Tag Archives: Twitter

Suicide On-Air?

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A radio station in Dublin, Ireland hosts a nightly program where callers can ask questions and talk to the DJ. A caller rang FM104 Phoneshow , identified himself as “Jay” and told the station we was standing on the ledge of a bridge with a knife about to kill himself and he wanted to speak to the host, Jeremy Dixon. The phone screener informed Dixon of the situation and Dixon and the station decided to put the call through in the hopes that Dixon could talk the man down.

The Irish police and the man’s parents were called to the scene, traffic was halted and a very emotional Dixon tried calming down “Jay”. “I’m not qualified to deal with this,” Dixon said while on-air dealing with this intense situation. The caller eventually hung up, and around midnight he was talked down from the bridge. The whole incident got #104FM trending on Twitter with people weighing in on what had happened. Some were calling the airing of this call “distasteful and voyeuristic” others were on the side of the station.

People tweeted that this caller had pulled this stunt, on the same bridge four times last month and that the radio station had done nothing to halt his actions. Dixon tweeted that he was “completely drained” after the call and said the next morning that the station had “no other way to deal with the call but to air it”:

He wanted to talk to FM104. He didn’t ring anybody else, he didn’t ring his family, he rang FM104. … When someone rings and they feel as desperate and that, there is only one thing to do and that is to talk to them. … Hopefully it has worked.

This explanation has done little to put of the fires on social media with one person tweeting:

Patrick Abbott@patrickabbott

This smacks of what happened recently to those crank call radio DJs in Australia and the nurse in the UK. No lessons learned#fm104

And the other side of the argument:

erin large@erinmollylarge

#fm104 had NO choice in broadcasting that call. They risked their license for it. He threatened suicide if they didn’t! WHAT WOULD YOU DO?!

The station has said that after the incident that its staff would receive training for how to respond to suicidal behavior. Where do you stand on this? Should FM104 have aired the call?



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The Sandy Hook Discussion: “But I Think The Gun Helps”

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This post is, perhaps, a bit more of a rant than most. So . . . enjoy.

The horrible shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut was a national tragedy.

I think that that is one thing on which most of us can agree. I will not regurgitate the upsetting details here. Because I want to talk about the response to the shooting—the things on which we do not all agree.

A lot of people are blaming the lack of access to mental health services in many places in the US.

A lot of people are blaming the easy access to guns throughout the US.

There are some loony people who are blaming outlandish things. I mean, for one thing, the idea that prayer being “banned” from schools is responsible for the shooting would be an absurd and, frankly, insulting concept even if prayer were banned in schools. But, I mean, it is not. I went to public school. Some students pray before they eat their food at lunch. My high school did not, to my knowledge, have an Abstinence Club, but there was a Fellowship Of Christian Athletes and they certainly prayed. I know that students might pray fervently and silently before, during, and after taking particularly important tests. Some students pray during the raising of the flag in the morning, though for the life of me I have no idea which school club or what is responsible for doing that.

What people complain about being banned is mandatory prayer in schools. And people complain about exclusive prayer in schools. When you go to a friend’s house and his or her family prays before a meal, it is polite to remain silent as it happens and to wait before you eat and perhaps to hold hands—depending upon the customs of your friend’s family. That’s called being polite, and you are at a friend’s house of your own volition. School is a very different situation. No mandatory, teacher-led, or student-let classroom prayer could ever be “non-denominational” enough to not exclude at least some of the religious students. And, oh by the way, not all students are religious at all. There is no need to bully students of minorities (or majorities) by excluding them. Formal and informal student-groups and afterschool clubs are more than sufficient for any student religious group.

I have even heard some proponents of “bringing prayer back to our schools” speak as if those students (and parents) who object to institutional prayer in schools are invading parties. That is not the case. Even if that mattered, I know that my family has been in this particular county of this particular state since before the Civil War. We have not invaded anywhere recently.

