Despite all the joke-a-day websites, comedic videos on YouTube and funny images of cats doing the darnedest things shared via Facebook, make no mistake: The Internet is a completely serious place with no room for humour.
I know you've laughed at LOLCats, and maybe even traded quips and witticisms with your friends on social media, but those giggles may come at a very high price just ask 19-year-old Justin Carter from Texas.
Carter, a fan and avid player of the League of Legends video game, brought a heated argument with a friend about the game onto Facebook. When Carter's friend said he was "insane," the young adult replied sarcastically, "Oh yeah, I'm real messed up in the head, I'm going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still beating hearts." He followed up that rather uncouth exchange with "LOL" and "JK," meaning, in Internet slang, "laugh out loud" and "just kidding."
However, a Canadian woman who saw the exchange didn't think he was "JK," and called 911. Carter was arrested and is now on suicide watch as he goes to trial for terroristic threats, and if convicted he could spend the next eight years in jail.
Okay, sure, making an asinine comment like that right after the Sandy Hook school shootings is pretty stupid, but are we at that point with political correctness where we're sending people to court and jail for being morons? Shouldn't every politician be worried, then?
Also, somebody needs to buy that Canadian woman a sense of humour or teach her Internet slang. Sure, she was probably just trying to do the right thing and prevent a future tragedy, but most intelligent people not completely brainwashed by media overkill and fear mongering would likely have seen the online exchange for what it was two young, dumb kids arguing and saying the wrong things.
Carter's parents, family and friends have started a petition at Change.org claiming the boy is just a scapegoat for police, and that law enforcement did not actually look into his alleged wrongdoings, opting to arrest first and ask questions later. According to the family Carter wasn't even questioned until about a month after his arrest, and the home was never searched for weapons until much later.
I agree, when it comes to the safety of innocent schoolchildren, police do have to take every threat and every potential gun-crazy wingnut seriously. However the terrorists and crazies have totally won if we're now freaking out whenever someone makes an inappropriate comment or tasteless joke.
The police still stand by the arrest, and the petition currently has more than 37,000 signatures urging the Comal County District Attorney to release Carter from jail.
Carter joins the ranks of other US kids jailed under unusual and unbelievable circumstances, like West Virginia eighth grader Jared Marcum who was arrested for refusing to take off his NRA t-shirt at school, or the seven-year-old suspended from school for the abhorrent crime of nibbling his pop tart into the shape of a gun on school grounds.
So, while it is still totally legal in the US to buy an AK-47 with Teflon-coated, armour-piercing rounds (to hunt those bullet-proof vest-wearing deer, I guess), it's a complete no-no to eat a pastry into the shape of such a weapon.
And that, dear readers, is the real joke here and it's as tasteless and uncouth as you can get.
