GUILTY Canada - Amanda Todd, 15, posts anti-bullying video apparently kills herself, 2012 *arrests*

Welcome to Websleuths!
Click to learn how to make a missing person's thread

DNA Solves
DNA Solves
DNA Solves

New Posts

sillybilly said:
When I had put the youtube mocker's "amandatodd" moniker into google, one site that came up with that spelling was nothing but a bunch of links to scurious sounding sites, some of which contained the word "jailbait".
Click to expand...
<snip>

Too late to edit, so sorry for quoting self:

The above should have read "amandatoddd" (3 "d"s instead of only 2)
 
Thinking back to JeannaT's question as to a "best guess" as what happened in my grandson's case, the more I think about it, it comes down to poor self-esteem very early in his childhood. Although the negative circumstances that were swirling about him when he was young were not caused by him in any way, those circumstances influenced how he felt about himself. When kids are very young and can't relate to adult experiences, their little world allows them to only see things within their limited framework. They blame themselves for the bad things that are going around them (i.e. the kids who feel that their parents' divorce must be their fault because they can't relate to the adult issues that caused these things).

So IMO, whether the child is the bully or the bullied, it comes down to lack of self-esteem, self-confidence. They need to know at a very young age that assertiveness and aggressiveness are two very different things. A simple analogy I use to try to help them understand is "Aggression is hitting someone over the head with a teapot; Assertiveness is not allowing someone to hit you over the head with a teapot".

My beautiful grandkids have some native ancestry. When they went to live with their g-grandmother, she set about "teaching them" about the evils of native culture :( When they came to live with me, they were "ashamed" of being native. It's taken a long time, but they now embrace that part of their ancestry. They have to feel good about where they come from.

It's such a complex issue, but if each of us can commit to encouraging, standing up for, and getting help for any child who appears to be suffering from low self-esteem, we can be instrumental in helping them be strong (and perhaps save a few teapots in the process ;)).


Just a couple of links to "things to do to stop bullying"

http://www.girlshealth.gov/bullying/stopping/index.cfm

http://www.stopbullying.gov/kids/what-you-can-do/index.html
 
italianWSfan said:
Another teenage girl comitted suicide because of bullies... :(

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/26/felicia-garcia-suicide_n_2023835.html

I do believe that the Amanda Todd case and the worldwide hype because of it influences many teenagers who have problems, but in a bad way.

Is there no media ban in the US about suicides? Can anyone tell me?
Click to expand...

I believe it's a fine line. If we don't talk about suicides then we are ignoring a significant problem. We are essentially saying that mental health issues do not exist. If we DO talk about suicides it can 'inspire' others to follow the same route, thinking that they are 'ending' their problems. I'm not sure what the answer is. :(

When a loved one of mine was suffering from major depression and was potentially suicidal, I dreaded seeing anything in the media for fear that it would 'inspire' them to alleviate their problems, just as the person in the news had done.

What should we do?
 
Snoopster said:
I believe it's a fine line. If we don't talk about suicides then we are ignoring a significant problem. We are essentially saying that mental health issues do not exist. If we DO talk about suicides it can 'inspire' others to follow the same route, thinking that they are 'ending' their problems. I'm not sure what the answer is. :(

When a loved one of mine was suffering from major depression and was potentially suicidal, I dreaded seeing anything in the media for fear that it would 'inspire' them to alleviate their problems, just as the person in the news had done.

What should we do?
Click to expand...

I completely understand your question. When one young person in a community commits suicide, others follow right away. In my community the news media and the school district have stopped publicizing death from suicide. If a child dies from leukemia, or something like a water-born bacteria from swimming, or a heart failure, etc., it makes huge news. Suicide is literally not reported in the news media and doesn't make the district news email list. That seems sad, but there's no sense in adding further loss to the loss already suffered. Kids will follow suit when a peer commits suicide, or purposely gets pregnant, or some other awful thing.

I don't know what we should do. I really don't understand why our young people have become so fragile - I don't think suicide rates in the horn of Africa, or Nazi prison camps was this high. Why are our youth right now SO fragile?

Suicide isn't logical, or linear. If you lined up people with reasonably the "worst" lives, they aren't the ones committing suicide. They are the ones struggling the hardest to survive. The ones with cush lives, who hit a little roadbump are the kids who seem to be committing suicide.
 
I am just wondering why so much was reported in the media about Amanda Todd and Felicia Garcia.

I live in a very small country. In 1990, when the media ban about suicide was not yet established, 3 young people took their own life together.
The case was all over the newspapers, every detail about how it happened was published.
As a result, the following weeks numerous young people committed suicide in the exact same way. I am sorry I cannot find a number right now, but it were statistically A LOT of people.
This is why the media "ban" was established.

From Wikipedia:
"One of the earliest known associations between the media and suicide arose from Goethe's novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (The Sorrows of Young Werther). Goethe's novel was published in 1774 and not long after young men began to mimic the character Werther by dressing in yellow pants and blue jackets. The new fashion trend seemed to be entertaining to the public. A new trend also emerged from the book causing it to be banned in numerous areas. In the novel, Werther commits suicide with a pistol after he fails to get the girl he desires. Many men replicated this trend in an act of hopelessness.[5] In that work the hero shoots himself after an ill-fated love, and shortly after its publication there were many reports of young men using the same method to commit suicide. This resulted in a ban of the book in several places. Hence the term "Werther effect", used in the technical literature to designate copycat suicides.[6] The term was coined by researcher David Phillips in 1974.[7] Two centuries after Goethe's novel was published, David Phillips confirmed imitative suicides as the "Werther effect." Reports in 1985 and 1989 by Phillips and his colleagues found that suicides and other accidents seem to incline after a well publicized suicide.[5] Copycat suicide is mostly blamed on the media. "Hearing about a suicide seems to make those who are vulnerable feel they have permission to do it," Dr. Phillips said. He cited studies that showed that people were more likely to engage in dangerous deviant behavior, such as drug taking, if someone else had set the example first.[3]"

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copycat_suicide"]Copycat suicide - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

This is a shocking and very well written article!

