I Guarantee he didn't kill himself

[Ursa Majoris]

Someone show me where the multitude who have responded are defending the college roommate who perpetrated this crime? Just because most don't think the roommate should be executed, and many question whether he should be tried for murder, does not equate to defense of the roommate.

Who says he should be executed?

[untateve]

Didn't say he was a psychopath.

 

Did he really expect that people would just laugh and let it go at that after they saw the webcam? I think he got the exact result he was going for. He wanted the kid gone from that room. He wanted him to pay for what he was. And now he IS gone. It was a total hate crime. Whatever they do to him will not be enough. People with that kind of hate that did what he did to that kid deserves to be kicked out of the gene pool and is a waste of good space on this planet. And the girl that helped him too.

 

 

Who says he should be executed?

 

Perhaps I'm reading too much into sky's post. Perhaps not.

[Duchess Jack]

Whatever they do to him will not be enough. People with that kind of hate that did what he did to that kid deserves to be kicked out of the gene pool and is a waste of good space on this planet.

 

Perhaps I'm reading too much into sky's post. Perhaps not.

 

I think so. What Sky said is true. This kid makes the world a worse place just by being in it - but I think Sky's a little too reasonable to think the kid should be put to death. I don't think that Sky (or myself) would loose too much sleep however if the Mir Space-Station were to fall on this dbag. I for one would sleep much better.

[untateve]

I think so. What Sky said is true. This kid makes the world a worse place just by being in it - but I think Sky's a little too reasonable to think the kid should be put to death. I don't think that Sky (or myself) would loose too much sleep however if the Mir Space-Station were to fall on this dbag. I for one would sleep much better.

 

 

But would you feel the same way if the victim had responded differently. Say the victim waited for his roommate to come home and he beat him to death with a baseball bat?

[skylive5]

But would you feel the same way if the victim had responded differently. Say the victim waited for his roommate to come home and he beat him to death with a baseball bat?

 

If that had happend I wouldn't be in this conversation. Totally different scenario.

 

This link goes to a person with an opinion that makes one think and gives me a whole new perspective of today in America:

 

http://www.aolnews.com/opinion/article/opi...ementi/19656326

 

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In response to your wondering if I was advocating the trial and execution of the webcammer..... no. What I am saying is that the world be a better place if this sucker wasn't taking up space better used by pond scum.

 

I think what it boils down to is that there is a whole segment of society out there that says..."Hey, it was just an innocent prank. He's just a college kid who, because he is a college kid, doesn't think properly. Not his fault things turned out like they did. He really is a nice kid who likes gays." Sort of says it all about our outlook in this day and age I guess. I am dumbfounded that there is that kind of thinking.... but I guess I shouldn't be. Guess I am just out of touch. Never have understood the no one is responsible for their actions attitude of the last decade or so.

 

When it is all said and done..... I think that nothing will happen to the webcammer and the girl that helped him. Will be put down to just a prank that had an unforseen ending and the suspects will think before they act in the future.

[Duchess Jack]

But would you feel the same way if the victim had responded differently. Say the victim waited for his roommate to come home and he beat him to death with a baseball bat?

I don't know. I guess I wouldn't have too much sympathy for the guy who was beaten to death as he brought that on himself - but I would expect the bat weilder to be held responsible for his actions. I think some consideration would need to be given to his state of mind - so perhaps manslaughter rather than murder - but I think he should have been held accountable.

 

I can see where you are going with this - that I am saying that gay guy should be held accountable for his own actions in your scenerio, but not for killing himself - but it is different. Its a fine line - but different.

[untateve]

If that had happend I wouldn't be in this conversation. Totally different scenario.

 

This link goes to a person with an opinion that makes one think and gives me a whole new perspective of today in America:

 

http://www.aolnews.com/opinion/article/opi...ementi/19656326

 

------------------------------

 

In response to your wondering if I was advocating the trial and execution of the webcammer..... no. What I am saying is that the world be a better place if this sucker wasn't taking up space better used by pond scum.

 

I think what it boils down to is that there is a whole segment of society out there that says..."Hey, it was just an innocent prank. He's just a college kid who, because he is a college kid, doesn't think properly. Not his fault things turned out like they did. He really is a nice kid who likes gays." Sort of says it all about our outlook in this day and age I guess. I am dumbfounded that there is that kind of thinking.... but I guess I shouldn't be. Guess I am just out of touch. Never have understood the no one is responsible for their actions attitude of the last decade or so.

