When Myspace becomes real life

According to a CNN news article, 13-year-old Megan Meier hanged herself after being the target of a Myspace hoax perpetrated by a 39-year-old Missouri woman, Lori Drew. Megan committed suicide in her bedroom in October 2006 after receiving dozens of hateful messages (allegedly from Drew), including one saying that the world would be better without her.

13-year-old Megan Meier hanged herself after being targeted in a Myspace "prank"

Drew supposedly created the fake account with the help of a coworker, 19-year-old Ashley Grills, in order to find out what Megan was saying about her daughter, who used to be friends with Megan. The fake account was a 16-year-old boy named "Josh Evans" who flirted with Megan continuously, calling her "sexi" among other things. Lori Drew has been indicted on 4 counts of "conspiracy and fraudulently gaining access to someone else's computer," each of which holds a 5-year maximum prison sentence.

This story is sad for so many reasons. First, why is a grown woman using the Internet to terrorize a 13-year-old girl? I can't imagine her logging into Myspace and figuring out what sort of cruel message she's going to send to the girl this time. Secondly, it's really sad that a teenager would take Myspace so seriously that it would even affect her life, let alone take it. Granted her family said that she was on medication for attention deficit disorder and depression, but still. And supposedly Drew knew all about the medication too, which makes what she did even more evil. My condolences go out to the Meier family and all of Megan's friends.

Yup, this is the world that we live in...