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.
How my childhood friend became an Internet laughingstock.
21–30 of 49 posts
Re: How my childhood friend became an Internet laughingstock.
#22Honestly, 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.
Re: How my childhood friend became an Internet laughingstock.
#23I 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.
Re: How my childhood friend became an Internet laughingstock.
#24This line in the last paragraph sums it up: "Stop reveling in the misfortune of others."
Yeah, except he said that is one thing he can't do.
Re: How my childhood friend became an Internet laughingstock.
#25... and how I came to write an article about it on slate.com, said mugshot inclusive, to further my own career as writer.
Eh?!
Re: How my childhood friend became an Internet laughingstock.
#26To be fair, if one of my friends fell into a water fountain while texting, I would probably never let them live it down.
Re: How my childhood friend became an Internet laughingstock.
#27It 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 com…
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.
Re: How my childhood friend became an Internet laughingstock.
#28> 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 rememb…
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...
Re: How my childhood friend became an Internet laughingstock.
#29> 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 rememb…
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...
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.
Re: How my childhood friend became an Internet laughingstock.
#30I 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…
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..."