Hey

Soooo, it's been a while.
And now, I'm going to reenter this blogging business after a long hiatus with a really, *really* controversial, inflammatory, ridiculous topic: Amanda Todd.

For those of you who don't know, Amanda Todd was a 15-year old Canadian girl who committed suicide on October 10, 2012.
To be honest, I didn't know until... just a little while ago. I vaguely recall a story, or more likely stories, about a girl who had killed herself following some extreme internet bullying, but couldn't have told you her name or any details. Well, I've just spent a few minutes looking this up... so I am NOT going to be speaking from an expert's point of view. I'm not going to go in-depth on this particular story; I will use Amanda's story to guide the monologue, but only because my thoughts need a vehicle. I AM NOT PASSING JUDGEMENT ON HER INDIVIDUALLY; this is about how I feel on several topics which are raised herein.

Oh, also: everything I saw about her 

OK; well, maybe that helped, but I'm sure I'll still catch *HELL* for this post.... but whatever.

Now, Amanda's story begins chronologically when she appeared on "BlogTV", a webcam chat site used primarily by teens and young adults. She appeared several times and apparently several people commented on her looks/appearance/appeal/etc. It was around this time that some male persuaded her to flash her breasts, on a live cam with total strangers on the Internet.
Now, stop right fucking there: you don't know anyone you're talking to, and they convince you to flash the camera. Either you're a total idiot these days, or you know full well that someone almost certainly is recording the show.
Oh, it's worth mentioning that she was, what, thirteen? at this time.

So some time passes, I believe she continued on the site (BlogTV) and she was, apparently, scolded/warned/suspended several times for her appearance (sexy, nearly-nude, etc) in her shows- presumably alarms were set off specifically because she was so young. And then, from out of nowhere, she is contacted by some unnamed person who demands that she give some private shows for him, or he'll post the topless pictures of her all over the internet. She doesn't comply, because that would be stupid, and soon the police inform her that her topless pictures have indeed surfaced and are making rounds on the internet. People at her school go crazy and start harassing her, so she changes schools. She goes into depression, anxiety, has panic attacks, etc. over all of this.

And Amanda, I believe, ends up giving in to this stranger and performs for him- possibly more than once- and he continues to blackmail her with images of the shows.
I'm not sure of the chronology here, but during this time she goes over to a male friend's house while his girlfriend was on vacation and she fucks him. Oh, and he's also underage. So, here we have the traumatized girl getting a guy to cheat with her. And when Girlfriend returns, she and some other girls gang up on Amanda and beat her down. OK, yeah, well, she fucked her boyfriend and teenagers are high-strung, sensitive motherfuckers.
But coupled with the stress from being blackmailed, and the depression and anxiety and all, Amanda decides she just can't take it and *drinks*bleach* to kill herself. She gets her stomach pumped and lives, but the 'bullying' and blackmail continue; she changes schools again, but more bullying and blackmail and whatever (I don't really care about details at this point; the point is, the shit from before continues)
And then she hangs herself.

OK, so let's recap:
(this is where a lot of you are going to get pissed)
UNDERAGE girl flashes on webcam to STRANGERS; *somehow*, she gets blackmailed (who woulda thunk?!) and the image comes out. Police contact her about it; fiasco ensues. So she changes schools.
Her parents cut off her internet and don't let her be by herself and make sure she's cared for and monitored and- oh, wait. Wait. No, no, none of that happened. Well, everyone makes mistakes. Sure. But aren't parents supposed to protect their children and help them learn from mistakes? Not go, "Oh, well, that was awful; hope you don't do it again! See ya later!"?!
So, more blackmail and bullying and slut-shaming and such continue, because nothing's changed and no adults are doing anything they, as fucking responsible adults, are supposed to fucking do.

She goes and fucks a friend, who she knows to be involved with another girl, and gets her comeuppance (note, I did NOT say her 'just desserts' or anything; it's not my place to decide what's right for everyone) when this other girl gets some friends in a posse and beats the shit out of her. Now, faced with how horrible her situation is (guy blackmailing her for something she did voluntarily, girl angry at her for fucking girl's boyfriend voluntarily, stress from new school- result of her blackmail, from a voluntary action) she tries to kill herself.

So, she gets saved in the nick of time, and... ok, *this* is the part where her parents, seeing that this clearly is a pretty major thing and that she's going through some awful shit, step in and help to separate her from the situation, and the police are contacted and they come and keep this online blackmailer guy away and-
Oh, what's that? That's what happens when people are somewhat, almost, in some little way, intelligent? Oh, well, that's definitely NOT what happened here, then!
No, her parents shuck her off to another different school, and she goes to classes there... and everything happens all over again. The guy blackmails her, her classmates find out what she's been up to, etc etc etc etc.... and she hangs herself.

Now, this is NOT a post about how horrible internet bullies are, and how terrible her situation was, and how innocent she was and how it was horrible how he abused and coerced and forced her. Teh Internets are FULL of people saying that, and saying the opposite, and arguing over that. No, this post is about how FUCKING RETARDED PEOPLE ARE.

As I said in that long story-telling: where were her parents?!?!?! Where was ANY adult, or even another kid, to help her out? Where were the authorities, whose job it is to protect the people and keep shit like this from happening?! They show up, say "nude pics of underage girl, BAD." and then... leave?? Where'd they go? No one said, "Hmm, she says she's being blackmailed- maybe we should look into this creep who's blackmailing this underage girl into doing nasty shit by releasing naked pictures of her- the underage chick- onto the internet!"

OK. Yes, it's sad.
I don't understand, though, how his releasing naked pics of her got her to go online and give him a lot more shots of her naked and doing things to then release to whomever he pleased. I honestly don't get it. Why not just say "NO," tell someone who could do something about it, and go about life? OK, he did release the picture and she was being 'slut-shamed' at school for it... Again, I don't get it. Yes, that's bad. Does it make you want to kill yourself, because there's clearly no way out? Um, NO. There are MANY ways out, NONE of which I can tell she availed herself of! Nowhere have I seen mention of any police hunt for this mystery guy; nowhere have I read about how she bravely stood up to the bullying and shaming. NOWHERE did I hear about her PARENTS- sorry, her "parents", her so-called parents who didn't parent her- taking her and homeschooling her to avoid this stress and shit.

WHAT
THE
FUCK
JUST
HAPPENED?!