Blogs foster the return of public pillory
Visitors descended on Adriana Lytle’s MySpace page last week to condemn the Spokane woman accused of killing 4-year-old stepdaughter Summer Phelps.
As late as the 19th century, officials in several countries commonly humiliated miscreants in the public square. Criminals would stand in the pillory or sit in the stocks — both used hinged boards to lock their heads, arms and/or feet in place — while passersby taunted and sometimes assaulted them.
Adriana Lytle’s site serves as a stark illustration that blogs are the new pillories, where visitors to the digital commons can hurl abuse at those charged with wrongdoing.
Summer’s life may have been nearly as horrific as her death. Adriana Lytle and her husband, Jonathan, told police they used a dog-shock collar on the little girl. And they both face charges of aggravated homicide by abuse.
These are not people deserving of public compassion. But beyond offering cheap cathartic release to outraged netizens, it’s hard to figure what social good these online attacks promote.
“In the era of public stocks, those were real communities in which people who knew the offender and the aggrieved person acted to correct deviant behavior,” said Professor Dale Lindekugel, chairman of Eastern Washington University’s Department of Sociology and Justice Studies.
But in the online square “these are absolute strangers, and I don’t see that corrective function here,” he added.
Visiting Adriana Lytle’s MySpace page is a surreal experience even without those angry blog comments.
Her main page plays a song called “I Hate Everything About You.” But she used a photo of her infant son as her official icon, which appeared next to any comments she posted in the online community.
Lytle’s answers to a “Tell Me About Yourself” survey on her blog indicate she avoided alcohol and drugs during her pregnancy, but did smoke tobacco. She also touched on being caught shoplifting.
Yet the statement most likely to resonate with visitors can be found on her main page: “There is more to me than I think anyone ever wants to know.”
I wish I hadn’t seen the photo of Lytle sitting on Santa’s lap with Jonathan and the children at River Park Square, for instance.
That’s where my son gets his Christmas picture taken. We could have been standing in line with Summer while she formulated a desperate wish for a normal life.
The mind reels, the heart goes out.
“Adriana’s Friend Space” features 87 MySpace members, but only one had left a note addressing Summer’s death by midday Thursday. Adriana’s newfound enemies were less reticent.
Though vitriolic, their comments aren’t all that surprising. But it’s jarring to see them juxtaposed with each visitor’s MySpace icon.
“I hope someone rips your uterus out and shoves it down your throat” appears next to a photo of two smiling young women. And here’s the sentiment expressed alongside a picture of a toddler: “They should tie you up in public and let everyone take a turn beating and torturing you!”
How to explain that cognitive dissonance? “Maybe we become oblivious to content, numb to it,” suggested Todd Hechtman, an associate professor of sociology at EWU. “It’s as if people don’t spot the irony that they’re saying vile things next to pictures of their 2-year-olds.”
Whatever the explanation, seeing a social network put to such an unintended use is both creepy and fascinating.
“We know more about the tragedies of people thousands of miles away than we do about the triumphs of people next door,” Lindekugel said. “That knowledge connects us to these pseudo-communities at the expense of real communities.”
On the other hand, Hechtman said, “The Internet optimists would say it’s just capturing what’s out there and reflecting true public opinion.”
But it’s hard to be optimistic about anything in this case.