Amanda Todd

N Sperlo wrote: In reply to Grizz: I understand what you're saying, and think you worded it badly. I can understand your mindset, but the fact is her bad decision making initiated the bullying that dominoed into a tragic event. We don't really have all the info so we can't be sure it was actually bullying or her bring dramatic. My guess is both and she likely had a preexisting depression problem. No one will ever know the full truth.

Right. That's what he's saying.

You caught me before the edit clarifying my view.

The better question, why not just stay the hell off facebook?

Also, generally speaking, once this reaches the cutting phase, its already a slippery 1/2" slope to the 200ft cliff. Trying to break someone of that habit of enjoying the endorphins is a very difficult. I feel bad for her being bullied, its obvious she came from a broken home(split parents, prolly not the cause, but didn't help), constantly moving probably didn't help with making friends, the rest just gets snowballed. Obvious poor decision making on her part, obvious poor decision making on people just "ganging up" on facebook, and of course the stalker......which is far too easy when she has a facebook.

Moral of the story, always think of the results of your actions......your past can and will haunt you forever, both sides obviously forgot this. The bullied ones will have to live the rest of their lives knowing they pushed someone over the brink.

People bully each other all the time, it definitely should stop, but by morals and good parenting instead of "ZOMG, you said something sometime to someone, so now sit in a jail cell thanks to our berkeleying new law"

[/rant]

And this is why my child will be taught to fight back. Bullies like easy targets. I used to be bullied, and then I fought back. Once. They never touched me again. Regardless of her actions, or her parents, or whatever the situation was- no one has any right to treat someone else like that. I think she could have done a LOT to avoid the situation- not sleeping with the one dude, not getting her breasts out on the webcam- but kids make stupid mistakes. I suspect that all she was trying to do was belong. It's obvious she wasn't getting what she needed from home, and sought it whatever way she could. That being said, it was still wrong of whoever the suspects are to treat her like that.

Poor decision making? She was a berkeleying KID! Yeah, there was probably poor parenting all around, but holy hell, obviously this was a troubled kid looking for attention in the only way she knew how to get it. Sad story on all fronts.

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: You're only hearing about this one because she happens to be a cute girl. It's a "convenient" (weird term, i know) face to bring awareness, but perhaps not the best example.

I think its more because there is a video of her, the other times something like this has received a lot of attention it has been because there was some similar way of making it more than just a name or picture that most people wouldn't really think about too much. I am sure that there is a lot more to the story no one will ever know, but there is still no excuse for treating anyone like that.

Lesley wrote: Poor decision making? She was a berkeleying KID! Yeah, there was probably poor parenting all around, but holy hell, obviously this was a troubled kid looking for attention in the only way she knew how to get it. Sad story on all fronts.

Thank you.

Like any of us always made great decisions or truly considerer long-term consequences to our actions.

z31maniac wrote:

Lesley wrote: Poor decision making? She was a berkeleying KID! Yeah, there was probably poor parenting all around, but holy hell, obviously this was a troubled kid looking for attention in the only way she knew how to get it. Sad story on all fronts.

Thank you. Like any of us always made great decisions or truly considerer long-term consequences to our actions.

I know I made plenty of stupid decisions when I was a teenage that could have come back to bite me.

93EXCivic wrote:

z31maniac wrote:

Lesley wrote: Poor decision making? She was a berkeleying KID! Yeah, there was probably poor parenting all around, but holy hell, obviously this was a troubled kid looking for attention in the only way she knew how to get it. Sad story on all fronts.

Thank you. Like any of us always made great decisions or truly considerer long-term consequences to our actions.

I know I made plenty of stupid decisions when I was a teenage that could have come back to bite me.

Agree on all counts -- the sad fact is that nowadays poor decision making is magnified by the Internet. Bullying too.

I just can't fathom how the bully continued to follow her when she moved towns/cities. Even in this day and age, sometimes I can't find contact info for people I KNOW THE NAMES OF. And I'm a pretty internet savvy dude. Which makes me believe she definitely was seeking attention, as she shouldn't have been so easy to find.

Having said that, I think SvREX hit the nail on the head, and the police better find the guy doing the harassing. This wasn't simply bullying, the guy followed her FOR A LONG FRIEKIN TIME. It wasn't just like he bugged her on the interwebs for a couple weeks. Weird man, WEIRD.

And finally, nobody deserves depression. At the same time, life sucks, and you do have to deal with it. Unfortunately for her, it was too much and she got dealt a really E36 M3ty stack of cards.

A lot of internet hate though can be summed up with this photo:

I give a E36 M3 about them all the same, fact of the matter is- I don't come out of my hole often. I've stood in the middle of fights before because some kid was being bullied. If the sides aren't even, I will step in. Almost got arrested for a hate crime once on that reason- but that's a whole other story.

mndsm wrote: Almost got arrested for a hate crime once on that reason- but that's a whole other story.

I hope you told the police you hated all of the berkeleyers equally.....

Lesley wrote: Poor decision making? She was a berkeleying KID! Yeah, there was probably poor parenting all around, but holy hell, obviously this was a troubled kid looking for attention in the only way she knew how to get it. Sad story on all fronts.

Truth. Kids of 15 just don't have the frame of reference that makes them realize that things can follow them wherever they go in today's oh so enlightened and always in touch world. When I was her age, it was possible to move to another city and just start over, not so much now.

I wonder if that Zuckerberg guy ever stopped to consider the possible dangers of Facebook, or did he just follow the money?

HiTemp's pic sums it up quite well also; the news media would never have picked up on this if she hadn't been attractive. Ugly people don't get media attention when bad things happen to them because they aren't photogenic enough and thus won't draw in readers or viewers. Yeah, I'm a cynical old bastard.

yamaha wrote:

mndsm wrote: Almost got arrested for a hate crime once on that reason- but that's a whole other story.

