MySpace Monsters

I was picking my brains out for an interesting material which is worthy of a blog post. Then I remembered the case of the MySpace hoaxer who created a fake profile named of a guy named "Josh" to harass a next door neighbor. Lori Drew, the hoaxer, is just your typical queen bee who likes to bully girls in school. She never particularly liked her next door neighbor Megan Meier who struggles with the usual teenage crises - weight, self-esteem, etc. Drew decided to make things a little bit interesting for Megan. Preying on Megan's desperate desire to be liked and accepted, she created (with the help of her vile mother) an all-american jock named Josh who within days began sending cutesy messages to Megan's MySpace Account. The account was closely monitored by Megan's parents who would not let Megan view his MySpace account without their supervision. After a few days, the hoax took a turn for the worst. "Josh" is now sending mean messages to Megan likes "Megan is fat.Megan is a slut." When Megan's parents discovered the messages and the extremely vulgar language being used by both girls, she told Megan how upset she was about the exchange. Megan then ran to her bedroom. She hanged herself. She was 13.

The hoax girl and mom were never charged because there is no law that called online harassment or something analogous to it. This incident brings into light how a seemingly innocent act of online teasing and bullying could produce the gravest effect on vulnerable and unsuspecting people who sees these exchanges as anything but innocent. We can only hope that the social outrage that we might be feeling about the incident would translate into legally workable solutions and preventive measures to minimize this type of tragedy from happening.