Tyler Clementi – the victim of murder? Involuntary manslaughter? His own low self esteem, thin skin and inability to take a joke? Gravity?
Livestreamed by his room mate from a hidden camera, Tyler was exposed on the internet having sex with another man. His subsequent suicide, declared in his final facebook status, is a tragedy for him, for his family and for our generation. The media is labelling this as just another instance of cyber bullying, but the perpetrator could get several years in prison.
So what’s the problem here? The easy access to publicity that makes total humiliation simple? The latent homophobia that made it an even better scoop for his room mate? Or original low self esteem and a feeling of isolation that affects so many freshers and other young people? Our generation needs to prove that we’re better than this.
Suzy
I agree. There are so many other options for Tyler. He could have easily taken so many other routes. For instance, he could have punched his roommate out. He could have had him dragged out of the school by the police for invasion of privacy. Providing a humiliation all its own for his roommate. He could have talked to someone, a counselor, his parents, a trusted teacher, a suicide hotline, his sex partner. Has anyone thought to place his sex partner on a 5150 hold so he doesn’t suffer the same fate as Tyler. Of course they haven’t. Because it is not reasonable to assume that humiliation would lead to suicide.
I think humiliation can lead to suicide when taken in conjunction with other problems that an individual may be dealing with, but you’re right that causing suicide was probably the last thing on the mind of his room mate. But you’re right about the partner, it must have been a pretty traumatic week for him as well. I hope he’s being supported, and that the counsellors are there in the institution to deal with such problems.
You do not have the right to say “He didn’t really have it that bad”. Because they didn’t anticipate all the outcomes that could result does not make their behaviour any more acceptable. Not a bit. You think he chose to kill himself? Why? Because, as you imply, it was novel or different or to get attention? Please… The lack of forethought that went into that comment astounds me. You should really; really do decent background research into your subject before forming half baked, half witted opinions such as these. At the very least. You’ve also clearly misunderstood the original posting, which serves to further illustrate my point. Then again perhaps I’m judging you too leniently, maybe your intentions are malicious. If that is the case, don’t bother replying, whatever you have to say distinctly isn’t worth our time. Otherwise additional knowledge is required before another attempt is made to dictate your views to everyone else. I’ll look forward to hearing your new, hopefully considerably less prejudged opinions in, I don’t know, two months or so. Though I won’t hold my breath.