St. Louis Blues

About a year ago, a 13-year-old St. Louis girl named Megan Meier fell victim to a cruel online bullying hoax, believing that a cute boy named Josh, new to town, was interested in meeting her. “Josh” soon lost interest, telling her that he had heard that she was a bad person who treated her friends poorly and that the world would be a better place without her. Meier, who suffered from depression, hung herself shortly after reading this.
Before getting to the reveal, and without placing any blame on Meier’s parents, I would like to point out that it is never a good idea to let your children cruise through MySpace and that it becomes increasingly apparent, in a “To Catch a Predator” society, that your child’s Internet time should be strictly monitored.
Anyway, this tragedy’s twist is that “Josh” wasn’t a creation of schoolyard bullies, but rather the mother of a girl who was no longer Megan’s friend. The Meier parents want Anti-Cyberbullying laws set in place to protect children like her daughter, but that seems unlikely and tough to legislate. The offending mother, who merely wanted to make Megan feel as bad as a 13-year-old girl possibly could (which is surely very bad, indeed) but did not expect her to snap like that, didn’t really commit any crime here. She was only mean and will probably get away with her cruelty.
Except that, as I’ve explored before, everything comes out in the World Wide Wash, and blogger vigilantes are making sure that the Drew family, who were unnamed by the traditional media to protect their own daughter, pay a price. Names, photos and pictures of the family have been passed around, they are being harassed in their own neighborhood and (poetically) through their computer. Clients of their family-owned printing company are also being harassed. This mistake is going to hit this family in more ways than any legislation could have. This, I think, is reasonable.
As this series of tubes known as the Internet increases its dominance over our society, we are inventing our own set of social values, where the public shaming of jerks and assholes is valid retribution. As I’ve written before, you should never do anything online that you wouldn’t want your mother to see. She will find out about it, you sick jerk.