Teen Shaming

About

Teen Shaming refers to the controversial practice of publicly humiliating teenagers as an act of discipline by uploading embarrassing photos and videos to social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

Origin

On February 8th, 2012, North Carolina resident Tommy Jordan posted a video on his Facebook page in which he scolds his 15-year-old daughter Hanna for posting a curse-ridden status update about her parents on the social media platform. In the video, Jordan reveals that he was able to bypass her security settings which had blocked him from viewing the update. After reciting her Facebook post, Jordan concludes his rebuttal by shooting Hanna’s laptop with a .45 pistol (seen at 7:10 in the video below). In the first five days, the Facebook post received over 74,000 likes and 30,000 shares. Within four years, the YouTube video gained over 40 million views and 269,000 comments.

Spread

In early January 2014, North Carolina resident Cara Schneider shared a photograph of her daughter Hailey holding a sign confessing she made “poor choices with social media” and that she would be donating her iPod to an anti-bullying charity after her mother discovered she was cyberbullying other girls on Facebook (shown below). On January 5th, Redditor AngryCOMMguy submitted the photo to the /r/pics^[5] subreddit, where it garnered upwards of 2,100 votes (86% upvoted) and 2,200 comments before it was archived.

On January 25th, the pop culture site Cracked^[4] published an article titled “3 Reasons You Shouldn’t Shame Your Kids on the Internet.” On September 23rd, Redditor gingy33 submitted a photograph of a young boy wearing a sign confessing “I am 13 years old and my mom caught me buying drugs” to the /r/funny^[1] subreddit (shown below). Prior to being archived, the post gained over 3,800 votes (89% upvoted) and 570 comments.

On May 17th, 2015, Denver cosmetology student Val Sparks posted a video on Facebook^[3] in which she confronts her daughter about lewd photographs found in her Facebook photo gallery, which received more than 10.6 million views and 313,000 shares before it was removed from the site. On May 20th, YouTuber Max Media reuploaded the video (shown below, left). On May 12th, the CBC news program The National aired a segment titled “Social Media Shaming,” which included interviews with Brianna Wu and Adria Richards (shown below, right).

Izabel Laxamana’s Suicide

On May 29th, 2015, 13-year-old Izabel Laxamana commit suicide by jumping off a highway overpass. On June 4th, 2015, Jezebel^[6] published an article about the suicide, reporting that her father had uploaded a video of himself cutting her hair as punishment days before (shown below). On the following day, the NY Daily News^[7] reported that it appeared the video had been leaked online by a third party without her father’s involvement. On June 10th, Fox 2 Now reported that Laxamana had shared the public shaming video herself and left her family eight suicide notes prior to jumping off the bridge, revealing that the hair cutting incident was not what prompted her death.

Bait-and-Switch Videos

On May 27th, Facebook^[2] user Wayman Gresham uploaded a video in which he pretends to be shaming his son, before letting the boy leave the room and addresses the audience about proper parenting techniques, Christianity and the ethics of teen shaming videos (shown below, left). Within two weeks, the video gained over 21 million views and 550,000 shares. On June 6th, 2015, YouTuber MikeKnowsBest uploaded a similar bait-and-switch video, in which he begins to discipline his son by shaving his head before sitting down to criticize teen shaming (shown below, right).