A while back, I blogged about a weird case of a woman getting back at teenage girl that had been a bully toward her own daughter. She did that by creating a MySpace account and pretending to be a sixteen year old boy who was interested in the girl. Well, most of the dust has settled, and it's not pretty.
Tina Meier was wary of the cyber-world of MySpace and its 70 million users. People are not always who they say they are.Some background information. Megan was severely overweight. At 5"5 and 175 pounds when you're 13, you're going to have some major issues right off the bat with how you see yourself. This is what makes no sense from a mother who acted like she was semi-responsible. She had a very overweight 13 year old daughter with a serious history of depression problems, and she allowed her daughter to get involved with an older guy who seemed to be just way too good to be true for her at that point in her life. The only responsible and obvious thing to do would have been to tell her daughter that this Josh guy was way too old for her. It may not have been true, but it would have been a good cover story to prevent having to admit that the guy seemed too good to be true. Parents should always be wary when a guy who is out of their daughter's league show a lot of interest in their young daughter.
Tina knew firsthand. Megan and the girl down the block, the former friend, once had created a fake MySpace account, using the photo of a good-looking girl as a way to talk to boys online, Tina says. When Tina found out, she ended Megan's access.
MySpace has rules. A lot of them. There are nine pages of terms and conditions. The long list of prohibited content includes sexual material. And users must be at least 14.
"Are you joking?" Tina asks. "There are fifth-grade girls who have MySpace accounts."
Personally, I think there were a lot of warning signs that the mother ignored in the whole thing. She should have been suspicious that a really good looking guy who was 3 years older was so interested in a relationship with her overweight barely-a-teenager daughter. He was coy about contact information, so he could never meet her face-to-face or talk to her over the phone. Then when she saw the excrement hit the oscillating device for her daughter, she gave her grief and let her be alone for a while. It's kinda ironic that she was quick to point out that the perpetrator knew all about her mental problems and exploited them masterfully, but it didn't occur to her that her daughter might be pushed over the edge by such a broad and public assault on everything about her.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that she's a terrible mother. I don't know her, and I feel sorry for her daughter because her daughter was very mentally ill and got that used against her perfectly. It's just that this story leaves a lot unanswered. I find it hard to believe that the other mother would have gone after this girl without her starting something to spark it. The full truth is needed here, not to point fingers or assign sympathy, but just to give perspective on the whole thing.
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