 

When it is all said and done..... I think that nothing will happen to the webcammer and the girl that helped him. Will be put down to just a prank that had an unforseen ending and the suspects will think before they act in the future.

 

Here's where we disagree--I don't think most people see this as an innocent prank. I think most see the act as a cruel and horrible thing to do to someone. And I think most on this board, at least, believe that the roommate needs to be held accountable for his behavior/actions.

[skylive5]

Here's where we disagree--I don't think most people see this as an innocent prank. I think most see the act as a cruel and horrible thing to do to someone. And I think most on this board, at least, believe that the roommate needs to be held accountable for his behavior/actions.

 

You are correct...most on this board do think that way. However, out on the web, from what I can see, it is a very different view. Maybe I am just visiting the wrong places.

[FWmaker]

I don't think anyone is asserting that the roommate should not be held responsible for his actions. No one is saying hate is okay. No one is saying he gets a free pass because he is a college student.

 

I believe the roommate was trying, for lack of a better term, to ruin the kid's life. I believe he was trying to humiliate him and cause him embarrassment and emotional pain. I believe that the roommate is in many ways, a fk pig. I cannot believe for a moment that he thought the kid would commit suicide over this. I certainly do not believe that the roommate should be executed for his actions.

Not in agreement here, but maybe wrong. There's the distinct possibility that the roomate was just wanting attention or wanted to be "cool." The fact that it could possibly ruin his roomate's life could have been just a by-product of this. Obviously, he couldn't give a chit about his roomate (or the effects on him), but that was not the main event. Not only did he broadcast it, but he had tweeted it, crowing about it. Either way, it sux, bigtime.

 

One thing we did learn - Scarlet Knights don't float.

 

 

 

Sorry, the black humor was screaming at me. I'm sure I'll pay for this somehow, somewhere.

[skylive5]

One thing we did learn - Scarlet Knights don't float.

 

Oh man.....that is just so wrong. You should be ashamed FW.....terrible pun.

[i_am_the_swammi]

Interesting views/commentary from todays Philly Inquirer:

As social media shifts boundaries, a student's suicide shows a darker side

By John Timpane

Inquirer Staff Writer

 

If you're 20 years old or younger, you probably grew up using computers, cell phones, iPods, and Facebook. Photos, for you, are images not necessarily printed on paper. CDs are old hat. You take digital - digital everything - for granted. In such a world, how easy is it to record and be recorded, to share your - or someone else's - most intimate secrets by posting them on the Web?

 

All too easy.

 

Easy gathering and distribution of information are hallmarks of the digital age. They played out all too disastrously for first-year Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi, who committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge on Sept. 22, three days after roommate Dharun Ravi, 18, allegedly made and streamed online a secret video of an encounter between Clementi and another man. Clementi's body was identified Wednesday. Ravi and Rutgers freshman Molly Wei, also 18, have been charged with invading his privacy, and Middlesex County prosecutors say bias-crime charges are possible.

 

Clementi even said farewell via Facebook: "Jumping off the gw bridge sorry."

 

His death has spurred fierce debate, on and off campus and on the Internet, about social media, changing notions of privacy, and whether what happened was a crime. Manginder Singh writes on Facebook, "Why are we blaming Darun and Molly for this?" while DePaul University student Ricky Moreci writes, "I may not go as far as to call them murderers, but I will absolutely call them responsible for Tyler's death. And I would absolutely call this despicable action a hate crime."

 

Emily Nussbaum, a frequent writer on social-media and privacy issues and editor at large for New York magazine, hastens to say, "I am completely baffled about why people don't make a distinction between what you do and do not post."

 

But she also sees three important forces at work in this story: "The availability and ease of the technology; the growing normalcy of porn, especially the rise of amateur porn, in which you post sexual images of yourself or others, and the social-networking change in people's attitude toward privacy."

 

Fayaz Lalani, 19, a sophomore in mathematics and finance at Drexel University, puts it simply: "No one has privacy anymore."

 

Neil Bernstein, an adolescent psychologist in Washington and author of How to Keep Your Teenager Out of Trouble and What to do if You Can't, sees two trends converging: the "dilution of intimacy" brought about by the new media, and what he calls "behavior contagion," or the tendency of people to do what those around them are doing.

