You may have read about the heartbreaking story of Amanda Todd, a Canadian teenager who recently posted a much-watched YouTube video (posted below) detailing the bullying and harassment she’d endured online and in real life. This past Wednesday, she was found dead, the apparent victim of suicide.
Here, from the Vancouver Sun, is the basic outline of Amanda’s story:
Amanda was 12 years old when she made a mistake that would haunt her until her death three years later.
Her ordeal started while she was fooling around online with friends. She probably didn’t think it was risky behaviour when she lifted her top to flash the person who was flattering her at the other end of the webcam.
Amanda’s moment of indiscretion was not unusual for someone her age: Sexting and using webcams to share sexual photos is a growing trend among children, some so young they are still in grade school.
“The Internet stalker she flashed kept stalking her,” said Carol. “Every time she moved schools he would go undercover and become a Facebook friend. What the guy did was he went online to the kids who went to (the new school) and said that he was going to be a new student — that he was starting school the following week and that he wanted some friends and could they friend him on Facebook.”
“He eventually gathered people’s names and sent Amanda’s video to her new school.”
The video and photos went to teachers, to parents, to Facebook friends, which lead to repeated taunts: “Oh, there’s the porn star.” …
Amanda was the victim of unrelenting blackmail. And the cyberspace stalker was aided by people in Amanda’s real-world life — kids who would share the photos on their cellphones, kids who would gang up to hurl first verbal abuse and then fists at her.
Amanda’s story illustrates what can happen to young girls when sexualized images of them floating around online, whether they’ve put these pictures up themselves in a moment of poor judgement or whether someone has stolen them from password-locked private photo albums, or whether someone has surreptitiously taken an “upskirt” or “down-the-blouse” or some other compromising picture of them in public. This is the sort of damage that things like the Jailbait and Creepshots subreddits can do to young girls. This is why it’s so important that things like these subreddits be shut the fuck down.
Sadly, even after her suicide, Amanda remains the target of bullies and assholes online.
One of these assholes? The MRA and atheist videoblogger and all-around terrible person known to the world as The Amazing Atheist, whom we first met when he had a Reddit meltdown and started spewing misogynistic abuse at his detractors. Now he’s spitting on Amanda’s memory.
Mocking the format of Amanda’s video, in which told her story by holding up sheets of paper to the camera describing the abuse she’s endured, The Amazing Atheist posted this picture to his Tumblr blog earlier today:
I simply can’t comprehend the mind of someone whose response to Amanda’s story is this. Beyond awful.
Here’s Amanda’s video:
Continuing the food theme–because it’s lees depressing than the OP–we made this tonight, and HELL YEAH the bacon was there:
http://www.rachaelraymag.com/recipes/rachael-ray-magazine-recipe-search/dinner-recipes/turkey-meat-loaf
It was delicious.
@Kiwi girl, yeah, TAA’s real name is TJ Kincaid. Although I think he actually makes some money off his videos; he’s a youtube sponsor and even has a DVD out.
That bacon on the top is very pretty.
I need to make a version for work on Monday night, as I got accepted into a PhD (woot!). One of my colleagues has an allergy to sucrose, so I have granular sugar substitute and I need to get more oil (she’s also allergic to dairy). Does anyone know what I can do instead for icing/serving as I can’t do any frosting – because icing/confectioner’s sugar contains sucrose?
How in the fuck is this guy a Youtube sponsor considering his history of saying horrible, horrible things? What company would possibly want to be associated with him?
I just read the comments on the article that David linked. How can people be so horrible? *watches more baby kittens and dogs playing*
Someone recommended his videos to me ages ago (before he was called out on his misogyny), but in the first one I watched he admitted that he had never finished a full book and only read magazines. Why anyone gives a shit about what he has to say is a complete mystery to me. I wonder if his usual defenders will support this or if it will be too much, even for them….
@lauralot, eh, he has a ton of subscribers and the vast majority of his stuff is unobjectionable. Which is not to excuse this shit in any way, he’s an total asshole, but it’s not like he does it regularly. So it gets overlooked, I guess.
http://youtu.be/Ipeqcj0VLms
Awww…Arilyn the second attention hog in this house looks like the kittens in this video.
TAA doesn’t have the strength of character it takes to exercise compassion or empathy so he devalues it. And in his twisted mind that is some form of bravery. Fuck you, dude, you are a narrow minded prick who hurts people.
@kiwi girl
Whipped cream, maybe? I sometimes make whipped cream as icing, I just whip some packets of cream with some sugar, but you can probably use the substitute instead. I have no idea if it would go well with that kind of cake, though.
Thank you for this post. You said it more perfectly than I think I’ve ever heard.
kiwi girl: I second the whipped cream frosting if you can do it, and congrats on the PhD acceptance!!!
Katz: I learned that next time use longer bacon strips, because the bacon had curled giving it a very interesting look when it came out of the oven. Bacon feather boa wasn’t the look I was aiming for.
Sir Bodsworth,
I suggest something like 1 molar douchbag = One liter of TAA contains 1 mole of douchebags. (That’s 6.022 x 10^23 douchebags per liter.) And the density of a human is about 1.4 g/ml, so assuming that TAA weighs about 90 kg, TAA contains about 65 liters.
65x 6.022×10^23 douchebags… that’s a lot of douchery.
In more positive news-the little girl shot by the Taliban is showing good signs and has been moving her limbs.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57531936/indications-of-hope-for-shot-pakistani-girl/
No dairy leaves out cream cheese and whipped cream frostings. There is a cool thing that can be done with peanut butter and your sugar substitute, or you could just go with cinnamon and sug sub dusting or chocolate drizzle, depending on the cake.
Ugh, I just can’t deal with this shit tonight, even with the comfort of kittens and recipes. I just had to go donate to anti-bullying organizations, and I still feel sick.
I know what it’s like to be harassed and abused to the point of cutting and contemplating suicide. Hell, I know what it’s like to have a suicide plan because the monsters in your life are so terrible. And to think that there are even worse monsters out there who will mock you after you’re dead when they didn’t even know you while you were living…I just can’t handle that sort of evil. I don’t want to live on this planet any more.
@kiwi girl
Sorry, I missed the no dairy part.
I’m sorry, Lauralot. Virtual hugs if you want ’em.
Oh, I missed the dairy allergy part. I got nothing, I’m kinda crap at baking. Although tomorrow I am going to tackle a banana peanut butter chocolate cake with Mr. HK’s help. It’s like once a year I have to bake something just on the off chance I’ll be better at it.
TAA’s identity is public. He’s published a book under his real name. Sadly, it does not appear to have quilted soft pages and thus is a complete waste of paper pulp.
For more information on this delightful gentleman, you could go to the article about him on rationalwiki.
But honestly, who would want to do that when there are videos of otters to watch (note: turn up the volume because zomg squeakies!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhuvaKLJbNw
@lauralot
YouTube will sponsor anybody as long as they have enough subscribers.
Let’s see if I can get that to embed
Maybe use sugar free Cool Whip? (Is that a thing that exists? It seems like it would.)
Sorry Kiwi girl- I’m respectfully disagreeing. The reason he acts like this is because he’s never been held accountable for his own keeping. If he had to pay rent or buy his own food, he’d quickly learn what humility is. Amazing what just one night of being cold and hungry can do to a person’s ego.
Here are some bb ferretses.
http://undeadmunemune.tumblr.com/post/33524025508