

How my childhood friend became an Internet laughingstock. - kylelibra
http://www.slate.com/id/2287808/pagenum/all/

======
gyardley
It is _so_ easy to be a snarky Internet bully until something like this
happens to restore your sense of shame.

It reminds me a bit of a situation that happened back when I was blogging
instead of doing, when I wrote some rather unkind things about the design and
aesthetics of Wesabe. I didn't really have anything to contribute - I was just
being critical for the sake of being critical. The next day, the CEO of the
company wrote a long comment on my blog defending his employee's tastes and
(rather politely) pointing out what a dick I was being. Reading that comment
made me feel like I was three inches tall.

Since then, while I don't always succeed, I try to think before I type.

~~~
sudont
We shouldn't discount criticism entirely, lest we give the world to the Uwe
Bolls out there. Your post would have gone from being "critical" to being a
critique if you had provided both: an explanation of why it's bad, and insight
into how it could be better.

Consider the art crit. I've seen a full range of reaction: some students would
completely qualify why they did everything, and be able to either discard
useless criticism and incorporate the good; others would completely reject it:
combativeness was either anger or sadness. Once, a girl cried because the
professor (very politely) said that she needed to increase the contrast in her
photos. The explanation, much like Knight's, was "well, I _tried_ hard, isn't
that good enough?"

And the answer is no, unfortunately. You can't just hide the work in a shoebox
under the bed to shield it from criticism. From what you said, though,
earnestness is not opposite from politeness. It's possible to be critical
without being a dick.

------
danik
> Most of us are Internet bullies now, some of us more active than others.

Yeah right. Most people I know aren't, and most people I discuss with online
aren't either.

I'd say the reality is that the blog author belongs to a minority of people
acting like bullies and now he tries to defend his behaviour by saying
'everyone else does it'.

~~~
m0nastic
It would appear that you hang around on a different internet than I do. I'm
envious.

The internet I frequent is populated by people who love to forward stories
around, post links to Facebook (with comments like "I can't believe how stupid
this guys is", and do the same on Twitter. Web sites which showcase said
stories, and maybe if they're very lucky, mainstream news will cover them as
well.

I pay about $80/month for internet. I'd gladly pay twice that to access the
internet you use.

~~~
DTrejo
Make different friends. That's all there is to it, I'd say.

~~~
adamc
Sorry, clicked down when I meant to click up...

------
m0nastic
We've been talking a lot about this article on Facebook since Luke published
it.

Full disclosure: I grew up with the guy in question, and am friends with the
author of the piece (both were in my Boy Scout troop). I was most struck by
the fact that I hadn't heard anything about this story until he wrote this
article, and feel pretty shitty about the situation.

It's easy to see things on the news and lose sight of the fact that people are
people. Empathy is harder to feel when it involves reading some text and a
funny caption on a web site.

I think Luke's point is that we're almost all guilty of this (himself
included).

~~~
puredemo
He got arrested in a ridiculous way. Worst case scenario is he'll have to
change his name. People are far, far worse off all over the planet.

------
Semiapies
I think we're overestimating the "anonymous internet snark" aspect of this
phenomenon. Back before most people lived in large cities and could be
anonymous, this sort of thing still happened. People got reputations, and they
rarely lived down embarrassing things that became public knowledge.

Is it really worse for some random person thousands of miles away to laugh at
a mugshot and a story (someone who could meet you a week later and not even
recognize you), or to hear "Got anything interesting up your ass today?" from
people you run into on the street for the rest of your life?

~~~
uvTwitch
The internet simply increases the reach that stories like this have. It
reminds me of an old joke, appropriate before the net:

"You know son, I was a volunteer fireman in this town, put out many blazes,
but they don't call me Billy the Fireman. I also build quite a few bridges in
my time, and they're still standing to this day, but they don't call me Billy
the Bridge Builder.

