People usually don't think too much about what they post on Facebook. A picture here and there, a status, and what you're interested in is what the majority of someone's Facebook page usually is. But what people don't realize is that what you post on Facebook can say a lot more than what you think.
A thirteen year old Brazilian boy named Marcelo Pesseghini made his profile picture a character from a very violent video game called "Assassin's Creed" and frequently posted about his strong interest in Amityville Horror, the gory horror film. Coming from the young boy most peoples first thought would be that he is just interest in horror but in reality it was much more than that.
One morning before school, Marcelo shot both of his parents, his grandmother and his great aunt. He then took his mothers car and proceeded to school like nothing happened. When he returned home he shot himself in the temple, committing suicide. This is similar to what happened in the movie he expressed interest in on Facebook, a man kills his family members and then proceeds to work.
The boys father was a police officer so he had access to a .40 caliber pistol. He also had a dream of being a paid killer when he grew up and had a large toy gun collection. His mother Andreia Pesseghini who also worked with the police recently revealed that some of the men she worked with had been stealing out of the bank machines. This is being investigated because some police feel that the murders could have been a set up to seek revenge.
When I read this article I thought about a couple of things. First being that, Facebook can be a very helpful tool when dealing with crime. Anything someone posts is there forever and police can go and look at whatever they want to target a suspect. I also thought that it is sad that children have access to violent video games and movies that put ideas in their head that this type of action is acceptable. I think this article shows the extreme of how certain things in our society can corrupt children.
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2013/08/08/brazilian-boy-kills-family-goes-to-school-as-normal-and-later-kills-himself/
Zowie,
ReplyDeleteIt might be interesting to look at how the video game culture is responding to this story in media they produce.
Spring
Zowie,
ReplyDeleteThis article was extremely disturbing but interesting to me. I think that social networking is a huge part of our society today in some good ways but in frequently bad ways. I find this to be mostly disturbing because I feel that this is something that could have been prevented. This boy gave clues that he was psychologically disturbed and mentally unstable and no one took the time to respond to his public statuses and messages and reach out to him. If someone just expressed their emotions and took the time to see what was going on with this boy, this boy might have received the help he needed and this horrible situation might have been prevented. I agree with your response completely.
Ali
Zowie,
ReplyDeleteThis article you chose demonstrates how influential video games and other media are on the youth of our society. I agree that violent video games are detrimental to children. From a very young age, children are able to act out crimes of violence and murder through the video games they play on their tv. Parents should be more vigilant in what video games their child has access to and what movies they are watching. It's sad that a young boy could commit such heinous crimes against his whole family, and to think his actions were based upon either video games or horror movies is disturbing.
-Gab