This was rape, expat. Hard to laugh it off.

Bringing up the parents of the perps is passing the buck. They are young adults who should be aware of the possible consequences of their actions. Their crimes are now in the hands of the state. 

http://fablog.ehrensteinland.com/2010/09/30/fait-diver-murder-by-twitter/

http://fablog.ehrensteinland.com/2010/10/02/fait-diver-they-sure-are-blue/

@RAE:  Really?  Wouldn’t these laws be enforced by “agents of the state”, ie. the judicial system and the police? Aren’t these even worse than the educational system? And of course with this regulation, you’d give even more power to these systems over individuals which would be abused. 

Anyway, the point is that laws and regulation should not be aimed at (against) parents, who already have to fight this crap, but at the source of this idiocy.  Requiring parents to do stuff that’s impossible to do would just make them (and their children) more vulnerable.  Are you suggesting that putting people in the same environment and requiring a lot more from them is better than eliminating the idiocies in the environment?

@Geza Eder… “But that’s the culture they’re given and which educates them. “

EXACTLY my point. You can’t blame Ravi and Wei for acting on their training! That’s why I blame the culture.

“blaming parents and putting even more responsibility and work on them is not very smart imo - your “proposal” is clearly impossible to enforce, not to say very intrusive, so it’s not really a good idea (honestly, I think it’s completely stupid, sorry).”

Too bad you think my suggestion that parents should be required to take responsibility for providing their kids with antidotes to cultural poisons is so out of line and “completely stupid.” Intervention into these idiocies of our culture has to start somewhere. I think your suggestion to leave it to the schools and the environment to “educate” the kids in these matters is like leaving the fox in charge of the hen house. Since schools are clearly agents of the state, and the environment the toxic soup into which the warped children are raised, your notion is unworkable to say the least.

Hiding a camera in a private room goes ‘way beyond normal teenage hazing, even savage hazing. To then broadcast it live on the Internet complete with snarky remarks, is clearly a criminal invasion of privacy.

Just like a toilet a bedroom has a reasonable expectation of privacy, and a hidden camera isn’t included!

Furthermore, the camera was hidden with the express intent of violating this young man’s privacy, without his knowledge, solely to get some kind of sick “jolly” by humiliating him.

It’s ironic that this guy who videoed his roomie kissing another man and having sex with him will probably to get to experience it first-hand, really soon.  And like his roomie, he won’t have a choice of whether or not it’s kept secret.

I mean, this behaviour, ie. taunting people for who they are and what they are like, is not exactly special.  Stuff like filming people in embarrassing situations and laughing at them is quite normal and “funny” (remember happy slapping?)  Being rude and offensive to/about people (including being “snarky”) seems to be the most popular form of humour nowadays.  Maybe these idiots just thought they were funny, because, you know, these things are, in general, considered funny by the idiot culture.  It might be a surprise for them to find out that what you do to other people does in fact matter and not everything is about cheap immediate laughs.  But that’s the culture they’re given and which educates them.  They must be blamed, and punished, but they’re not the most evil scum in this issue.

Damn, pressed submit too soon:

@richard roe, the most important issue is not exactly imagining cruel punishment for this crap.  In fact, this type of righteous rage and general revengeful attitude is primitive and dumb. I mean, I have no sympathy for the assholes who did this, but ruining the lives of more people will not really help in avoiding stuff like this in the future.  As long as you see this same shit in TV, one or two large scale punishments for the few issues that are visible in the media won’t really change anything.

Also, @RAE:  instead of blaming parents and saying “they must handle whatever commercial mass media throws at them”, it should be regulated but most importantly, there should be more open, visible and honest research and especially a LOT more *public discussion*, based on facts, on these issues.  Right now, there’s basically none - because it’s quite clearly absolutely contrary to the interests of the “mass media”.  It latches on to infuriating and extreme individual events, without ever considering its own role (even the smallest criticism of the media is immediately met with accusations of censorship and it’s always about “free speech” - because quite obviously the First Amendment was primarily aimed at protecting the right of big companies to teach your kids how to nag you enough for stuff, wikileaks and Assange be damned).

@richard roe, the most important issue is not exactly imagining cruel punishment for this crap.  In fact, this type of righteous rage and general revengeful attitude is primitive and dumb. I mean, I have no sympathy for the assholes who did this, but

@RAE: blaming parents and putting even more responsibility and work on them is not very smart imo - your “proposal” is clearly impossible to enforce, not to say very intrusive, so it’s not really a good idea (honestly, I think it’s completely stupid, sorry).  You can create protective regulations to defend children in families from abusive parents, but that’s the most you can do.  First, education is a social task, and schools must take responsibility for it.  Second, it’s not “parents” who are forming this attitude but the general cultural environment, as many people have already pointed out, and that environment is actually getting more and more powerful and exerts more and more pedagogical influence, relative to schools and parents, so you’re actually requiring more work and responsibility from people who are already overburdened and have less and less influence on their own children.  Third, this issue stems from the general malevolent and predatory attitude of the “culture industries” (which practically include marketing, PR and politics) - you can’t really just require the suffering, passive party to handle the shit of the proactive side. 