 

The Web can connect people in strong, healthy ways, Bernstein says. But the dark side is that our notion of intimacy may be diluted.

 

"There's a decreased empathy that sometimes comes with social media," he says. "Because they're online, people will consider themselves intimate with people they don't really know at all. And this has an impact on relationships."

 

Also, all around you, your friends and acquaintances post information once thought private: names of boy- or girlfriends, social plans, secrets.

 

Technology does change attitudes, and fast. "When phones became cameras," Nussbaum says, "every friend you had became your paparazzo. All the previous ethical boundaries about taking photos of someone else without express permission, which used to be seen as an invasion of privacy, that's all but gone now."

 

Which leaves all of us vulnerable. Rob D'Ovidio, associate professor of criminal justice in the department of culture and communications at Drexel, says that low-cost, miniaturized recording technology is "entering the widespread public domain."

 

In the past, we needed to worry only about Big Brother: government and corporate entities with the power to gather and manipulate private info. "Now," says D'Ovidio, "we're in the era where we have to watch everyone, including other consumers, our colleagues, our classmates - we have to watch everyone from now on. "Big Brother has trickled down to the Everyperson."

 

Opportunity - and temptation - to misuse social media are everywhere. "The will to betray, the will to deceive, is out there," warns Gary T. Marx, professor emeritus of social science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Social media simply make it easier.

 

Also involved is the culture of "pranking," with its overtones of humiliation, harassment, and bullying. According to the Associated Press, since 2003 in the United States, at least a dozen children or young adults between 11 and 18 have killed themselves after some form of cyberbullying. Perhaps best known is the case of 13-year-old Megan Meier of Dardenne Prairie, Mo., who hanged herself in 2006 after getting MySpace messages supposedly from a boy breaking up with her. The messages were really sent by the mother of a friend.

 

Much of the Internet debate focuses on whether what happened to Clementi amounts to a hate crime against gays. Hayley Gorenberg, a lawyer with Lambda Legal, a national LGBT civil-rights organization, said she was terribly saddened but not at all shocked to learn of Clementi's death. "We know the rates of suicide among LGBT youth who do not feel supported are sky-high," she said. "Social media can be a fantastic source of support for youth who feel isolated, but the potential is there for depersonalization that removes perpetrators from the face-to-face interaction."

 

Debate among young people shows that they, too, are still negotiating issues of privacy and responsibility in the social-media world.

 

There is even a Facebook page titled "Manslaughter charges for Dharun Ravi & Molly Wei." Joshua Burston of Toronto writes that the case is "another example of the dehumanization of gay people that leads to suicide." But Jessica Tu of Fort Lee, N.J., writes that the deeds of "two people who had the INTENTION to prank" should not be compared to "something as heinous as murder."

 

In an interview on campus yesterday, Brendan Mangan, 20, a junior in chemistry at Temple University, said he thought ridicule was the aim of the video posting, and believed it played a big part in Clementi's death. Drexel medical student Daniel Devine, 22, thought Twitter postings preceding the video showed that the act was premeditated.

 

But Temple communications junior Mike Oberlies, 20, believes manslaughter charges are not warranted because "it was not their goal to kill him." Lalani of Drexel says, "You cannot say they induced" Clementi's death.

 

In all the debate, few are likely to disagree with psychologist Bernstein: "It's just terribly, terribly, terribly sad."

 

Read more: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_top_st...l#ixzz116xlrK7w

[dmarc117]

bullying is bad. needs to be stomped out in the early years.

[untateve]

Not in agreement here, but maybe wrong. There's the distinct possibility that the roomate was just wanting attention or wanted to be "cool." The fact that it could possibly ruin his roomate's life could have been just a by-product of this. Obviously, he couldn't give a chit about his roomate (or the effects on him), but that was not the main event. Not only did he broadcast it, but he had tweeted it, crowing about it. Either way, it sux, bigtime.

 

Yes, we disagree. At a minimum, the roommate was trying to humiliate and embarrass the victim.

[untateve]

You are correct...most on this board do think that way.

 

This may be the first time you said this about me. I'm not sure how to react.

[skylive5]

This may be the first time you said this about me. I'm not sure how to react.

 

I said it a couple years ago too.

[wiegie]

This may be the first time you said this about me. I'm not sure how to react.

