Perhaps the story of a 16-year-old girl getting beaten up in Florida is being well circulated and I'm not the only one who knows about it. 6 other teenage girls, with 2 guys apparently set up as lookouts, beat the living CRAP out of this girl, wanting to put a video of it up on Myspace/YouTube. The mother of the victim is blaming MySpace, or so I read.
Why??
I understand that we have a lot of violent influences and the Internet has contributed to the accessiblity of bullying/tormenting/threating people. But WHY would you blame YouTube or Jackass for what these girls did? They aren't brainwashed (to some degree, maybe), they still are responsible for their own decisions, not a website. I could play Grand Theft Auto for days, watch all the Saw movies, whatever, and still be capable of treating everyone like human beings. The media is no excuse for what they did. Something is obviously wrong with their ability to function normally in society, if they think it's going to be fun to beat up another girl to the point of hospitalization. Maybe it's just our day and age, after all, haven't we been grouped into Generation MySpace? Maybe it's our culture; we can be violent, I don't want to say we can't. Maybe there isn't enough focus for these girls to keep out of trouble, I don't know. All I can say is that I'm so disgusted by what happened. I hope they are justly punished and get EVERYTHING they deserve. I hope the mother doesn't try to put all the responsibilty on MySpace or YouTube, that someone can be open to the fact that some teenagers are honestly, openly, and horribly nasty. I hope this girl will eventually be okay again, and that she's in my thoughts.
