Online vigilantes' hue and cry

Of course, AES knows as much about why Meier took her own life as everybody else does, while her musings could’ve been composed by a Scientologist who doesn’t care about Mrs Meier’s feelings.

Even if Encyclopedia Dramatica often displays the sophistication and wit of a boy giggling about the stupidity of the “Internets” while spending most of his time online writing “humour” (some people don’t get satire and all that), the infamous wiki makes a reasonable point about the laudatory nature of some of the comments that appear after a suicide.

Yes, it’s possible to go from zero to hero in one foul step.

The Megan Meier Memorial Myspace site contains a message authored as if speaking directly to Meier:

May you rest in peace. U made the ultimate sacrifice ... now hopefully other who (especially adults) that use words to hurt - WILL have to pay for it. You will always be remembered & forever a very important girl who changed the way. Bless You Always!

The potentially dangerous influence of such comments on troubled young minds must be of concern to those working in the field of mental health.

The Chicago resident who created the MySpace site in homage to Meier, manages, in less than 100 words, to unintentionally deride the dead girl by describing her as “mental” rather than mentally ill, implicates the father of the former friend, and gets the marital status of the mother of the former friend wrong.

Although the Chicagoan means well, the same can’t be said for the bloke on YouTube singing a Juice Newton song for Meier at the same time as engaging in some Footy Show style transvestism and “humour”.

Would-be comedians can thus be added to the list of online dangers to adolescent females, a list that also features pedophiles, websites promoting anorexia nervosa, and, of course, spiteful parents and other adolescent females.