One month ago, a young girl posted an intriguing video on YouTube. The video showed this girl and her father, the girl crying and her father enraged. In his fury, the father sputtered out nonsensical phrases like “I’ve backtraced your emails and the cyberpolice are on their way,” “You dun goofed,” and “Con­sequences will never be the same.” The interesting thing about this circumstance, however, was that the father was not yelling at his daughter, and his daughter was not crying because of her father’s scolding. The father was yelling at the webcam, directing his anger at the viewers, and the girl was cry­ing about what had happened to her as a result of previous events. How did this all happen? You’re about to find out.

Meet Jessi Slaughter, an ordinary eleven-year-old girl who wishes to be anything but ordinary. Being in­volved with a band called Blood on the Dance Floor, Jessi Slaughter flaunts her slight advantage in pop­ularity, and feels like she has the right to insult the general population by threatening them over You­Tube. And that’s exactly what she did.

On a fine morning, Jessi Slaughter got on her computer and started recording a video. She was ad­dressing haters and trolls – people who say negative things about something for the sole purpose of a feeling of self empowerment and enraging others. Generally, people combat haters by either saying “Stop” (which usually doesn’t work) or “I don’t care what you think” (which also usually doesn’t work, but tends to be slightly more effective than telling them to stop). Jessi Slaughter, on the other hand, chose to say “I’ll pop a glock in your mouth and make a brain slushie.”

Now we change the scene to a place called 4Chan. If you have any friends obsessed with the internet, you have most likely heard of it, but may not know what it is. 4Chan started out as an image board, a website that people can use to communicate with one another and share pictures. However, as the 4Chan community grew, things started to get out of hand. 4Chan is now popular for its disturbed par­ticipants, stupid memes, and occasional outbursts of child pornography, among other creepy things.

The most important thing about 4Chan, however, is how powerful it is as a group. A majority of the people that go on 4Chan are people that are not a part of the real world and do not actively participate in society. As a result, these people have tons of time on their hands to do whatever they wish. “Whatever they wish” can range anywhere from masturbating while watching bestiality porn to utterly destroying the life of an eleven-year-old girl with poor judgment.

Remember the “pop a glock in your mouth and make a brain slushie” video I referred to earlier? 4Chan got a hold of it and passed it around from member to member. Thousands of people watched it and saw a small girl threatening to do something that she would never actually be able to do. One thing I forgot to mention is that many people on 4Chan are pathetic in real life. To make up for how weak they are, they act like vicious monsters when they are behind the safety of the electronic barrier we call the internet. The 4Channers decided that it would be funny to take what this girl was saying seriously and fight back.

Jessi Slaughter began receiving more hate mail than she had ever received before. 4Chan found out her home address, phone number, and information about her parents. The harassment went on for a few days and became more severe; people started making death threats and the releasing Photoshopped pornographic pictures of Jessi Slaughter. Eventually, the police department decided it would be best to (attempt to) take control of this situation, and put Jessi Slaughter under police protection. Three days later, Jessi Slaughter was released from police protection and did an interview for Good Morning America. Following suite, other news broadcasts, such as CBS, also did segments about Jessi Slaughter and how her life took a drastic turn.

The depressing part is, it didn’t stop there. Shortly after posting her breakdown video of her dad screaming into the camera, Jessi went into her video chat room and appeared perfectly fine, even saying “any type of fame I’ll take.” She continued making more threats to the haters, and started fueling people’s ideas of her having a sexual relationship with the lead singer of Blood on the Dance Floor. On August 2 and August 4, she was heard on Tinychat while she was arguing with her dad; there is a distinct slapping noise, and Jessi threatens that she will curb stomp her father.

Time to start pointing fingers. Who’s at fault? Most people say that Jessi Slaughter is responsible for all the trouble she’s caused. I say her parents are mostly to blame.

First, we have to keep in mind that Jessi Slaughter is still a preteen. She was eleven years old when a majority of this happened, and recently turned twelve on July 27, 2010 (according to one of her online profiles). This is usually the age when kids start going to middle school. In the United States, an indi­vidual must be eighteen years or older to be considered an adult; until then, the actions of the child is the responsibility of his or her parents. Furthermore, science has proven that the brain does not even finish fully developing until someone is in their early to mid-20s. What’s the point of blaming someone who is around half that age?

Next, according to an interview by a website called Mom Logic, Jessi Slaughter’s mother did not even know about what Jessi was doing online. Jessi’s mother claims that she has not yet watched any of her daughter’s videos – that means, Jessi’s mother has never seen her daughter announcing that she’ll “pop a glock in your mouth and make a brain slushie,” even though millions of other people worldwide have seen this video. I dunno if it’s just me, but that sounds a little bit ignorant.

Finally, aside from being ignorant, her parents have not made a reasonable attempt to take control of this situation. Jessi is twelve years old now, and is under the full authority of her parents. With over 40 years of life experience each, her parents should know how to handle a situation like this (and so should anyone with a brain). Are her videos causing the problem? Take away her webcam and microphone. Is she still chatting with strangers? Get an internet filter and block chat websites she uses most frequently like Tinychat and Xat. Is she still causing trouble? Move the computer to the family room or kitchen where her online activity can easily be seen, or just don’t let her use a computer all together. As you can see, it’s not very hard to control a child.

So what have we learned from Jessi Slaughter? Simply put, make sure children know how to stay safe on the internet and realize how dangerous it can be. Never allow them to give out any personal information without getting permission first. Closely monitor their internet activity and start asking questions if something suspicious shows up. And most importantly, if you sense trouble approaching, act immediate­ly.