It drives me crazy that they don’t understand teens do crazy shit and don’t really think about it.
This teen happened to grab a bit of attention and look at this mess.
Teens do crazy things, but doing crazy things on the internet— Twitter, no less, where thousands of people (or more) can read and react to it in any manner they choose—is far worse than how it used to be. If a teen had a pity party, a meltdown, or some other attention-seeking events, theee were more isolated in terms of coverage.
Teens do not (or refuse to) understand how social media works, except when it comes to forcing engagement (likes, retweets, followers, shares, etc.); they don’t understand ramifications outside of their little bubbles. They don’t understand or think about potential long-term consequences of their actions.
As soon as you begin engaging people on social media, the responsibilities begin. It doesn’t matter whether you’re 8 or 80. You’re going to be treated the same way. Trolls are gonna troll, especially if you become a visible personality. You can try to block and/or report them, but if you’re not able to withstand that initial salvo of bullshit, it’s gonna be awful every time... and, as pointed out elsewhere, teens are not yet adults and haven’t finished their maturation processes.
Picking on 15 year-olds is shitty behavior, no doubt, especially if said behavior is coming from adults... but if this is happening online, it’s the new normal and should (sadly) be expected by any youth foolhardy enough to actively use social media. Parents should, at the very least, be having serious conversations with their children about it before granting them permission to register and use it. Parents should be actively monitoring the online activity of their children, too.