Vivat Libertas

Every day, teens attempt suicide over being bullied. Many fail - the American Association of Suicidology reports that for every successful suicide 25 failed suicide attempts are made - but many succeed. And out of those thousands and thousands of teens, every so often one's death becomes a cause célèbre . Twitter and Tumblr flock to mourn their newly-minted martyr and decry the evils of bullying - but within a day or two that dead teen is forgotten as quickly as they rose to fame, to be relegated to the ranks of all the nameless suicides. Meanwhile, people preach about how bullying is bad. I won't ask you to forgive me my cynicism, but I will ask you to hear me out. I don't jump to eulogise each dead teen, because I know how many there are. I know that this is not a unique event, that this is endemic. And while I hate bullying, I won't join in the preaching. Let me explain why. I was bullied from a very young age all the way to about 15 years old, which socially iso...

Yeah, I'm a Twitter addict...and this time I found #RIPSophie trending. I don't know if I should put a warning on this post, but it discusses bullying and suicide. If those count as triggers, this post has them. (You can never be too careful.) The story goes that a Wanted fan called Sophie ( @JaythanILoveYou ) killed herself over bullying. Another story goes that she hasn't actually killed herself and the story is fake. I want to say this: even if the whole thing's a hoax, that in no way mitigates the fact that too many - I don't have the numbers to hand, but it's too many - teens actually do  kill themselves because of bullying, and that it's a real, despicable problem. Faking a suicide - and I really don't know why anyone would do that, not because I'm naive but because it's a hell of a lot of work and brings a lot of negative press - may be vile, but it pales in comparison to the vileness of driving someone to take their own life. Even ...