I will continue to work on this and am open to suggestions. I realize we're pushing for a deadline here, so I'll be doing a little each day. I am now going to reread everyone's and comment.
On Jan 13th, 1692 GoodyBabs posted:
Hi Guys,
So I’m finally starting a blog to document my life in Salem because, apparently, Tituba is the opium-ist friend ever and has totally set me up with the glowing rectangular box of the magi. Don’t want to be the last of the Salem girls to be on here especially since I know all of you guys are talking filth behind my back. By the way, ANN! By the time you read this today I’m probably going to be getting switched by my mom because of that stupid stunt you pulled with Rebecca Nurses cows. When I see you at services you had better fess up or may god strike you dead. Tee hee, I’ve only been on here for twenty minutes and I’m already throwing curses around.. Guess I’m officially a member of the Tituba Web.
How do I post pictures on here?
The humorous possibilities of inserting modern technology has probably had pop traction as early as the Flintstones. The previous blog entry posted by GoodyBabs, a young girl in 17th century Salem, MA, does not bring much to the world of historical satire except for more bogus appropriations of period dialect that the writer knows nothing about. I had briefly thought about thoroughly researching puritan speech patterns but instead I was hijacked for several hours by YouTube and the like. In the context of a paper examining the impact of online culture on our lives, having the quality of my paper directly impacted by its subject matter seems authentic so I won’t fret over gaps in my understanding of 17th century Salem. The Salem Witch trials is the setting I have selected because I think it will be easy. After all, what’s to grasp? A small puritan town falls victim to mass hysteria, jealousy, and a possible hallucinogenic contaminate in their food. For all intents and purpose, the memories of college life provide enough fodder to re-imagine the regrettable tiffs between neighbors in Salem. The Internet and social networking shouldn’t be difficult to add either for as several of my quoted news stories imply, pettiness and rumors are potentially harmful no matter what context they’re found in. Certainly, we use the Internet in the same incriminating manner that the Salem girls used their pointer finger.. An appreciation for strife among friends fueled by and vented through online social networking is all we need to appreciate, what I hope, will be thoughtful examination of this not terribly original ‘what if’ scenario: What would happen if the girls of Salem MA back in 1692 were not just riling up mass hysteria but also blogging, facebooking and youtubing about it.
To get things going, the following report posted on gothamist.com, May 5, 2009 is an example of humanities smooth translation of washroom gossip to online gossip. It is an unfortunate real life example of how fluidly the basic human impulses jealousy and violence adapt to the new conventions of online networking. The headline reads ‘My Space Rumors, Jealousy Allegedly Led to S.I. Woman’s Murder’:
Police have arrested a man suspected of fatally strangling Caroline Wimmer in her Staten Island apartment back in March. Calvin Lawson was charged with murder and while police didn't not disclose a motive, Wimmer's parents told the Staten Island Advance that their daughter was killed due to rumors on MySpace: The victim's mother Martha (Marti) Wimmer "said investigators believe a female enemy of her daughter's used the social networking site to suggest to another girl that Lawson had been cheating on her with Ms. Wimmer."
Wimmer's parents had found their daughter's dead body after not hearing from her for a few days. The 26-year-old had been beaten and strangled with a hair dryer cord. Lawson had allegedly gone to Wimmer's West Brighton apartment to confront her, but then snapped. Lawson, when being led from the precinct, told reporters, "I don't have anything to say. I told them who did it already." Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said that Lawson confessed, with his written confession reading, "I choked the victim accidentally. I didn't mean for this to happen and I'm truly sorry."
Marti Wimmer told the Advance that her daughter and Lawson were never involved. She added, "My daughter lost her life over a lie. It was over nothing. I want him to rot in jail for the rest of his life. If I have to live to 100 to go to parole hearings so he never walks out of jail, I will."
Several questions come up. The rumors being spread by the murdered woman’s adversaries were probably no different than the sort that had been relegated to the turn of the century laundry rooms so long ago. But the question that seems to stand out the most prominently is the question that asks: “did the internet context in which these rumors were spread bring about the severity of the outcome.” Had this gossip occurred at a bingo hall, would the S.I woman have been murdered? Was the public nature of the online gossip the straw that broke the camel’s back? Was the heinous rumor against the man who perpetrated the murder made so public, so accessible, and therefore so completely slanderous that murder was the end result? The mother’s grief stricken insistence that her daughter ‘lost her life over a lie’ is tragically evocative of any story that deals with the fatal outcomes of false accusations and misunderstandings.
Megan Meier, a lonely 13-year-old girl, met an equally tragic fate. The case paints a familiar picture of a victim being bullied and conspired against by real life players who could just as easily be recast as characters in Tina Fey's ‘Mean Girls’ or Arthur Miller's ‘The Crucible’. On May 16, 2008, the New York Times reported:
Megan Meier, 13, began receiving nasty messages from a boy after a few weeks of an online flirtation with him, via her MySpace account, ending with one that suggested, “the world would be a better place” without her. Megan, believing she had been rejected by "Josh," committed suicide in her home.
Six weeks after Megan’s death, her parents learned that "Josh Evans" never existed. He was an online character created by Lori Drew, then 47, who lived four houses down the street. Because Ms. Drew, the mother of one of Megan's former friends, had taken Megan on family vacations, she knew the girl had been prescribed antidepression medication, Mrs. Meier said, and that she had a Myspace page.
On Feb 2 AbbeyBabbey11 posted:
Okay you ugly apple cramming ruddy-eyed backhoes! Here’s the root of it: No one is to hang out with Tituba anymore until she stops acting weird. Like, I know it was cool that she was hooking us up with the cool stories and wireless modems, but yesterday she wasn’t any fun and she was trying to make me feel bad about not having done the solstice thing with her. My mom told me that Goody Parris said that Tituba isn’t even doing good housework anymore. COME ON! Can you believe THAT! Like, all of us do housework!!! So, without further adieu, here’s this weeks Abbey Girls decree: No one is to hang out with Tituba. I am THIS close to unfriending her so if she messages any of you, totally ignore her. Anyway, all of that bullshit aside I think I’ve figured out a way to get the eternally fat assed Osborne hag off my back. Meet me at the elms at sundown. SARAH, no excuses this time. Tell your ugly mother that your getting milk or something.
Oh yeah, John Proctor told me he saw an Indian yesterday.
wow, i just reread this. this is really rough.
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