Facebook Stupidity and a Heroic Kid

Two things to talk about in today's post, both from the same story.

A teenage Michigan boy was a hero recently, when he let a desperate woman into his house and then helped fend off her attacker.

The unidentified woman was apparently kidnapped, raped, and then the perpetrator was transporting her somewhere in her car when she jumped out and escaped. She saw the light on at the boy's house (his father had left to pick up his fiance and so the boy was taking care of his two younger siblings) and pounded on the door, calling for help. The man was chasing her.

With quick thinking, the boy let her in, made sure all the doors were locked, and didn't let the man's shouted threats intimidate him. He called his dad and the woman called 9-11. After an aborted attempt to set fire to the house, the man ran away, and was later killed by police.

It's an inspiring story, and I encourage you to go to the link above and read the details. The kid is a hero.

The story also prompted something else to pop into my mind, though, and it's the real reason for this post.

Stupid Facebook behaviour.

What am I talking about? The asshole rapist (now thankfully dead) posted to his Facebook account just a short time before getting killed, with the status update saying "Well folkes im about to get shot. Peace"

Is that the stupid behaviour? No, that's not it. In this day of social media, these perpetrators always do something like that. It may be stupid, but it's expected.

No, I'm talking about his friends.

Seriously, folkes...sorry, folks. If you ever have the bad luck to know somebody who has gone off the deep end, or who is just plain evil and you didn't realize it, and they post something like this? DON'T COMMENT ON IT!

There were 25 comments at the time of the Daily Mail screen grab, and four of them were displayed. One guy says "I don't know what I feel." Excuse me?

Another one is somehow looking for the cause of this behaviour, saying that the guy is a "sweet person" and something must have set him off. Funny, but this kind of gets in the way of the "sweet guy" impression:

"Ramsey had been on parole since last summer after serving the minimum five-year prison sentence for assault with intent to do great bodily harm, according to Corrections Department online records."

Yeah, sounds like a really sweet guy.

Another one wonders what happened to the guy he grew up with.

And the last one just made me laugh (in a seriously "WTF???" way). "Very unfortunate." And then she tags him! Like he's going to see it.

I'm not saying any of these feelings aren't legitimate. Who knows what we would be feeling if we suddenly discover that one of our friends did something like this. The guy who doesn't know what he feels? That's perfectly legitimate and logical. Sometimes we don't know how we feel. We thought we knew this person. And it turns out we don't.

So, feelings = legitimate.

But posting that on Facebook? Especially in response to a post like this?

Do you really want to take the chance that your name will be plastered all over the world in an article like this? When you're still trying to work out your feelings about a traumatic event?

Take a deep breath and realize that maybe Facebook isn't the proper place to work through turbulent emotions like that.

At least it doesn't appear anybody "liked" the post.

That would have been cringeworthy.