Simply put: companies make money from kids becoming these kinds of assholes, and they have every interest in this.  This is fucked up, and the solution is *not* to put more burden on parents, especially because we know that they can’t cope with it anyway.  The solution is to eliminate the malevolent, predatory attitudes in culture, and that can be only done through social action, not more individual responsibility with less power (because, quite obviously, responsibility doesn’t mean anything without power).

I fully agree with “expat in Germany”‘s view that it is a parent’s responsibility to be aware of their child’s development and to take action to provide support when and where it’s needed.

But that’s sure a large order considering that most parents are culturally brainwashed into believing BS just as much as anyone else. When religions, relatives, education systems and other social support systems are all feeding and reinforcing lies about human sexualities what chance is there for a young gay man or woman to receive the “toughening” info required to deal with the discrimination?

The CULTURE’s failure to mature on these topics is primarily responsible for Tyler’s death because it is the culture that allowed DHARUN RAVI and MOLLY WEI to harbor and act on such horrendous and discriminatory homophobic attitudes and ignorance.

EVERY set of parents should be required by law to educate their sons and daughters with FACTS about the vast range of human sexualities right alongside the FACTS that much of society and its institutions are not yet able to deal with differences in a mature and adult way. Religious teachings, glib opinions and unsupported assumptions ARE NOT FACTS, but that’s what’s being taught by our society to our children. It’s lies based in ignorance and prejudice.

However I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for this mature attitude to develop. I read somewhere that NO society/culture has EVER matured past adolescence before it self-destructed. All the evidence I’ve experienced in my 70+ years as a gay man leads me to concur.

This is so tragic.  My heart goes out to the friends and family of
the boy.

Two points. Does anyone know if this young man was out to his family? If he was out and actively supported by his family, comfortable with his sexuality, would this have been anything other than a grotesque invasion of privacy? This is why a society open about sexuality is so important, and why it is so important that children know they can be honest with their families who will accept them.

I do think viciousness has reached a new level on the personal scale. As lasmog points out, reality shows thrive on humiliation, which is one reason I cannot understand why anyone would want to watch them. There was certainly teasing and bullying when I was young, usually by kids from abusive homes. These two idiots with the webcam may not be from openly abusive families, but I would guess that they are NOT the products of loving, compassionate families either. Just a couple of kids with too much money, too many toys, and partially developed brains (there is actually a part of the brain where empathy forms, which also has a lot to do with understanding consequences).

Well, if we’re doing anecdotes, I can’t say as I’ve noticed that people, including the young, are any dumber than they were in the past.  In fact, they might be a bit smarter in some ways.  Computers and the Internet require some kind of response and activity from their users, unlike radio, television and the movies, which reigned over previous generations.

I’d like to believe that this was an isolated incident of teenage cruelty, but I don’t.  This is a generation that has grown up watching reality TV shows that extol the virtues of humiliating others for fun and profit.

Obviously Anarcissie, my “statistical” claims are based on my and my colleagues personal experience which involves 1,000 students a year. However, in our mass culture the cliches that ” kids are kids” has never been truer. I would think that the my students cultural expeiences are pretty standard throughout the nation, especially when it comes to such technologies- and they tell me how much Facebook time andtexting time they experience. So if you want real concrete numbers, go read a boring Sociology Journal- but I promise you, if you can wade through the BS, their statistical fidnings will correlate with mine.

Also, do a research on Facebook games.  They’re basically abusing human weaknesses, they’re based on the OCD present in everyone.  Read, for example, the cow clicker article by Ian Bogost for some insight into this shit.  http://www.bogost.com/blog/cow_clicker_1.shtml

I’m not saying that they’re the sole cause for decreasing “student quality” or whatever, but people are immediately dismissing their potential effects.  But if you actually look at how eg. Facebook games work, you should have some doubts about their effects.  They’re basically preying on human weaknesses, that’s all.

Anarcissie: don’t for a moment believe that teachers who’re saying this want it to be this way.  It’s definitely a very common opinion among teachers, and it comes from their own experience.  And as I keep saying, it’s completely, utterly obvious in countries like Hungary, where the standard of enrolled students is decreasing year by year on all levels of education since the last generation educated during the “Communist era”, according to common opinion (and our performance in international comparisons also).  (This is not because we had such an awesome educational system during that time, far from it - teachers just had way less competition from media).

