Archive for September, 2010

We’re not a serious blog. But, when news from NJ gets this serious, I felt like I need to say something.

News broke today that a Rutgers student who was secretly filmed making out and having sex in his dorm room jumped off the GW Bridge last week after finding out about the recordings.  The student, Tyler Clementi, appeared to have everything going for him—he was bright, musically gifted and adorable.  So what went wrong?  His roommate filmed him having sex, twice.  For a straight kid, that would be embarrassing or maddening but certainly not the end of the world.  Fact is, if he’d been straight, the roommate probably wouldn’t have even bothered filming him.  But, Tyler was gay.  So, the roommate and his friend thought it was OK to film the encounters and tell everyone about it (he actually appears to have even Tweeted it!) so they could watch too.

So, what is it about being gay that makes people think that it’s OK to make fun of it and embarrass him like that?  And, what’s wrong with us that we would accept this behavior from people who are over 18 and legally adults?  We should be putting these students in jail for manslaughter because they basically drove him to suicide. Are we really that callous that we’re willing to just let it go?

I think we’ve heard too many news stories lately about teens and young adults killing themselves over online harassment. It’s time to do something to make it illegal and uncool to make fun of people.  What was once a private or nearly-private teasing on the playground or whispered about in hallways is now online and viewable by the entire world.  What are we going to do about this?

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