To prevent this type of suicide, it is customary in some countries for the media to discourage suicide reports except in special cases.

So to come back to my initial question, is this not the case in the US?
Or are those two girls suicides considered "special cases"?


EDIT:
This is crazy: "Examples of celebrities whose suicides have inspired suicide clusters include (...) Marilyn Monroe, whose death was followed by an increase of 200 more suicides than average for that August month."
 
Yeah, I wondered. So within 30 seconds of digging, I found out why.

Anonymous appears to have got it wrong.

While the idea of faceless masses of vigilantes achieving what the police etc cannot is truly appealing (and I have personally cheered a couple of their campaigns on), it should be remembered that Anonymous "is legion" -- ie, comprised of a really large and eclectic bunch of people on the internet, the majority of whom do not actually know each other from soap.

And just as it is in any crowd made of loosely connected hordes of people, some are a whole lot smarter than others.

This said, outing a predator isn't a bad thing to do. If he really is one. They got that bit right, anyway.
 
Ausgirl said:
Yeah, I wondered. So within 30 seconds of digging, I found out why.

Anonymous appears to have got it wrong.

While the idea of faceless masses of vigilantes achieving what the police etc cannot is truly appealing (and I have personally cheered a couple of their campaigns on), it should be remembered that Anonymous "is legion" -- ie, comprised of a really large and eclectic bunch of people on the internet, the majority of whom do not actually know each other from soap.

And just as it is in any crowd made of loosely connected hordes of people, some are a whole lot smarter than others.

This said, outing a predator isn't a bad thing to do. If he really is one. They got that bit right, anyway.
Click to expand...
Unless I read that incorrectly, Anon got some of the details wrong, but the guy they fingered has a history of the same sort of behavior in the past, correct? I mean, how common is that name? He also said he "sort of" knew the girl. So, was he or was he not the same guy who has the history of this from the year before? And on top of that, he knows the guy who "really" did it? Doesn't sound to me like they got the wrong guy, just some of the details wrong (like address and employment).

Either I haven't had enough coffee yet today, or this guy is into child *advertiser censored*, knows others into child *advertiser censored*, and knew the victim, so he's guilty of something, no?
 
I didn't say he was innocent. Just that they got things wrong (causing several innocent people to be severely harassed, with death threats, etc).

And what they got wrong is a bunch of easily verifiable information. I just think that folks who can't be bothered verifying the accused's actual address, etc, might want to do that before making announcements about him.

The RCMP also said their accusations were "unfounded" at this point.

I don't think they are, tbh. I think this pack of pedo opportunists need to be thrown in prison. Or to the mob, either/or.

But rather than announcing half-arsed info to the world, creating lynch mobs armed with the wrong information, could the members of Anon responsible not have just turned their info to the cops?

Just not a very smart move, I think.
 
Yep the trouble with freedom of speech is that it cuts both ways.

This guy has probably lost his job, his son also may be affected because he is a chip off the old block.

The more I think about it, the more I feel there should be some sort of permanent warning tattooed across the foreheads of those who are guilty of child *advertiser censored* or violence.
 
Can't believe I had not really heard about this case before this thread. How sad and tragic. It is really horrible to think that some jerk on the internet talked her into posting a few topless pictures, and then those pictures and his threats with them were just too much. A lot of lessons to be learned there.... first; don't post pictures like that to ANYONE! second; if you DO post pictures, don't be threatened with them... I honestly wish I could have found her and told her to tell this jerk to go to He!! - post the pictures, yes, they are of me.... SO WHAT???? That is the reason I would never, ever, ever, want to be a teenager again in this world - unless I could take my current attitude with me. The world always has been full of haters, and always will be. The best thing is to develop an "I don't give a f!!!!" attitude and roll on down the road. Hats off to Anonymous for their efforts in exposing this guy. I am not totally convinced they got it wrong.
 
Reannan said:
Can't believe I had not really heard about this case before this thread. How sad and tragic. It is really horrible to think that some jerk on the internet talked her into posting a few topless pictures, and then those pictures and his threats with them were just too much. A lot of lessons to be learned there.... first; don't post pictures like that to ANYONE! second; if you DO post pictures, don't be threatened with them... I honestly wish I could have found her and told her to tell this jerk to go to He!! - post the pictures, yes, they are of me.... SO WHAT???? That is the reason I would never, ever, ever, want to be a teenager again in this world - unless I could take my current attitude with me. The world always has been full of haters, and always will be. The best thing is to develop an "I don't give a f!!!!" attitude and roll on down the road. Hats off to Anonymous for their efforts in exposing this guy. I am not totally convinced they got it wrong.
Click to expand...

I don't think it was the pictures that bothered her as much as the reaction from her peers. She was beaten up while groups watched over and over. Her family had her change schools, moved her to a different location, and that sick a&&hole made her life hell everywhere she went, and she'd get beat up again. I wish I could have talked with her, too. I would have shown her how to turn the tables on the people beating on her, empowered her to be her own activist, and encouraged her to go to the police. Too late now. How tragic.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

DNASolves

Who is DeKalb County John Doe (2022)?

Staff online

Members online

... and 186 more.
Total: 3,495 (members: 187, guests: 3,308)

Online statistics

Members online
187
Guests online
3,308
Total visitors
3,495
Totals may include hidden visitors.

Forum statistics

Threads
604,603
Messages
18,174,444
Members
232,746
Latest member
OffTrailMeanderer
Back
Top