Give me a break..

I should warn you now .. you might find this post offensive. If you have delicate sensitivities, stop reading.

On CNN I stumbled across this article. The short version of this story is that a 13 year old girl had a myspace page and a 49 year old woman created a myspace page pretending to be a 16 year old boy that was a love interest for this girl. The 'boy' eventually spurned the girl via myspace and she commited suicide over it.

The woman is "charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress on Meier, who is identified in court documents as M.T.M. Each count against Drew would carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison upon conviction."

The whole situation is pretty fucked up honestly. Why a 49 year old woman would go to the lengths of creating a fictitious myspace page to pretend to be a 16 year old boy to spurn this girl.. I have no idea. Obviously she has some serious issues she needs to deal with. I have to ask as a parent though.. why does your 13 year old girl have a myspace page? If for some reason you decided this was ok.. how are you not monitoring it? Even if you think its ok and don't think you need to monitor it at all for your 13 year old girl.. how the hell do you not talk to her about the dangers of the internet and make sure they know not everything can be taken at face value?

My problem with this whole thing is that this woman, who is decidedly screwed in the head, is being brought to trial on some pretty weak technicalities because of the fact that the girl commited suicide. Was the woman wrong to do what she did? Absolutely. Should she be pummeled about the head and neck region with a 24lb Butterball? You betcha and I get dibs! This should not be the huge trial that it is though regardless of how fucked up the situation is.

Its the internet people. THE INTERNET. I have a news flash for you in case you are new to the internet. NOT EVERYTHING ON THE INTERNET IS TRUE. Let me give you an example with the following statement:

I am devestatingly handsome and I recently had a threesome with Salma Hayek and Megan Fox.

See what I mean? Only half of that statement is true. I'll let you figure out which half though. Just because I posted it on the internet doesn't make it true. Although if Salma and Megan are reading this and want to make the statement valid.. you know where to find me!

My point before I got off on a pleasant tangent there is simple. That girl, as tragic as her suicide is, had much larger emotional issues than this myspace situation. The myspace thing is a scapegoat. People are looking for someone to blame for the tragedy that is a 13yr old commiting suicide. That doesn't make it right.

Everyone goes through the trauma of being rejected. Having their heart broken. Being manipulate and used. I know my kids are going to go through it. I have been through it. I also am very confident that when it happens they are not going to think the world is over and feel like they need to take their own lives over it. I can't even imagine what that girls parents are going through, but that doesn't make it right to try to pin the blame on one persons actions.. even as retarded and nauseating as they were.

I am all for letting the parents vent some anger and use those little frozen cornish game hens to 'stone' her in a public setting as punishment for her stupidity and then commiting her to an institution to deal with her issues. Pinning the girls suicide on false representations of a myspace page on the internet sets a scary precedence.

I have seen and/or been involved in some pretty fucked up situations revolving around people creating false identities on the internet over the years. One was rather recent and affected not only myself, but several other people I know well. I am not going to go into details, but let it suffice to say that the things this individual said and did were far, FAR worse than misrepresenting themselves on a myspace page. As fucked up as the whole situation was, no one commited suicide over it. Everyone lives, learns and moves on. We try to forget the shitty things that happen and focus on the good things.

It would be a different story if the woman had tried to convince the girl to commit suicide. If there was evidence she was trying to get the girl to do that, maybe this would have more of a leg to stand on. This is just people looking for a scapegoat.. for someone to blame in a tragic situation.

As tomorrow is Thanksgiving and the chances of me posting on a holiday and a day off are slim, let me wish you all a happy turkey day. I hope you all enjoy the time you get to spend with family and friends. Remember to take a minute and think about the good things in your life and be thankful for those people that are there for you, who love you, and make you happy. Those are the things to dwell on.

/cheers
/turkeycoma ON