Who is Amanda Todd?
I learned about Amanda Todd over sushi at the beginning of this week. The facts presented to me were that this teenager is internet famous because she committed suicide over bullying. There are Facebook pages dedicated to her memory and also memes making fun of the situation and the attention surrounding it. At the time of hearing this story, there was some doubt as to whether or not Amanda Todd truly existed or was a figment of the Internet hive-mind's imagination.Since I have responsibilities other than discussing pop culture at lunch it took a few days before I searched for more information about the girl. I hoped the tale had been debunked in the few days since I'd heard about it. I found out that it had not been debunked, but proven to be true and also now spanned to involve the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mountain Police) and Anonymous.
Just give me the facts, oh and a little gossip too...
Here are the established facts: Amanda Todd was a real 15 year old girl from Canada and she really did die by her own hand. She left a suicide note in the form of a Youtube video in which she tells the story of her bullying from age 12 on.What is not being reported by ABC and other major news outlets is rumors being repeated on several forums and the memes circulating the internet which allege Todd is not the victim of a bad choice. Amanda Todd is being hailed as a "cam-whore" who alone with her webcam performed sexual acts and appeared nude for audiences on Blogtv. Some have even claimed that she was banned from the site for this activity. The news outlets haven't reported on this hearsay and all the information coming out of British Columbia about this incident refuses to shed any untoward light on Todd's life up until her suicide. The news paints Todd as the victim of pressures from online predators, exploitation and extortion by using her bare chest cam shot against her, hounding her from school to school and town to town.
Major news and the internet rumor mill do agree on one part of the story. Todd admitted to having sex with a boy presumably at her school who she knew had a girlfriend under the guise that he said he liked her. Afterward she learned the boy did not have feelings for her. To add injury to insult, the girlfriend later started a fight with Amanda outside of school and beat her up in front of a crowd of students who cheered for Todd's attacker.
So what's the big deal?
What bothers me is not that there are people of both opinions passionately vilifying or elevating Todd to sainthood - there are two sides to every story and then there is always the truth. I am bothered by the fact that neither major news nor the hearsay in forums has much if any information about her family, specifically her parents. Todd explained in her video that her she had moved more than once and she had changed schools many times. That peripherally involves her family history. From an ABC report it was relayed by the RCMP that her parents wanted to stress that Amanda had resources at her disposal and support in and outside of school to turn to.I don't know if that makes me think her parents are trying to set the record straight or that they are quickly trying to sway public opinion as a defense because they actually were delinquent in their duties as parents. I think I can say with all due respect that it baffles me that this teenager enjoyed the freedoms of camera access and internet connection available to her after the bullying, after the moves, after the first suicide attempt, and the fights at school. She could have all the psychologists, counselors, peer support, big sisters, or whatever these support resources were, but if she was capable of getting online and filming a suicide note - what does any of that matter.
- If she only exposed herself once on camera and was tormented for years following -- the system, her parents, and the people bullying her all failed her.
- If she was a gratuitous and unrepentant camwhore who appeared nude on command and masturbated for the camera in video chat -- the system, her parents, and the people taking part with this and the bullying all failed her.
Put a cork in your bleeding blame-handing heart. She failed herself! (TL;DR)
Whether or not she self mutilated, drank, did drugs, camwhored, and slept with the boy with the girlfriend is not the point. Amanda Todd was 15 years old. She had more life ahead of her potentially than she had even lived. She deserved guidance and oversight from her parents. She deserved boundaries and being stripped of the privilege of online exploits if she could not behave with maturity while online. She didn't deserve to be made fun of, hurt verbally or physically, and forced to move from school to school by her peers. Children can be cruel, but that is where adults with wisdom are obligated to step in and redirect the behavior.Yes, she made a mistake if she only flashed the camera once and she also made mistakes if she was the lewd camwhore for unidentified pedophiles online. At 15, this child should not have been able to commit these acts because, at 15, a child could not possible negotiate the wide reaching consequences of her nudity online. She could not anticipate how long she would pay for this mistake or a slew of mistakes, whichever it may be. In the same way, Amanda could not truly understand her decision to use a permanent solution for a temporary problem. This girl to some extent spent 3 years in plain sight making mistake after mistake, and somehow inexplicably a web cam managed to be on hand for nearly every single one of them.
Final Thought:
But, I don't know - maybe she was uncontrollable. Maybe her parents tried everything, but this child was a delinquent determined to crash and burn. I don't know. There is no way I could know. That is the same with everyone online voicing a sympathetic or condemning opinion. At the end of the argument you're making, you really just don't know the truth. All that you do know is a girl who made a Youtube video is now dead and she will never have the chance to hear any of this rhetoric or make any more mistakes to warrant her fate. Leave her in peace and do something more than just hit 'like' on Facebook and be outraged for 45 seconds online. Leave her in peace rather than mock her for poor choice after poor choice.“All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family, and each one of us is responsible for the misdeeds of all the others. I cannot detach myself from the wickedest soul.” - Mahatma Gandhi
