Like just about anyone else who spends any time online, I have seen the stories about the six girls in Florida who filmed themselves beating up another girl while two young men stood guard. The girls were apparently upset because their target had been trash talking them on Myspace. They planned to post the tape of the beating on Youtube. I'm not sure what they thought that would achieve. No, scratch that. I do know and it makes me feel like jumping out a window.
I haven't linked to the video, which was released by the police department, because I don't want it stinking up my website. The victim's parents have apparently said that they think Myspace and the other social networking sites are to blame. I hate to break it to them, but teen girls were brutalizing one another, physically and psychologically, long before the Internet.
This kind of thing bums me out to the point of despair and is part of what inspired my new book, Getting the Girl. The book is a comedy, but it's also about how teens (and adults, for that matter) can go right over the edge with very little provocation.
I hope the girl who was attacked is recovering and that she realizes that one day soon she'll be out of high school and able to leave all this behind. I also hope her attackers are going straight into intensive therapy for whatever ails them.
And now I'm going to go bake the fanciest cupcake I can in an effort to forget how ugly life can be.