Have you ever come in contact with something on-line that just completely made you shake your head and wonder ‘What the h***??” I stumbled upon a post recently about an on-line bullying incident that caught my eye due to my work with parents and schools on internet safety and reputation management programs/presentations for tweens and teens.
The story reads like this: an 11 year old girl with the on-line name of “Jessie Slaughter” and too much time on her hands, created several videos that sparked the biggest example of on-line bullying ever seen. She was harassed about her alleged sexual experiences (ummm, eleven years old…….) and relationship with singer Dahvie Vanity as reported by Gawker.com (note: StickyDrama is a tabloid site from Stickam-live streaming video- consisting of self-submitted stories from the site’s community, rumors and gossip written by and about tweens):
“Earlier this month, Sticky drama—a crowd-sourced gossip website for 13-year-olds who loiter in mall food courts—dubiously linked her to the lead singer of emo band Blood on the Dance Floor, Dahvie Vanity.”
This led to the video she created to address the “haters.” One direct quote from her “Haters… Piercings… StickyDrama (kerligirl13 reupload)” video on YoutTube just makes my jaw drop:
“…if you can’t like realize that and stop hating, ya know what, I’ll pop a Glock in your mouth and make a
brain slushie…”
Releasing that video unleashed a torrential bullying maelstrom. She has received death threats and the event has spawned several YouTube video spoofs of her original videos as well as average citizens weighing in with their thoughts on the situation in blog posts and video replies.
A second video in which her dad angrily and publicly threatens the harassers only added to the backlash. Warning- this is very upsetting to watch.
As of this writing Google is showing 2.8 million results in search on her moniker.
It horrifies me that this situation could have spiraled so quickly into a viral phenomenon and social meme. There are a number of things here that are just so innately wrong, for example:
- Parent awareness (or lack thereof) of Jessie’s on-line activities
- Level of profanity coming from this child’s mouth
- Subject matter (murder, sex, etc.)
- Angry father addressing on-line audience in a subsequent video
- Viral back-lash and posters who say she deserves all of the harassment
- Comment posted on Gawker.com web-site.
She and her family recently appeared on Good Morning America (GMA video) to discuss the situation. The bottom line is that despite her actions, she is still an eleven year old GIRL- unfortunately many couldn’t see this. The story of Jessi Slaughter is an example of just why it is so important for parents to be in tune with what their children are doing on-line and to open up discussions on appropriate use of social media sites and subsequent reputation management. Unfortunately for her, these 15 minutes of Warhol fame are going to affect the rest of her life. Hopefully this story will make a difference in the life of your child.
Get involved.
Get educated.
Protect your kids.
Copyright Michelle Beckham-Corbin ~2010 ~ All Rights Reserved
Michelle Beckham's Blog 
I’m sorry, but the second video is perhaps the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. After watching the first video, I had so much anger against this girl, she had it coming, no need to cry about it, she deserved what was coming to her 100% and it will continue as long as she keeps returning to the internet.