Amanda Michelle ToddThe Lonesome Death of Amanda Todd
Amanda Michelle Todd was a 15-year-old Canadian teenager who died on October 10, 2012.
Amanda posted this video on September 7, 2012. In it, she uses a series of flashcards to tell of her experience of being blackmailed, bullied, and physically assaulted. She mentions sending an image of her breasts to a man who later circulated it around the Internet. Ten days after posting this video, she was dead, presumably by suicide.
Her decision to end her life has allegedly been attributed to "cyber-bullying," reportedly through the social networking website Facebook.
Shortly before 6:00 pm on October 10, 2012, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were called to her home in Port Coquitlam, to investigate what they refer to as a "sudden death." They have since launched a full investigation into Amanda's case, by conducting interviews, reviewing content at social media sites, and actively monitoring certain online pages.
At the time of her death, Amanda Todd was a tenth-grade student at CABE Secondary in Coquitlam, British Columbia, the most western province of Canada.
What happened to Amanda Todd?
Was she a victim of what is being called "cyber-bullying," or was she a victim of a much more insidious problem — the way in which the Internet and social-networks "connect" some people while completely "disconnecting" others.
Young people, lonely and alienated, without real friends and somehow separated from their families, are especially vulnerable to the pressure to be a part of some larger online community. The Internet offers them a false world to replace the vacant world in which they find themselves on a daily basis. Social networking entices far too many people to mistake the "cyber world" for reality, and as absurd as it may seem, many young individuals like Amanda Todd find some kind of solace and self-worth in the words and the attention of absolute strangers.
I can't help but wonder what kind of life Amanda Todd had beyond her online life? What feelings drove her to seek companionship in a world of anonymous friendships and fabricated emotional connections? How desperate was she to step outside her home and actually engage in a relationship with a man who seduced her from the safety of her room into a world, not where she felt loved and respected, but where she felt disgraced and worthless. She sought love. She found betrayal.
The video is an obvious cry for help. Why didn't someone answer that call?
What has happened to our world?
What happened to the care and attention, and more importantly, the education and communication that Amanda needed from her father or mother?
Where was the boy next door?
Where were the dates to the movies, the nights out for pizza, the parties in some friend's basement?
Where was the best friend at school with whom she could confide, someone with whom she could share her deepest secrets and her darkest desires?
The Internet leaves a void in some people's understanding of real life. The instantaneous interaction with others through a computer screen seems real enough, sometimes better than anything an individual has experienced before, but no matter how one defines that interaction, it is not real in the truest sense.
In a world where everyone seems to want to "belong," where everyone seems to want to be "connected," one can expect to have victims. One can expect to see lives destroyed because of some incredulous pressure to befriend and interact with as many "friends" as possible in one social network or another.
What haunts me still is that we allow weak and vulnerable children to enter into these dangerous situations on the Internet. Youth and innocence is not a weakness. It is a time to be cherished, if only because it is so fleeting. Nevertheless, it is also a time that requires at least some modicum of supervision and protection from those who have no moral base and who run like wolf packs in our world, cut the weak from the herd, and destroy them.
More on the Amanda Todd story is available at The Toronto Star, which includes a fairly comprehensive series of articles.
I have no words to say after reading your post... I really hope it'll never happen again to any child...
ReplyDeleteBully is alive and well both on the net and off. As a youth worker Erin see's many cases and it angers her as the authorities seem not to take it too seriously, until something serious happens.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I do wonder where the parents are ... but since they do seem to be lacking in the necessary skills of responsibility ... the poor kid probably felt that no one would listen or care.
Erin was bullied terrible at school ... and eventually after weeks of asking the school to do something, I confronted the kids and their parents myself.
It is so sad ... and so tragic ...
I meant bullying ~smile~
DeleteHer story is of course well known also here in Norway. So sad. You sais it al so well. What more can I add, Kennedy to your wise reflections...this is the truth.
ReplyDeleteThat poor precious child..... I have no words right now :-(
ReplyDeletevery very tragic...where has the innocence of youth gone?
ReplyDeleteAt some point, these social networking sites have to be head accountable for the bullying that goes on, especially when it leads to the death of a child. This story is beyond heartbreaking ...
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