Whoever believes that social media sites are all bad has only to read on. Though an ocean divided them, a suicidal 16-year-old from England and a concerned 14-year-old from Canada made a life-saving connection.
After Paige Dayal read a cry for help from a teen named Luke, she took the matter into her own hands and ultimately did some digging until she contacted police in his hometown in Bath.
Paige confessed her concern to her parents. “There’s a boy on my Tumblr account and I really think he’s going to hurt himself. He said that everybody hates him, that he doesn’t have any friends. People are telling him, just go ahead and do it.”
Having taken 16 pills, Luke was on the downward spiral when he posted about his plans to take his own life. Surprisingly he was bated by other users, who suspected a prank. Fortunately for him Paige was online at the time. By the time police who showed up at his doorstep and alerted his parents, Luke had taken 36 pills. He was rushed to hospital where he is getting the help he needs.
As for Luke, he had this to say to his mystery angel: “I am so grateful to the girl who rang the police. Seriously I LOVE YOU.”
There are so, so many others who desperately reach out online. What we need is more teens like Paige, listening and reaching back.
Ah, here's a post for my cousin, whose prepubescent walls were lined with Teen Beat tear-out posters of sitcom '80s heartthrob, Kirk Cameron. (Personally, I was more of a River Phoenix kind of girl.) Jen, you may regret that early crush after learning what a nob Kirk made of himself on a recent interview with Piers Morgan.
Viewers are still scratching their collective heads as to why the has-been Growing Pains actor even appeared on the talk show, other than as a set-up to out him as a homophobe in order to boost Piers' ratings. But I digress...
The point here is that Kirk became a Christian in the years following his early success (perhaps praying for a pilot to launch him back into the limelight?). When asked how he feels about gays, even though Kirk visibly squirmed, he didn't hold back, saying that homosexuality is "unnatural...detrimental, and ultimately destructive to so many of the foundations of civilization."
To his credit, Piers showed his colours as a parent, admitting if one of his kids came out of the closet he'd say, "Great, as long as you're happy."
Although Kirk skirted around the issue and tried to challenge Piers' own set of moral assumptions, you can bet it would suck to be his son or daughter.
Now, celebrities like Scrubs' Zach Braff and Smash's Debra Messing, media personalities and John Does took to Twitter en masse, responding to Kirk's statements.
Some of my personal faves:
Give me River any day... A troubled sensitive soul is better than a bigoted, sanctimonious one.
How would you react if your child told you that he/she was gay? Or how did you? Spill it.
It seems that Prince Harry was onto something a few years ago, when he attended a fancy dress party in Führer chic. Now T-shirts featuring cartoon versions of the Nazi monster Adolf Hitler are trending for young people in Thailand.
From depicting the dictator as a Teletubby, panda or Ronald McDonald, boutiques in the capital Bangkok have it all, for between 200 baht to 370 baht ($7 to $12)
But it seems that only the tourists are complaining.
"It's not that I like Hitler," said one shop owner named only as Hut. "But he looks funny and the shirts are very popular with young people."
In Thailand, Hitler's resurgence is not limited to tacky T-shirts; the tyrant whose regime exterminated around six million Jews during the Holocaust is also depicted in statuettes. Representations which the Israeli ambassador in Thailand fears not only "trivializes" his legacy, it hurts "the feelings of every Jew and every civilized person."
So why is Hitler hip with the young Thai populace? Associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles, which monitors international neo-Nazi activities, Abraham Cooper insisted the locals wise up about Hitler's ideology.
"If the Nazis had won the war, Hitler's racist ideology would have eventually targeted all races he deemed inferior, including Asians."
Reminds me of the kids wearing Che Guevara T-shirts without having a clue about who he is or what he did in his lifetime.
If the T-shirts had devil horns doodled on Hitler's face, that would be a different story altogether, not to mention a pretty hot market. Look out Dragon's Den...
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