The Internet isn’t a safe place. First there was the news regarding the Craigslist murder of a young woman who answered an ad for a nanny, and now a MySpace hoax has resulted in the suicide of thirteen-year-old girl.
Megan Meier was the victim of a cruel Internet prank. The mother of a former friend of Megan’s posed as a young boy and pretended to be interested in Megan. The mother claims that she did this to find out what Megan was saying about her daughter behind her back. First, I just have to stop here and comment on the absolute immaturity of a grown woman who would be so pettily involved in her daughter’s affairs, that she would pretend to be a teenage boy on MySpace and insult a thirteen year old daughter.
Here in Tampa, we had another incident that is similar in nature. A mother climbed on a school bus and encouraged her daughter to physically assault a girl on the bus. We know that parents need to become more involved in their children’s daily lives, but this is not the type of involvement they need. It is unbelievable what parents are doing today, and this is simply unacceptable behavior.
From the reports, Megan Meier was already struggling with depression and low self-esteem. It isn’t uncommon for thirteen-year-old girls to have anxiety problems and troubles in school. However, for many when they are ostracized, picked on, or bullied, the emotional trauma may be overwhelming. It’s not acceptable, but it is certainly common for teen girls to be cruel to other girls. We see this depicted in movies like Mean Girls with Lindsay Lohan. What we don’t see, is Mean Girls with a mean mom backing them up!
Megan was communicating with a boy that she believed was named Josh Evans. He was supposed to be sixteen and they communicated through MySpace. When Megan wanted to take their conversations to the telephone, he told her that he didn’t have one. She was under the impression that he was homeschooled and lived in her area. Megan’s mother, Tina was aware that the two were conversing and did her best to monitor the conversations the best she could. However, after conversing for roughly a month, the conversations took a swift turn for the worst. It began when “Josh†told Megan that he didn’t want to talk to her anymore. He told her that he heard that she was, “mean to her friends,†and that he was ending their friendship.
Was this the action of a grown woman trying to get even with a thirteen-year-old girl whom she believed had been mean to her daughter? Not only did “Josh” say that he was cutting off the relationship, but then bulletins were being posted on the MySpace page stating that Megan was fat and a slut. Obviously, Megan’s state of mind was frail and this rejection was more than she could bear. She left the computer crying, ran to her room and hung herself in her closet.
Some may look at this and say that it is purely a suicide. However, there is no doubt that the mother who created the “Josh Evans” profile clearly created the environment that led to Megan’s actions. As of now, there are no laws in place to punish her, though Megan’s parents are working to change that.
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[...] FaceBook, on the other hand, has flourished in the wake of MySpace’s troubles. With a reputation for increased security, and a slightly older demographic, FaceBook seemed a logical alternative for many Web surfers, especially in light of the bad publicity surrounding MySpace. [...]
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