Quote:
Originally Posted by pylon
One part of this story that is absolutely heart breaking, is this:
Again, I do not think a lot of young people can draw the dinstinction between a 4chan/youtube comment section insult, and what is appropriate in real life.
And I do not agree that the embarrassment is punishment enough. These kids should have to go on TV and individually issue an apology in my opinion. It was OK to upload the taunting to youtube, so how is issuing an apology any different. At least they can somehow try and salvage some dignity out of this.
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That part is heart-breaking, but its only ruthless if the kids knew that was the case. When I watched the video I noticed that comment, but it struck me as just kids and their dumb insults. I'm not condoning that at all, saying it could be an unfortunate coincidence?
I do wonder about the death threats as well. Is it a comment like "if I saw this take place that kid would be lucky to get off the bus."? Because thats a far cry from "I'm going to kill him " at least in my opinion. The first one is basically a figure of speech, and while it could be construed as a death threat is obviously not anywhere as severe as the second.
I don't want to enter into the kids these days/kids will be kids argument. I do think that kids are ruthless though and what this looks like here is a case of mob mentality. That doesn't absolve the kids at all, and were they mine they would wish they were never involved. I just know that kids who are junior high aged are basically complete morons. We all know that they leave their brain on the front step when they go into grade 6-7 and you just hope they pick it up again on their way to grade 10.