Interestingly, Mike Huckabee and the Westboro Baptist Church (that’s the “God Hates Fags” group) seem to have similar views on the shooting. Mike Huckabee has blamed “taxpayer-funded abortion pills” (his concept of reality is a little shaky) and other signs of the US having laws differing from those of conservative Christianity for the shooting. The Westboro Baptist Church (that’s Fred Phelps’ thing and, oh by the way, he is …

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Chris Brown is a Horrible Person, Exhibit #1,249

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I thought I was done writing about Chris Brown, but now I’m a resigned to the fact that I will never be done writing about Chris Brown. Sometimes I think he’s not even human; it’s like he just doesn’t qualify. Let’s do a quick recap of Chris Brown’s offenses thus far in no particular order:

• He beat the hell out of Rihanna
• Responded to people being upset that he was performing at the Grammy’s by saying, “”HATE ALL YOU WANT BECUZ I GOT A GRAMMY Now! That’s the ultimate F-CK OFF!”
• Began using the pickup line, “Can I get your number? I promise I won’t beat you.”
• He snatched a girls cell phone and said, “Bitch, you not gonna put this up on no website,” before driving off with the phone. E.g., he robbed a fan.
• After being asked about his domestic violence case on Good Morning America, he stormed off the stage and broke the window in his dressing room. Because he was MAD.
• Went on a homophobic Twitter rant.

This is just off the top of my head. That’s six completely disgusting things that took place. Admits all these things taking place he got 11.6 million of Twitter followers, Grammys and anyone that stood up to him or spoke out about what a gross person he is was forced to publicly apologize (see Usher for reference). Now, he’s at it again. Chris Brown tweeted, “I look old as f-ck! I’m only 23.” Comedy writer Jenny Johnson replied at him, “@chrisbrown I know. Being a worthless piece of shit can really age a person.”

Now, she is a comedy writer who wrote something funny to a 23-year-old man who beats on women, makes no apologies and thinks he did nothing wrong. He responded with, @JennyJohnsonHi5 Take them teeth out when u Sucking my d-ck HOE. (Classy, classy dude.) That prompted Johnson to say, @chrisbrown It’s ‘HO’ not ‘HOE’ you ignorant f-ck. (Totally accurate, he misspelled “ho” and he is an ignorant f-ck. It may not be his fault that he’s an ignorant f-ck. But he is.)

The feud went on with Chris Brown saying that he should fart on Johnson while she’s “giving him top,” and after that, she called him a flirt. He said he should shit on her. She said his mother must be proud and posted a picture of Rihanna’s beat-up face. Before canceling his Twitter account Brown replied with this gem of a tweet, “Just ask Rihanna if she mad??????”

I feel sick for so many reasons, one being Rihanna isn’t mad. In fact she recently posted a picture of a shirtless Brown, pants sagging in her bed moments after tweeted a topless picture of herself. My main reason for feeling sick over this is “Team Breezy.” When Brown deleted his Twitter his fans, “Team Breezy” went into high gear.

Here’s a few choice Tweets from “Team Breezy”:

@NellyBreezy: Do u wanna know what im gonna do now ? Im gonna kill that Jenny Johnson for making Chris delete his twitter

@NinaBreezy16: @ jennyjohnsonhi5 whore bitch. if chris kill you i will have more respect of him ..

@Trigga_breezy: @JennyJohnsonHi5 Stfu bitch honestly, i wanna sit on your face and stab 1235 needles in your eyeball, you son of a motherless goat. #bushpig

@_Haineko_: super mad right now if i see that jenny johnson i’ll stab her to death.

@LizzieLovesFood: @ jennyjohnsonhi5 who the f-ck are you? what the f-ck did you do with Chris Brown? GIIIIRL, I HOPE YOU KNOW.. I WILL KILL YOU.

