It's a harrowing world of he-said-she-said-this-sucks-LOL-no-way-yes-huh-LMAO, known as blogging. On Monday the Las Vegas Review-Journal blew the lid off the horrors that can be spun from the cyber underbelly when it delved into the case of Wesley Juhl, the high-schooler whose blog (short for weblog, or online journal) got him marched right into the dean's office. Why? He insulted a teacher and coupled the word "kill" with another student's name. The next Columbine? A homegrown terrorist?
Our zero-tolerance school district somehow stumbled across this outlandish teen's blog and stuck him with an in-school suspension and a parent-teacher conference and brought to the attention of school officials his lack of zone variance, leading to a transfer of high schools (from Valley to Chaparral) in the middle of his senior year. Gone are the days when a teen's hormone-riddled thoughts stay in a locked diary under the dirty magazines under the bed. Now, everyone's publishable and everyone's punishable.
So just what are these bloggers blogging? A Weekly reporter goes behind the blinking cursor to examine what happens in those online journals. They're angst-ridden. They don't like capital letters. Read it here, first, in this week's "Dear Diary, IMHO (in my humble opinion)—OH MY GOD!"
These kids are bored, they're itching for love, and they have violent aspirations. Take this entry from a local problem child on livejournal.com: "spitting tic tacs at random people in the mall is fun, but it is more fun to watch your best friend fall on her ass while jumping in the parking lot." Pure. Evil.
Want a real snapshot of how these teens are dealing in relationships? Turn to the site of Ammi, who calls her blog "A Las Vegas Teen's Screwed-Over Life." "Yeah, i'm a total wuss. After getting advice from about six different people, i STILL have found reasons to avoid talking to niko. Today i saw her at lunch and just turned away and kept walking. God, i hate being such a loser." Self-esteem anyone? Better order her a Lithium drip, stat!
Then there's the extreme depression exemplified by the inability to make a simple decision, as seen by our little blogger friend Adrisan: "I don't know what I'm gonna do. Maybe I'll consider thinking about something to do. Or not. On second thought, never mind." Better not leave her alone with a sharp object and a wrist!
Here comes someone who clearly suppresses too much. One second, this girl on livejournal.com admits that she wants to write down what she's feeling, but she won't do it because she doesn't want to come across as mean. The next? "So that was over and we went back to Allison's, where we're smart kids and stayed up until 1 AM making buttons for Senior Citizens Day! Woot!" Buttons for seniors? Woot? Sounds like a walking time bomb.
And here we have a self-proclaimed self-mutilator. "I was ATTEMPTING to help and she wont f--ing shut up. So I hope she drinks rat poison." And then: "I actually carved 'f--k you' on my arm." Classy! Double woot to you!
Maybe more high-schoolers should look to this next senior as their role model. She's not carving herself, nor is she threatening anyone's life. Then again, her spelling and grammar are pretty lackluster. Don't these bloggers have spellcheck?
"I somehow have grown up to believe that drinkin all drinking no matter what the circumstances is bad, well not bad in general just bad for your health, so I've decided to not do it, i dont have anything against people who do it I just dont wanna do it. With my group of friends in th future I'm gonna be the designated driver always lol. I dont even wanna drink at my own wedding, and everyones all like oh my god you have to drink at your own wedding its tradition!! then i just tell them to chill out lol."
Look out, smokers! "I feel the same way about smokeing as i do drinking, except with smokeing anything at all especially ciggeretts to me thats just killing youself slowly and i dont really understand why people so it. Its yucky and it turns your fingernails yellow and it makes your breath stink and it increases wrinkles. Did u know in guys it makes thier units smaller?"
Of course, those are the exciting entries that skip the day-to-day doldrums that teens face, without money, without a car, with only their friends, parents, psyches and keyboards to obsess over. But a lot of entries read something like this: "i just had a hostess cupcake pack. now i feel too full." Then again, maybe this student should see a doctor about an eating disorder. That's a lot of cupcake.