13. Amanda Todd Was Stalked Before She Was Bullied

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/10/18/suicide_victim_amanda_todd_stalked_before_she_was_bullied.html

Slate editor and author of the forthcoming book of Sticks and Stones: The New World of Bullying, Emily Bazelon wrote an article on October 18th about bullying and the origins of it. She started the article introducing the tragic suicide story of the teenager Amanda Todd on October 10th. Bazelon provided the Amanda's testimony video and briefly described the teenager's life as a girl who was mocked and lost respect from her friends, an outcast who ate lunches alone, and made a mistake which led her to get physically abused by a gang. In the next paragraph, Bazelon analyzed that the Amanda was first stalked - by a male adult -  before she was even bullied by ther friends at school. She compared it to another case (Lori Drew), where a grown up also started bullying her daughter's friend, causing her to take her life as well. She explained how in both cases, the adults' threats were the first causes of bullying, and that what happened to these kids in school was just another effect following it.

The purpose of this article was to explain that bullying does not always start within the school boundaries, but that adults are also part of it, especially when it comes to cyberbulling. The article is also used as a way to bring awareness, and it directed not only to children, teens, and teachers, but also to parents and other adults. The author's tone is one of concern and this is clear in several parts throughout the article when she says "And it's a behavior we need to speak out against—though I continue to think the best way to do that is through community-wide prevention efforts, not by making examples of individual teenagers," "I'm glad the Canadian police are investigating. I hope when they're finished, they can give us a fuller picture of what happened to Amanda," and "I felt that watching it. But I'm worried about the effect it could have on other vulnerable and depressed girls. When suicide testimonies like this get an enormous amount of sympathetic attention, they can attract other kids in a disturbing way. This is the documented phenomenon of copycat suicide, which prevention experts worry about."