@ItzBREEZY_ygm: @ jennyjohnsonhi5 thanks to you!!! Chris has deleted his twitter!!!! I can f-ckin kill you

@ASWNCUK: @JennyJohnsonHi5 come on Breezy !!! let’s kill this bitch out !! #Breezywantsthisbitchdead

@230Olianis: @JennyJohnsonHi5 I will kill to jenny johnson hateeeeeeee

@SmileCBrown: @JennyJohnsonHi5 Bitch please shut up,i want kill you! you don’t know nothing about Chris Brown and you are a piece of shit to #TeamBreezy

@shanicepaige: If he don’t ever come back to twitter I’ma hunt @ jennyjohnsonhi5 down and kill her :)

@TheChrisGoins: @JennyJohnsonHi5 kill yourself bitch! #EATAD-CK!!!!!

@YoungWhiteNigga: @JennyJohnsonHi5 I would not wish anyone death but I hope you die.

@GirlsDemSugar_: WHO DF is Jenny Johnson . I’ll kill you

@RockyKanePac: @JennyJohnsonHi5 I’M GONNA FUCKING RAPE & KILL YOU OLD WHORE F-CK

Now, the fact that all these people are coming to the defense of Chris Brown isn’t nearly as bad as them emulating his behavior. Telling someone you’re going to kill and rape them because a 23-year-old man who beats women left Twitter is … there’s not even a name for it. It’s repulsive and now? Well, I’ve lost all hope in humanity. Can people really not see themselves? Is there so little self-awareness in the world that this kind of behavior happens? Does hiding behind 140 characters and a stupid avatar really give you the right to talk to another human being that way?

Chris Brown is a plague. He’s a f-cking epidemic. He is everything that is currently wrong with the world. He needs to be stopped, all of this needs to be stop. This shouldn’t be allowed! Consequences! There needs to be consequences for actions. It’s so easy to fly off the handle and break windows, beat your girl, rob your fans, and not feel sorry about it when 11.6 million people tell you how f-cking great you are. Has the world gone mad?!!?



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The Twitter Lifeline During Hurricane Sandy and the Impact of Social Media on Current Events

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When super-storm Sandy was making her way to NYC, I was sitting in my little cube at my job in California. I have a little TV in my cube and so do my coworkers, and all of the TVs were on and tuned in to the news but the sound was off and backs were turned, the faces were reading Twitter.

Every desk I walked by was pouring over a Twitter feed of some kind. That’s how I got my news, too. I read Ice-T and Coco, who were breaking down the storm from New Jersey, and Julie Klausner who was in the thick of Manhattan. Even today I’m following their updates about the storm. Julie was evacuated to a friend’s apartment with her cat, and Ice-T and Coco still have no power.

I was watching my feed as my friends in New York tweeted that they were okay, where they were, and what was happening. Later during the hurricane, I fell in love with Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, New Jersey.

The night of the storm I lay in bed and saw a RT from Bette Middler of Cory Booker. I clicked on his feed, I had no idea who he was at the time, but I saw this man responding to tweets every few seconds. ‘DM me your address I’ll come there’, when someone would say the emergency number wasn’t working he would reply with one that was. When someone said power was out he responded with “I’ll report it, I’m in the area do you need anything?” he was out all night. Three days later he’s still updating people on Twitter letting them know he’s there.

When word got out that the NYC Marathon was going to go on, I watched my feed explode with anger. People going on and on about how awful it was to not cancel it and a few hours ago I watched as they rejoiced that Bloomberg announced that due to an outcry on social media, the race had been canceled. I saw pictures of people sharing power with signs that said “We have power, please use it to charge your phones or go online”. Getting online was a connection, it let us know you were there and what you needed.

I saw the storms devastation on Instagram and Twitpics, I saw the share link for the Google doc that was listing displace persons, and I read the hashtag #NOLATONYC where survivors of Katrina reached out and comforted people over 1,300 miles away.

Like it or not our lives play out over social media. Or lives intersect over social media. It is an age of rapid fire information. And is that always such a bad thing?



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