I hope you told the police you hated all of the berkeleyers equally.....

The cops from that particular situation already knew the score. It was a local minority group that had a habit of ganging up on people. I just wanted to even the score a little bit. Cops were cool with me.

HiTempguy wrote: I just can't fathom how the bully continued to follow her when she moved towns/cities. Even in this day and age, sometimes I can't find contact info for people I KNOW THE NAMES OF. And I'm a pretty internet savvy dude. Which makes me believe she definitely was seeking attention, as she shouldn't have been so easy to find. Having said that, I think SvREX hit the nail on the head, and the police better find the guy doing the harassing. This wasn't simply bullying, the guy followed her FOR A LONG FRIEKIN TIME. It wasn't just like he bugged her on the interwebs for a couple weeks. Weird man, WEIRD. And finally, nobody deserves depression. At the same time, life sucks, and you do have to deal with it. Unfortunately for her, it was too much and she got dealt a really E36 M3ty stack of cards. A lot of internet hate though can be summed up with this photo:

I agree.

In reply to HiTempguy: Do you know why no one ever heard about that guy committing suicide?

https://www.google.com/search?q=bad+yearbook+photo&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=_xZ_UOHDGeWViQK1z4CACA&biw=1366&bih=666&sei=Bxd_UNO6CcrCigL464Fg

Look at the second row of images, that picture doesn't really mean as much when someone just did a google image search for an ugly picture just to prove a point.

Travis_K wrote: Look at the second row of images, that picture doesn't really mean as much when someone just did a google image search for an ugly picture just to prove a point.

It's irrelevant IMO, as it's the truth. There are suicides each and every day we do not hear about (or as loudly), especially people that have minded their own business and tried to live their lives.

I'm not saying that this makes Amanda's suicide anymore or less (important) than anyone else's (which is exactly my point).

Not that I care about any of that, I am just explaining WHY some people are irritated. I'm just saddened. Dealt with bullying from Grade 1 through 10, horrible feeling.

small threadjack- but this dude is a BOSS. Based on the cut- ima guess mohawk that got left down, and a badass one at that. I got it from that google image link.

I know, i just had a feeling when i looked at that pic there was a reason no one had ever heard of that guy, so I spent a couple minutes to find out where the pic actually came from. I still think the reason she got so much attention was the video she made (where you cant even really see her face that much) so it makes it more real than just seeing a name in a short newspaper article. When someone is dead it doesn't really matter what they looked like, no one should ever be treated like that.

there's just so much stupid in the world. inevitably a bunch of it converges in one place and you get situations like this one.

I think it's pretty clear that most of you don't have even half of the story.

I know someone that was close with Amanda's family. They DID try to stop it. Steps WERE taken.

If I could link you to the thread where the family friend is commenting, I would, but it's a private board.

The video indicates that the initial event occurred when she was in seventh grade (which I think is 12-13 year olds), not when she was fifteen. It may sound like just a few years, but I remember being such a different person in seventh grade than in 9th-10th.

If the reports that Anonymous becoming involved are true, the alleged stalker is about to have his weapon, the internet, turned back upon him.

From what I understand, the internet guy had her dox. He knew everything about her, including her phone number, home address, and even knew when she changed schools.

Let's turn this around for a second.

If someone stalked your daughter, you took steps to prevent interaction, the stalker stepped up his game, got your daughter help, and then she killed herself over it, wouldn't you have issues with the stalker? Would you blame your daughter or the stalker?

Curmudgeon wrote:

HiTemp's pic sums it up quite well also; the news media would never have picked up on this if she hadn't been attractive. Ugly people don't get media attention when bad things happen to them because they aren't photogenic enough and thus won't draw in readers or viewers. Yeah, I'm a cynical old bastard.

to this I have to agree... a few years back 2 pretty blond HS girls died in a car accident when they where hit by a drunk driver and thrown from the car (no seat belts)... note that the driver of the car with the girls in it was wearing his belt and was fine (I later worked with the guy)... years later they still have billboards up in "honor" of them with things like

Don't drink and drive... It's the law

the irony I find is while yes the driver of the other car was breaking the law (drunk driving) so where the girls... why does that sign not also mention buckling up?... sure seemed to work well for the drivers (both the drunk and of the girls car)

yes it was horrible... and being HS students it touched far more people... but had they been ugly fat girls no one would have given a damn...

as for bulling... a class reading assignment in my Eng class reminded me all to much about bulling... I don't recall much of my 6th grade year... just bits n pieces... some years back before my mom passed away we talked about it some... but it's still one of those memories that you aren't sure is real sorta like a movie... anyway... it was a heavily abusive time for me at school, I was deeply depressed and nearly strangled my little sister to death in a fit of rage at some point... Mom and Dad helped me though it... but still the memories I do have hurt...

my 4th grade daughter is dealing with bulling now at school... I hurt for her...

My daughter has eczema. It's pretty well controlled now, there's a good chance she may grow out of it. But in 6th grade she had a really bad outbreak on her hands, came home one day, told me that one of the other kids had called her 'alligator girl' and it stuck. Talk about something that will cut you open inside.

We talked about it, it came down to there was not much she could do to make the eczema go away (that's a very difficult thing to control) so she would have to deal with it. That's a helluva thing to drop on a 12 year old's shoulders, but if I came down to the school and intervened she would not learn to handle these things on her own. (I did, however, talk to the school principal about it.) As far as the kids who called her that, well I told her that makes it easy to see who your friends are.

All kids go through something like this. Bullying is wrong, dead wrong, but it will always be there.