boils over in petty destruction. Netizens sometimes even defend it as “exposing poor quality” (like the boy who broke doors and his mom claimed he did a public service).

This isn’t “Chinese culture.” Overseas Chinese communities don’t trash amenities at these rates. It’s the system: Totalitarian control breeds resentment that leaks out as nihilistic vandalism because real resistance is crushed.

The CCP builds shiny high-speed rails and cities while everyday spaces crumble under neglect and abuse. Public amenities become outlets for the powerless.

When people can’t speak truth to power, they punch elevators.

What do you think? Is this “venting” or symptom of a broken society?