Also, teachers are in no position to influence decisions on what research is done on this issue, so it’s really not very logical (and an easy and cheap way to “win” a discussion without actually taking part in it) to demand “hard data” from them.  I think the lack of research on issues that teachers consider a problem is pretty telling in itself.

surfnow, September 30 at 10:58 am:

Such technologies are wreaking havoc. As a high school social studies teacher, I have noticed a dramatic decrease in literacy in the past 3-4 years. My students spend anywhere from 3-4 hours a day on both Facebook sites and just simply texting inanities between each other- throw in a few hours of TV and what’s left for reading and writing? You do the math. ...

Why don’t you show us the math?  You’re the one making statistical claims.

This “belief in the equality of people in the eyes of God” never was common, maybe among the low-level priests and monks, but not any time or anywhere that mattered.  Complete, utter narcissistic bullshit.

” The same is true for homophobia, it is the Judao Christian cultures that through centuries of belief in the equality of people in the eyes of God (love the sinner hate the sin), have come to stop this discrimination. For that they get smeared. Please if you are going to smear anyone look to those other cultures. “

No.  Actually, this is bullshit.  It’s not the “Judeo Christian” culture that abolishes slavery, it is the progressive, enlightened part of modern Western culture, and it actually has to fight against large parts of its Judeo-Christian heritage.

Such technologies are wreaking havoc. As a high school social studies teacher, I have noticed a dramatic decrease in literacy in the past 3-4 years. My students spend anywhere from 3-4 hours a day on both Facebook sites and just simply texting inanities between each other- throw in a few hours of TV and what’s left for reading and writing? You do the math. But the public and the MSM are all busily blaming teachers, the unions, and public education in general.

@omygod
” it is the Judao Christian cultures that through centuries of belief in the equality of people in the eyes of God (love the sinner hate the sin),”
Really - that’s not how it plays in many so-called Christian churches - who will actually bar congregants- for just being gay - the distinction between behavior and orientation is a Catholic offering - no less homophobic and impossible to satisfy - since it is calling a sexual orientation abnormal - ‘against nature’.
That religious justification - and how much violence has been fueled by religion - has prompted the following

The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, signed by Pres. Barack Obama expands federal hate crimes legislation to include gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability.

There is nothing knee-jerk about the claim that homophobia is bible-based - the famous letter to the Romans by Paul often interpreted as claiming homosexual acts to be abnormal.

Two fellow students are accused of using a webcam to broadcast footage of the freshman having sex with another man.
*****************

You left out the word “SECRETLY” using a webcam. They hid it in anticipation, and then made snide remarks as they broadcast it to the world.

The NYTImes has named them and put THEIR faces out on the web as the two $#!t$ they are.  They have ruined this young man’s life.  Now they’ve ruined their own, too.  Not that I care or have any sympathy.

What’s amazing is that in their chortling viciousness, it NEVER OCCURRED to them that the backdraft on them would be so ferocious (and deserved).  You expect that level of stupidity from high school teens, but not college men and women in a major cosmopolitan New Jersey university.

And this right on top of the murder of a Seton Hall 19 year old girl just last week! (but the arrested killers weren’t students)

talk about a sick society, all of it.

but then if i didn’t believe in an organized religion, who would i be?

maybe i’d have to start thinking for myself.

but then i don’t have time for that. never had, never will.

sheeple.

Raylan
“Not sure how homophobia is especially American, since it exists in so many cultures, mostly Judao-Christian and Muslim”

As a matter of fact it is more virulent in African Cultures and many many non Judao-Christian Muslim societies, in places like India.

This knee jerk reaction is a result of brainwashing. It is similar to the slavery issue. It was what whites did to blacks. Well no, there is slavery in Africa today in places like Sudan, the Saudi’s practiced it up to the 1960s. What the West did do was abolish it apologize and try to prevent. Their reward was to be stereotyped as responsible for all slavery. The same is true for homophobia, it is the Judao Christian cultures that through centuries of belief in the equality of people in the eyes of God (love the sinner hate the sin), have come to stop this discrimination. For that they get smeared. Please if you are going to smear anyone look to those other cultures.

Not sure how homophobia is especially American, since it exists in so many cultures, mostly Judao-Christian and Muslim. It has only recently been taken off the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV). Before that gays were persecuted with even more brutal and vehement hatred by their own society. Teens who are already struggling with identity, are especially vulnerable.
These kinds of vicious crimes should be felonies carrying harsh sentences.
It’s still shocking that such barbaric behavior should exists in this century.