Cyberbullies

I've been sickened by the story of Tyler Clementi, the young Rutgers University student who jumped off the George Washington Bridge last week. He did it because the other two young people in this picture spied on him through a web cam in the privacy of his room and watched him having sex with another male student. Then Ravi streamed the video to his 150 Twitter followers. It's all over the news, and I can't help but think about Tyler's death and the shattered lives of Ravi and Wei, who were arrested and then released.

Tyler was a gifted musician who didn't know he was being watched during those moments of intimacy. I've wondered how I would feel if I found out that I had been spied on while having sex and decided that the sense of betrayal and invasion would be huge. All three of them were Rutgers freshmen and only 18 years old. You don't learn much about the rules of college in three weeks, that's all the longer they had been away from home and away at school. But I think Ravi didn't realize how awful a crime he was committing by spying on his roommate. If he had thought about how he would feel if the tables were turned, maybe he wouldn't have done it. But when you're 18, you don't think about consequences the way you do when you're an adult.

Tyler was a sweet, shy, gifted musician who had asked his roommate for the dorm room for a few hours. He didn't know what had happened until rumors started to spread about what Ravi had done and who watched him having sex. The last thing he did before heading to the bridge was to practice with another musician (who said he didn't know anything was wrong) and then take his wallet and cellphone out of his pocket before jumping off the bridge. I can only imagine the turmoil going on in his head.

An article published today on NJ.com has shown that this suicide and the act itself, all happening during the run-up to National Coming Out Week, is causing ripples throughout the world. Already action has been introduced in the New Jersey legislature to stiffen the criminal penalties for cyber-harrassment. Ellen DeGeneres put a plea on her program to ask people to be kind to each other and help to keep something like this happening again. And this tragedy is only one of four similar suicides at schools around the country since school began, all because of young kids being unable to handle the cruelty that others showed toward them because of being gay.

I keep waking up at night thinking about things, and this suicide keeps coming into my thoughts. It's because the world of instant media and streaming videos has become so easy to access, and young people don't seem to know how to handle it. From that article:

"Intolerance is growing at the same time cyberspace has given every one of us an almost magical ability to invade other people’s lives," said Robert O’Brien, a Rutgers instructor who says he has, by default, become a spokesman for "overwhelmed" lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students on campus.

 The juxtaposition of, as he says, an almost magical ability to invade other people's lives with thoughtless intolerance has caused this outcry. It's a sign of our times, and when you think of Facebook, Twitter, and web cams on every little device in our pockets, I guess this collision of values was inevitable. But I would have thought that this kind of invasion of privacy would only appeal to sick voyeurs.

Those two young voyeurs are probably very sorry about what they did, but it's too late for them, too. Their lives are irreparably changed because of this act, whether it was unthinking or premeditated. It doesn't matter: I'm sure they are in hiding somewhere, not going about their business at school as if nothing ever happened.

Our world is changing so fast, and technology is not only our friend (making it possible for me to write this and state my opinion) but also very much like a loaded gun in the hands of children.