I say you two fight. Your weapon of choice can be the big green egg. Sky's weapon of choice can be 78 rpm Frankie Valli records.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:ducks:

[skylive5]

I say you two fight. Your weapon of choice can be the big green egg. Sky's weapon of choice can be 78 rpm Frankie Valli records.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:ducks:

 

He wouldn't stand a chance.

[FWmaker]

Yes, we disagree. At a minimum, the roommate was trying to humiliate and embarrass the victim.

I DO agree with that, egg-man.

[BeeR]

You are correct...most on this board do think that way. However, out on the web, from what I can see, it is a very different view. Maybe I am just visiting the wrong places.

Or putting WAY too much stock on "the web" and/or thinking the web = the world. Not meaning to take a shot at you btw - just that there are still, believe it or not, a LOT of people who don't hang on the web much if at all, and still more who do but don't chitter chatter on it like - well like we do. Or more. The point being - and which you were angling towards anyway, I think - take opinions you see on the web with a rather large grain of salt and keep in mind it's still a small % of our society/"the world."

 

Anyway, I think most if not all agree that the kid w/the camera is an ahole who deserves some serious hurt one way or the other and is somewhere between "murderer" and "innocent prankster."

[untateve]

He wouldn't stand a chance.

 

I would be enveloped in an Emerald haze. You cannot hit what you cannot see. But, of course, I could not strike with The Egg. The Egg is of love.

[matt770]

Yes, we disagree. At a minimum, the roommate was trying to humiliate and embarrass the victim.

 

I think it's possible he completely disregarded the kid's feelings or right to privacy, and just wanted to broadcast the sex for shock value and attention. It may have been completely impulsive. Kids have these grandiose ideas of what happens at college, and maybe he saw this as the prank to end all pranks, something to talk about for years with his buddies back home. Possibly later it dawned on him that his actions were having a devastating effect on a real human being, and possibly this is causing him a lot of remorse today.

 

Or maybe he's a crazed homophobe and did set out to ruin this kid. I think the above explanation is more likely, only because the vast majority of people do have a conscience and wouldn't do something this malicious intentionally. You have to remember that the part of the brain that processes consequences of actions is the last to develop and a lot of kids/young adults do really stupid things on impulse.

[wildcat2334]

Again with the "who amongst us" crap. Why is it that, every time some kid does something absolutely cruel and anyone gets pissed about it, the "who amongst us" card gets played. Well, I freaking amongst us didn't do anything like that when I was a kid. Did I screw around? Absolutely. Did I do stupid stunts? Certainly. Did I do something absolutely cruel like that? Hell no. Would it be even remotely the same if a roommate was straight? Not likely. I mean, it's pretty mean spirited regardless because once it's out there, it's out there. Next thing you know, your family can see you having sex on Youtube. Not cool at all.

 

But no, this quite possibly takes on another level because kid is gay and there's a lot of people who have a problem with that. And it's taboo enough that people go years knowing they're gay before they tell anyone.

 

So no, I don't think these kids assumed the guy was going to kill himself but it doesn't mean it wasn't really cruel and I think it is lame to lessen it by pretending that none of us are above that.

 

u veered off the tracks a bit. The original argument was whether this kid was happy about the end result- suicide, and he got what he wanted, etc.....which I strongly disagree with. Not lessening the tragedy at all - the kid who filmed him is an a-hole scumbag and should be punished accordingly.

 

- I didn't mean to imply that 'we" would be capable of something this cruel - more along the lines of, me and most of my friends pulled some stupid, mean spirited stunts that could have gone terribly wrong in certain instances........

 

do think some have selective memory and should come off their high horse and think back to life at the age of 20....

 

anyway, sad story, and I saw another gay kid committed suicide in NY this week, this is getting a bit out of control

Edited October 1, 2010 by wildcat2334

[Azazello1313]

somebody really just needs to get a tree branch...

[billay]

As to the social media influence, I am of the opinion that if you validate your kids at home, and they won't feel the need to be validated by strangers on the web. That's not to say that they won't care what happens online, but at least their self-worth won't depend on virtual acceptance.

[borge007]

I think you are over reacting to the extreme.

 

I keep hearing how people who commit suicide are not thinking normally, yet you want to place all the blame on a prank?

 

Can you imagine how that room smells after 3 hours of hot MFM action? I wouldn't want to be in that room either! Yet if he asked for a transfer, he be kicked out of the school for not embracing 'diversity'.

What an idiotic response-IMHO