Apr 09 2008
Lakeland Teen Beating Victim Will Not Return to School
Victoria Lindsay will not be returning to school. It has been a week since the “MySpace Beating” and she still has not regained hearing or vision on her left side.
Want to hear sick?
The video is of the second half of the beating. Victoria was beaten until she was unconscious on the couch. When she regained consciousness and the beating continued… that’s what’s shown on the video.
Want sicker yet?
The girls who beat her were laughing about it after they were arrested.
Following their arrests the girls joked in a holding cell. One asked if she would be able to make it to cheerleading practice the next day, while several others joked that they wouldn’t be making it back to the beach anytime soon, he said.“They seemed to have absolutely no remorse at all,” Judd said. “They were just going to beat her. And beat her they did.”
http://www.theledger.com/…..
If all of that isn’t horrifying enough, here’s the part that makes my blood go cold… courtesy of Salon.com.
In a press conference, Sheriff Grady Judd said that the kids intended to post the video on YouTube and MySpace. (They never did; the sheriff’s office obtained the video from one of the kids.) According to Judd, the video bespeaks the “pack mentality” and “animalistic behavior” provoked by the Internet.He added: “It’s incumbent upon YouTube and MySpace to make drastic changes…. If we desensitize kids to this kind of beating today, what’s next?”
Lindsay’s parents also blamed online companies. “As far as I am concerned, MySpace is the anti-Christ for children,” her father told The Ledger, a local newspaper. “I hope this comes to a final resolution. I am not going to stop here.”
But the idea that the Web has desensitized kids to beatings and that MySpace has given rise to teen brutality is extremely dubious. For starters, despite high-profile news stories, we’ve got no evidence that that’s the case — http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2008/04/08/myspace_beating/index.html
No evidence that’s the case? That sentence makes me so angry. How about these?
- YouTube Faces Violence Purge
- PARENTS are being warned to monitor their children’s viewing of YouTube
- MP has called for a full Commons debate on the posting of violent videos
For that matter, go to Google and type in “YouTube Violence” — you’ll get close to a million links.
I do not know how anyone can become “de-sensitized” to this…
Popularity: 13% [?]
Hi Linda,
You know me, so know for years I’ve been one of those people shouting out about parents not taking the internet seriously enough where it comes to their kids. Before youtube, when mySpace was still something lots of parents didn’t know about… when Nexopia was virtually unheard of and when parents had no clue what piczo was… I’ve tried to tell parents how the internet inspires this mob mentality in kids.
When #2 was only 12, I took msn away because the thing to do then… was to see who could “burn” each other the best. Parents would think their kids were just talking to each other using it, but it only took once (for me to see her sitting there “chatting” with a girl that I knew to be a nice girl.. and have #2 end up in tears because this “burn” game really got to her) before I got really mad.
The buck stops at the parents. That’s what I believe. I don’t care if they have to use chat loggers, or if they have to resort to only allowing computer use when they have the time to sit right there with them, but parents need to take the responsibility to do something more than what they are.
If I had a dollar for every parent who alleged to me that they did monitor their kid online when I know they damn well aren’t… I wouldn’t need to be trying to earn money online. I’d be rich.
I completely agree, Frac. For starters, computers with an Internet connection DO NOT belong in a teens bedroom. The computer goes in the family room, period.
I used to tell my DD that if she wants privacy online, it will cost her the price of her own apartment, her own Internet connection and her own computer. In MY house, the computer is in the family room. End of conversation.
But, I believe removing computers from their bedrooms would only change things to a small degree.
See, I don’t believe that “mob mentality” is limited to kids and teens online. I’ve seen forums where fully grown women behave the same way. I could post links to at least 3 forums like that right off the top of my head.
I saw a teacher harassed so badly that the “hate mob” didn’t limit themselves to the forum. They posted profanity to the teacher’s blog daily and posted profanity about her at wikipedia (it was removed) until the teacher took her blog and facebook profile offline. Grown women. All because they didn’t like something the teacher posted.
I don’t have to wonder what kind of an example those parents are setting for their children. That’s pretty clear. And it’s sad. I have always said that if people can’t treat other people with respect, they don’t belong on the Internet.
My post about baby Lali has gone nuts. I’ve got more than 6,000 hits to my blog already and the counter doesn’t stop for four more hours. So… I decided to post some parental blame on this issue, and then tell people to come here to join in your discussion. Hey.. I like to share the traffic.
I just finished the post and rather than talk about the kids and the Lord of the Flies online analogy (which I think is totally brilliant by the way) I dished all over the mom of the girl whose grandmother’s house it happened at. The mom had the gall to blame Lindsay for getting beat, only I didn’t realize that until I’d done more sniffing around, since the stories available seem to be focusing on her phony “my daughter should’ve called the police” statement.
Seriously. If anyone can’t see that this is a case where as you point out with your example in the previous comment, the adults are teaching the kids how to behave like this.
So again, we agree. Sometimes it’s like we’re related or something. LOL. Now let’s see if the traffic heads over here.
I’ll leave it to others to focus on the lack of active parenting issue. I’m focused on the fact that it’s demand that drives youtube.
If we refuse to watch then we are reducing demand. I wonder how many embeds like the one above there are like this going into blogs today.
FWIW I did not view the video above. I trust both you and fracas too so I know you are not representing the situation.
It is interesting to see how parents use Youtube and Myspace as scapegoats for having bad children.
Do you know why humans are different from animals? Because humans are blessed with free-will, while animals merely imitate. Do not use the internet as a scapegoat for the fact that your children can’t think for themselves and in turn imitate the violence seen on television/internet.
While it’s true that children aren’t animals and can think for themselves, “mob mentality” happens to more than children. What about the riots that happened as a result of the Rodney King verdict? What about riots that happen following a sports win? Are all of those (mostly) adults the product of bad homes? Not likely. It’s that certain situations prompt that behaviour. I believe the parents of these teens bear some responsibility. I’ve posted that at my own site, but we would be fools to not recognize the impact of these sites on our children. So… just as I would try keep my teens out of other situations that may be more than they should have to handle, so would I do what I can to minimize the impact these sites are allowed to have on them. It’s a balancing act.
Sign of the times. People have no respect these days and it really angers me to see it. Computers belong in the family room for the average teen. However if your future career revolves around computers and you have a true hobby for them then I cant say that i agree with that.
Hey cj. I think the determination has to be made by the parents, based on the child.
There’s the teens that get into mob mentality… but there’s also the script kiddies that hide in their room writing viruses and dabbling in hacking. And the kids that don’t have any real friends outside of the gaming world.
Those kids shouldn’t be locked away in the bedroom with their computers, either.
There are not very many kids that have the maturity to lock themselves away with a computer and behave in a mature fashion. Sure, there’s probably a few… but they aren’t the majority, that’s for sure.
Nice to meet you!
Well what a bunch of losers and sociopathic teenagers and believe me myspace didn’t have anything to do with this.
The parents did because they just don’t give a crap about what their kids are doing.
Parents always want to blame someone else — not my child, not my baby… blah. blah blah
People don’t get like this overnight - it takes years and years of malignant upbringing to spawn these types of “girls” who think they can get away with anything.
Jail time and nice fat lawsuits will serve these witches right. The girl who got beaten will probably get some nice settlements and write books and become rich while the losers who beat her will end up with nothing.