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How a cell phone picture led to girl's suicide

5,315 707 October 23, 2010 at 02:46 PM in Chat (2)

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Joined Mar 2007
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.teri.
10-26-2010 at 07:00 AM.
10-26-2010 at 07:00 AM.
Quote from ForeverDcember :
Unless the school had reasonable cause to believe that the girl's home life was bad, they should have contacted the parents before bringing her in and having her sign. If they thought there was something wrong at home they should have contacted the proper department and took it from there.
and if it was bad enough to have her sign the contract (she was obviously suicidal) the SW perhaps should have contacted authorities who in turn could have hospitalized the girl. I don't understand why social worker's have the ability to have anyone, let alone children sign no harm contracts. They aren't doctors.
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SlicKitty
10-26-2010 at 07:29 AM.
10-26-2010 at 07:29 AM.
Quote from .teri. :
so yes, I think your line of reasoning is on the same level as the middle school kids. To say it's her fault that she was tortured by an entire school for something she sent to one person is her fault is childish. Bad judgement on her part, but no excuse for the behaviour of all the other kids that participated.

You're generous.
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SlicKitty
10-26-2010 at 07:34 AM.
10-26-2010 at 07:34 AM.
Quote from homycraz2 :
My grammar mistake did not lead me to commite suicide using my keyboard.
I think that what you mean to say is that your grammar mistake has not gone viral causing thousands of people to make fun of you, push you into lockers, post your face all over the Internet along with horrible names about you, physically and verbally abuse you during your formative years, cause us to put pictures of your naked body on the Internet, or cause anyone to create a Facebook page defaming you, all of which may have caused you to feel like not just like a social outcast amongst your small social group, but in society in general, which may then cause you to kill yourself with your keyboard at the age of 13.

Sending her photo to her boyfriend didn't cause her to kill herself with her cell phone.

It was the viral consquences of that action and the reaction of the thousands of people who didn't even know her and couldn't be counted on to behave like human beings.

But, the more time I spend in this thread, the more I see that it's what the world is now. More people in the world really just can't be counted on to be kind to each other. Tough lesson. I guess some people learn it the hard way.
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the Drunken Snowman
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Phrozt
10-26-2010 at 07:49 AM.
10-26-2010 at 07:49 AM.
Quote from SlicKitty :
Sending her photo to her boyfriend didn't cause her to kill herself with her cell phone.

It was the viral consquences of that action and the reaction of the thousands of people who didn't even know her and couldn't be counted on to behave like human beings.
No.. it was her own choice. 10 pages later, you still seem to fail at understanding this and place blame on everyone but her.

The world is "ugly" because you choose to interpret it that way.
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.teri.
10-26-2010 at 08:08 AM.
10-26-2010 at 08:08 AM.
Quote from Phrozt :
No.. it was her own choice. 10 pages later, you still seem to fail at understanding this and place blame on everyone but her.

The world is "ugly" because you choose to interpret it that way.
Please read post #132. Please read that post carefully and see if you get the message.
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Phrozt
10-26-2010 at 08:12 AM.
10-26-2010 at 08:12 AM.
Quote from .teri. :
Please read post #132. Please read that post carefully and see if you get the message.
Oh, you mean the one where you make a ridiculously left field hypothetical conversation that literally could never take place, the whole time in which you project your own negative view of three posters you've never met and make them look worse than anything they've said?

Yeah, the message there is that you, like kitty, will see exactly what you want to see.
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.teri.
10-26-2010 at 08:44 AM.
10-26-2010 at 08:44 AM.
Quote from Phrozt :
Oh, you mean the one where you make a ridiculously left field hypothetical conversation that literally could never take place, the whole time in which you project your own negative view of three posters you've never met and make them look worse than anything they've said?

Yeah, the message there is that you, like kitty, will see exactly what you want to see.
no, I'm just projecting what their posts stated. That it was the child's fault and that none of it would have happened if she had just not sent a boy pics of her breasts, somehow seemingly justifying terrible behavior as if it was ok because of what she did.


While it's true it wouldn't have happened, it doesn't mean that all the harrassment from other children was warranted, or that it was her fault because she made a mistake. That is a childish way of looking at things. She did make a mistake, so did the boy who forwarded the calls (is he innocent in his actions?), so did the kids that posted them on the internet (are they innocent in their actions?), so did the kids that taunted her. Not one action was worse than the other, but at least her actions, while not smart, were not hateful, vile and mean like all the other things that ensued after she sent the pic to her 'boyfriend'.

It's almost impossible to assign 'blame' to anyone in a situation like this. There are so many factors involving so many people. To make a post that assigns all blame to the girl for sending her pic is narrow minded and immature thinking IMO. What would you do if it happened to your son, if a girl sent pics of herself. Would you hope he would delete them and go on about his business, or would you think he would forward them to everyone he know and then engage in an all out attack on the girl? And if he did that do you think his behaviour would be justified because she must be a loose little girl and they are aren't worthy of humane treatment? All in how we raise our kids IMO, and by experience I can tell you that you can tell your kids anything you want, but they LEARN by example. So be careful of the example you set for them.
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Last edited by .teri. October 26, 2010 at 08:47 AM.

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dalokgawd
10-26-2010 at 08:56 AM.
10-26-2010 at 08:56 AM.
I would just like to point out that the problem with the "root cause" argument, especially in this situation, is that if you take that route you can keep going forever with seemingly no end. Some say it's the girl's fault because if she had never sent the picture none of the rest of it would have happened. Well I can continue that thread of logic and say it's the parent's fault for buying her a cell phone. Maybe it's the manufacturer's fault for making that model of cell phone with a camera. Maybe it's her grandparents fault for giving birth to her parents, without which the girl would never have been born. Maybe it's Christopher Columbus' fault for discovering America, without which there never would have been a town to build a school for this girl to attend. I mean you can take that argument to ridiculous ends. It's fallacious to begin with.

