Deviation Actions
Trash talking gamer sent to jail for talking trash.
"In February, Justin Carter, then 18, was engaged in a Facebook dispute with someone from his online gaming community. The gamer called Carter mentally disturbed on a public wall, and Carter, with withering sarcasm and a teenager's poor judgment, wrote back:
I think Ima shoot up a kindergarten
And watch the blood of the innocent rain down
Carter and his lawyer insist the statement was a joke - albeit one in poor taste. But it's hard to read sarcasm over the internet.
Soon a Texas law enforcement agency received an anonymous tip from Canada. Carter's home was searched and he was arrested. Now, he's been sitting in jail for almost five months, unable to pay the $500,000 (£334,470) bond required for his release."
It's scary for me because it makes me think about what I may have posted that could be taken out of context like that. A lot of art and media that I enjoy often has disturbing themes or themes of extreme violence and, for better or for worse, I would like to be free to explore those themes too. (I hope everyone here already knows that "violent media creates violent people" is a load of bull.) But if so many people could misunderstand this so much and have such an extreme reaction to it - yeah that's scary.