Learning Lessons From Jessi Slaughter
This is a story about a tragic farce—a stew of belligerent bullying, tween posturing and misguided parenting, presided over by the cruel, cackling beast of cyberspace. It's a story with lots of villains and victims—and nary a hero in sight. But it's also a ready-made primer on how not to act in the age we've come to call "Internet."
Act One: Jessi Slaughter, the screen name of an 11-year-old girl, turns on her webcam July 12 to chat with her "fans" on a video community called Stickam.
Lesson One: Jessi shouldn't have even been allowed to use Stickam, which "requires" its members to be 14. YouTube—the ubiquitous Google-owned video-sharing site Jessi's videos migrated to—also has an age requirement: 13. And Facebook, where Jessi allegedly had a profile, also requires its users to be 13.
Of course, as Stickam notes on its policy board, "it is easy for children to lie about their age and thus gain access to content which may be inappropriate and unintended for them. It is up to parents to properly supervise their children's on-line activities." We can all argue over whether or not such services can do more to keep children off their sites, but there should be no question about where the final responsibility lies.
Act Two: Slaughter takes on her "haters"—peers who have apparently been speculating about her sexual history—with a four-and-a-half-minute rant riddled with f-words, s-words and obscene references to the use and mutilation of anatomical parts. She tells her bullies that they should "get AIDS and die." "I'm happy with my life, OK?" she says. "And if you can't, like, realize that and stop hating, you know what? I'll pop a Glock in your mouth and make a brain slushy."
Lesson Two: We all know that Jessi was out of line. She used language no 11-year-old (or 41-year-old, for that matter) should use. But let's set aside, for a moment, the fact that what Jessi did was wrong—it was also destined to be ineffective.
"It's just, I had no words running through my mind," Jessi said on ABC's Good Morning America. "It was all done live and that was just a way to get out my anger."
But using profanity and threats is probably not the best way to make the bullies stop. In fact, it'll likely escalate matters—as it did for Jessi. Better to take five minutes and think about what you're saying—or writing—before doing it. And for parents, it's a good reminder to keep the computer in a well-trafficked area of the house. Jessi's wasn't.
When the gossip site Gawker asked Jessi's mom what she thought of the video, she said, "I haven't seen it. I don't even go on the computer." That's a recipe for further trouble. Parents should be watching what their children do online—even if it can sometimes feel invasive. They should monitor their kids' social networking pages and check browser history. And if even more help is needed, there are quite a few really good programs out there that allow parents to keep tight track of the family's computer usage. None of this is any guarantee that kids and teens will stay out of trouble entirely, but the more involved parents are with both their children's lives and with their online activities, the better the chances.
Act Three: Jessi's video migrates to YouTube and goes viral, whipping up a veritable cyclone of nasty comments from viewers, including some threatening physical violence. The cumulative screed was so horrible that Jessi took to the Internet again, breaking down in front of her webcam as her father (standing behind her) and mother (just outside the camera's frame) unleash a torrent of impotent rage. Her dad claims at one point that he's notified the "cyberpolice." "You will have to deal with the police, because you done goofed," he says. Meanwhile, Jessi cries, pleading with everyone to leave her alone. "I'm just a f‑‑‑ing little girl," she says. "Stop making fun of me. Stop it."
Lesson Three: It's far more difficult than Jessi's dad thinks it is to "backtrack" online activity. And it often takes a whole lot more than obscene tirades to get the police involved. So Jessi's family's retaliation video is a sobering reminder that, in today's wired age, it's tough to protect everyone you love—at least it is after something's already happened.
"There was a time when these kinds of threats worked, and maybe it was a good thing," wrote Alexis Madrigal of theatlantic.com. "Words like that from a dad just might put a scare into some cruel 13-year-olds on a mission to ruin some kid's life for fun. In the old days, dads could handle harassment of their little girls. They'd pick up the phone line and yell at prank callers. They'd show up at schools and tell some kids to back off.
"Parents want to protect their children, but a precondition of that is being able to know what or who the threat is. Father and daughter alike are now living inside one of those nightmares where the thing that's out to get you remains perpetually just out of sight and reach."
But that doesn't mean you're helpless. Parry Aftab, executive director for wiredsafety.org, told Good Morning America that she favors a "stop, block and tell" strategy. First, stop posting stuff online that keeps the conversation going. Second, block offending messages and, if possible, those who are posting them. Third, underage victims should tell their parents—who, in turn, should take some time to think about the best, most reasonable way to handle the problem: It doesn't do anyone any good if the parents are just as impetuous as their children. "At some point, we need to have an adult in charge," Aftab said.
Act Four: Sometime after Jessi's original video or the "You Dun Goofed" video hit YouTube (reports conflict), things get really out of hand. The video makes the rounds at 4chan and Tumblr, two communal sites with a penchant for mischief. Jessi's real name, address and social networking sites are revealed online. People start sending everything from pizzas to call girls to her front door. Within 24 hours of Jessi's father making his video appearance, a legion of mash-ups and spoofs mocking both Jessi and her dad spring up. On July 16—four days after Jessi's original post—the search term "Jessi Slaughter given PCP by her father" rockets to the top of YouTube and Google trends charts, based on scurrilous rumors started online.
And then there was the invitation for Jessi to appear on Good Morning America—and the death threats. Local authorities put Jessi under police protection shortly after the videos went viral, according to Gawker, and ABC says that she was admitted to a mental health facility after those close to her became concerned that she could be suicidal.
Lesson Four: Asking the Internet for mercy is like asking the IRS for a 50% discount. While cyberspace is filled with many, many wonderful people, collectively it can be pitiless if the mood so strikes. When you poke the beast, the beast'll likely bite.
"If given the opportunity, people will always be awful on the internet," writes Cole Stryker of urlesque.com. "Decrying the trolls is sort of like decrying a gang of thugs who mugged a guy wandering dark alleys wearing a suit made of hundred dollar bills. The girl was posting suggestive photos of herself, threatening people who posted nasty comments about her videos and taunting her bullies. In other words, this girl was inviting it. This doesn't excuse the harassers, but no one would have come after her if she hadn't been acting wildly inappropriate for an eleven-year-old girl."
Stryker's glib yet precisely right advice? "The best you can do in a case like this is delete everything, stay off the internet for a while and hope that the trolls will get bored and move on to the next target."
Aftermath: The courts forced Jessi offline for three days, but she still defends her original video, and she tells ABC that she has no intention of cutting back on her online activity.
"I'm going to continue making my videos, I'm going to continue updating my Twitter and going on Stickam and stuff," she says. "Just going to be a little more careful with who sees what I'm doing."
So the lessons that can be learned from Jessi's injurious journey are many. But it's not clear that she herself has learned them.