We're All Paris Hilton Now
- October 1st, 2010
- 5 Comments
The tragic suicide of Tyler Clementi, the 18-year-old Rutgers student who died after a fellow student allegedly live streamed video of Tyler having sex with another man, is, unfortunately, a side effect of growing up in the digital age. Tyler’s generation came of age with the Internet and tools to document, record and broadcast their lives – and the lives of their friends. This includes everything from benign photos of friends or banal status updates to compromising or inappropriate images and videos that have lead to expulsions, firings and now, suicides.
When sex tapes, photos or scandals happen to celebrities like Paris Hilton or Disney star Vanessa Hudgens or politicians like former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, there are teams of publicists who manage the damage control and ensure that what begins as a scandal becomes a positive – whether that means any publicity is good publicity or transforming the “victim” into a spokesperson on the issue or just helping them reinvent themselves. Of course most young people are not surrounded by professionals with a vested interest in helping them survive online scandals.
The feelings that surface for a young person when explicit photos or video is posted online or sexted can be dire – it feels like the end of the world. And for a gay person who may not have come out to friends or family, the rush of emotions can be too much to handle, especially without immediate support.
Even with the push towards teaching digital ethics (of which I am a huge proponent), the reality is this can still happen to you. Someone can photograph or record you without your knowledge and post it online where it can spread like wildfire. The bigger question for parents, educators, counselors and young people themselves is how to manage through this type of crisis—how to find perspective in midst of feelings of shock, embarrassment and hopelessness. How to seek out people you trust and have them remind you of your value no matter what happens as a result of being “outed” or having explicit or embarrassing images posted online.
One of our big themes at Inspire USA, the organization behind ReachOut.com is resilience and a belief that young people have the strength to overcome tough times. In addition to the important focus this tragedy has put on preventing GLBT bullying, I hope that it also shines a light on the importance of developing resilience in young people growing up “totally wired” in a world where what feels private can be easily made public – ready or not.
Editor’s Note: Anastasia said that ReachOut.com is actively looking for stories from young people ages 14-24 who have overcome this type of digital bullying or sexting. Please share this information with any youth you work with and have them go to http://us.reachout.com/your_voice/share_your_story.php to share their story.
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RE “teams of publicists who manage the damage control and ensure that what begins as a scandal becomes a positive.”
I’m not sure that Paris Hilton or Vanessa Hudgens or Eliot Spitzer were able to turn scandal into a positive.
They’re all alright and have better careers than 99% of Americans in spite of the scandals.
But that doesn’t mean the scandal beneftited them.
It’s true that this sort of invasion of privacy and online harassment can happen to anyone. The story of the reporter Erin Andrews also comes to mind. Laws have not been able to keep up with technology, so unfortunately there has not been laws on the books in many states to deal with cyberbullying, sexting (many teens have faced child porn charges as prosecutors didn’t know what else to charge them with)or other types of digital crime. However, more and more states are coming up with new laws and making sure there are consequences for the types of obviously inappropriate conduct we’ve seen over the past year or so with online comments, posts, etc. In Tyler’s case, we know who secretly taped the video and posted it online. We’ll have to wait and see what consequences end up being imposed in their cases.
Natalie -
The video was streamed on iChat, not “secretly taped…and posted.”
[...] several gay teenagers, many of whom apparently suffered daily hazing and harassment at school. As Anastasia mentioned in a recent post, the death of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi shed particular light on one nasty [...]