Everyone is responsible for their own actions, regardless of what came before. We cannot control the actions of others, but what we can control is our response to those actions. Yes the girl is responsible for sending out the picture to begin with. That is a bad decision. But she is NOT responsible for the response of others who chose to forward the pictures, post them on the internet, etc. Those people are responsible for their own reactions to the picture and the decisions they made.
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Phrozt
10-26-2010 at 08:57 AM.
10-26-2010 at 08:57 AM.
Quote from dalokgawd :
Everyone is responsible for their own actions, regardless of what came before. We cannot control the actions of others, but what we can control is our response to those actions.
See? Even he gets the point.
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beanqueen
10-26-2010 at 09:07 AM.
10-26-2010 at 09:07 AM.
It's her fault for committing suicide, no people shouldn't have acted that way but no one made her kill herself.

It was her choice of how to deal with a problem and not talk to anyone about it, she could have learned to stand up for herself and choose to live and survive, instead she chose to stop existing at all.

Yeah people are idiots for bashing her but she didn't have to look at the stuff on the internet...and she could have told someone at school about the violence...she chose to stay quiet. It was all her choices of how to deal with the situation.

It was also dumb of the people around her to make that big of a deal about it and call her names and all that stuff but people are idiots especially when they have other people backing them up when they're ganging up on anything, be it a person, an idea, a race....no it's not right or fair...but who said life was fair...she should have figured out how to deal with the consequences than just giving up.
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Phrozt
10-26-2010 at 09:12 AM.
10-26-2010 at 09:12 AM.
Quote from beanqueen :
It was also dumb of the people around her to make that big of a deal about it and call her names and all that stuff but people are idiots especially when they have other people backing them up when they're ganging up on anything, be it a person, an idea, a race....no it's not right or fair...but who said life was fair...she should have figured out how to deal with the consequences than just giving up.
Actually.. that's one thing that has been completely missed here.

People have been throwing blame EVERYWHERE.. but one thing that was missed was the support group she *did* have. When they interviewed her friends, they said they formed a human wall for her and supported her in a lot of different ways.

So even WITH that support network she chose to dwell on the negative and kill herself. Not to mention her family does seem pretty decent... That's actually a helluva lot more going for her than a lot of suicidal people have.
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SlicKitty
10-26-2010 at 09:26 AM.
10-26-2010 at 09:26 AM.
Quote from .teri. :
no, I'm just projecting what their posts stated. That it was the child's fault and that none of it would have happened if she had just not sent a boy pics of her breasts, somehow seemingly justifying terrible behavior as if it was ok because of what she did.

I'm just going to tell you that life is much sweeter when you can't see him.

It really is.

The hypocrisy of "only see what they want to" is so amusing that, if you think about it long enough, you could actually write an entire mini-series on it. laugh out loud


I will say this - it's sad that the child felt it was the only way to deal with her problem. He thinks I don't understand what he's saying. I do. He's saying that no one forced her to string the scarves and hang herself.

Yes, we all know that. We know that she wasn't forced. We get that. No one is arguing that there was a person standing there, forcing her to do that. We know.

I'm also confused by the "blamers".

Who's blaming? It's a sad state of affairs that shouldn't happen and doesn't have to happen and had a lot of mitigating factors that could have been avoided by several people, including the girl.

Lots of people could have handled themselves better all throughout, including the girl herself.

The reason I'm not interested in talking to 3 people here anymore isn't because I don't agree with them. It's because I expect children to behave like children and call other children terrible names. I even expect adults to call each other terrible names.

I don't expect adults to call children terrible names and I don't expect adults to treat children like adults. Those adults don't interest me.
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Last edited by SlicKitty October 26, 2010 at 09:34 AM.
Joined Mar 2007
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.teri.
10-26-2010 at 09:47 AM.
10-26-2010 at 09:47 AM.
Quote from Phrozt :
So even WITH that support network she chose to dwell on the negative and kill herself. Not to mention her family does seem pretty decent... That's actually a helluva lot more going for her than a lot of suicidal people have.
Unless you are a doctor, you can't possibly know how depressed she was, how sick she was and whether an army of friends could have saved her...or how lucky she was to have that much because others don't. unless you have some training in mental illness you really are doing no more than passing judgement on a girl you didn't know, much like you accused me of passing judgement on posters here. Pot calling kettle black.
Quote from SlicKitty :
The reason I'm not interested in talking to 3 people here anymore isn't because I don't agree with them. It's because I expect children to behave like children and call other children terrible names. I even expect adults to call each other terrible names.

I don't expect adults to call children terrible names and I don't expect adults to treat children like adults. Those adults don't interest me.
Kinda like that thread where the neighbor from hell is taunting the 7 y/o. I completely understand what you are saying.
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ashcampbell
10-26-2010 at 09:56 AM.
10-26-2010 at 09:56 AM.
I hope to raise my son better than that boy who forwarded the picture.
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the Drunken Snowman
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Phrozt
10-26-2010 at 10:43 AM.
10-26-2010 at 10:43 AM.
Quote from SlicKitty :
I'm just going to tell you that life is much sweeter when you can't see him.

It really is.
The fact that not being able to see people post has a significant positive impact on your life is beyond pathetic.

Quote from .teri. :
Kinda like that thread where the neighbor from hell is taunting the 7 y/o. I completely understand what you are saying.
That's nothing like this.
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