But you fuck one goat..."

~~~
Semiapies
_"The internet simply increases the reach that stories like this have"_

And drowns each needle in a steadily-growing haystack of other stories.

------
eunice_chen
His last paragraph completely ruined the entire article for me. I was actually
getting emotional as he wrote about stories with his childhood friend. I was
hoping this article would have a point. In the end, he had no point and
nothing changed, except he still remains another asshole on the internet
(which was common knowledge in the first place). I want my 3 minutes back.

------
tlrobinson
Of course writing an article in Slate (including photos of the childhood
"friend") pushes the whole story from obscure Internet news (which I hadn't
heard/cared about) into the mainstream...

~~~
xteemarie
Agreed. If he hadn't published his name/incident, I might be able to read the
story without cringing. I'm glad I didn't grow up with Luke.

------
nostromo
Honestly, if something embarrassing about me ever shows up online -- just
don't use my name. I probably wouldn't mind providing chuckles for strangers,
the trouble is that Google never forgets.

If I was the Slate author, I wouldn't have used his name for this very reason.
He's not doing him any favors by writing this.

------
alex_c
To be fair, if one of my friends fell into a water fountain while texting, I
would probably never let them live it down.

~~~
marcusbooster
Which is fine in private, but I would hope that you—as a true friend—would
also defend them against unwarranted personal attacks from strangers.

------
HSO
... and how I came to write an article about it on slate.com, said mugshot
inclusive, to further my own career as writer.

Eh?!

------
pavel_lishin
> Yes, Neil is a real person with real feelings.

AND 30 THINGS HE ATTEMPTED TO SMUGGLE INTO JAIL INSIDE HIS ASS.

There's the proper sense of shame you should feel when considering whether to
mock someone or not, and then there's communal shame that should make us think
twice before doing something morally, ethnically and criminally questionable.

Perhaps the next guy who considers doing something like this will remember
laughing at Neil, and will decide not to become an internet joke.

~~~
JoachimSchipper
Why do you feel that smuggling some relatively harmless stuff into prison is
so bad that the entire internet has to shame him? It's not like he was
smuggling in two knifes and an automatic rifle...

~~~
pavel_lishin
Well, leaving aside any personal issues on whether it's a good idea to use
drugs while in jail, it's still a tremendously dumb idea - as illustrated by
the fact that not only did he have to fill his rectum with a variety of
uncomfortable objects (a whole syringe? kudos, but ouch) but also got caught
and presumably caught extra time for it as well.

I'd imagine that the public shaming will discourage him and others from doing
something self-harmful again more so than an added jail term will.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
No, I believe from his bio that he does Not in fact learn to avoid self-
harmful acts. That's why he's a tragic figure, instead of for instance an evil
one.

------
cafard
Congratulations. Two days after the news story everyone had forgotten about
it. Now the fellow has at least an extra two days of attention.

------
aero142
I don't think anyone knew the name Cathy Cruz Marrero before she filed a
lawsuit and put it on the public record. We've all done stupid things, and I'm
glad mine weren't captured on video, but I'm pretty sure she handled it as
poorly as possible.

------
kylelibra
<http://www.slate.com/id/2287808/pagenum/all/>

That is the link to the entire article instead of half way down, sorry about
that.

~~~
josefresco
So funny, I read the second half and then wondered why there wasn't an intro
into who this guy was and what he did. I then realized, scrolled up and read
the first half. Still a great article, I forwarded it to my Mom.

This isn't about Internet cyber bullying so much as it is about childhood,
friends and sticking up for one-another. It's also about criminals and how
society looks upon those who have broken our society's laws.

------
kstenerud
Never saw this before today, but it hardly seems funny. That's how people
smuggle contraband in prison.

The sad truth is that either you have wealth with which to get what you want
from other people, or you swallow your pride and smuggle stuff in via your
rectum. It's not funny; it's a sad commentary on the demeaning prison life.

------
juddlyon
This line in the last paragraph sums it up:

"Stop reveling in the misfortune of others."

~~~
lancefisher
Yeah, except he said that is one thing he can't do.

------
tdoggette
Link goes to #p2: hit Page Up when you get there.

------
Mz
I can't relate. I generally do not take glee in the misfortune of others and
don't enjoy such "jokes". And this whole thing just makes me shake my head. He
did absolutely nothing good for his childhood friend. He just made it worse by
providing all kinds of additional personal info and extra publicity for
something I'm sure the guy wishes would just go away. Ugh.

