Amber Cole Video Exposes High School Teen's Internet Schemes (VIDEO)
The recent Amber Video search frenzy proves three things on the cyberspace today: one, people cannot resist jumping on the curious bandwagon; two, anyone hungry enough for attention - for whatever purpose -- has a place on the internet; and three, internet users have a long way to go before grasping the concept of responsible sharing of information.
Someone posts "Leave Amber Cole Alone" on YouTube and it gets over 300,000 hits within 24 hours. Either people are naturally curious, or Jordann Marie, the YouTube user who posted the video, has a knack for making noise on the internet. But to what end?
Jordann Marie is apparently not just on YouTube; she is on Facebook and Twitter releasing statements about Amber Cole, sometimes posting messages in defense of Amber Cole and sometimes rejoicing in the sharp rise of internet traffic on her postings.
Now who is Amber Cole and how did someone manage to stir much frenzy online about one person, such that Amber Cole became a trending traffic on U.S. sites so quickly, even spawning parodies on YouTube?
Cole is apparently a 14-year-old student whose private moment of oral sex with her boyfriend was caught on video and was spread online by cyber bullies who happily attacked her character for having done such a thing in a public place. Anyone who wants to protect the innocence of their children and keep any form of pornography far away from them would be alarmed by two things here: oral sex and cyber bullies.
Teens who knew Cole perpetuated the sharing of the video initially via Twitter. When it started trending, Marie went on YouTube to issue a statement, "Leave Amber Cole Alone." There is something curious about the title and how it got so much attention. It did play on people's curiosity effectively, but to what end? Wasn't it to subliminally urge people to find out who Amber Cole is, find the pornographic video, talk about it, and establish a wider trend online? Was Marie's video an act of sympathy or a smart use of the social media? Her Twitter account reveals her agenda.
"Oh I'm getting money from it already," Marie tweeted Tuesday. Below is a recent tweet from one of her networks. This girl's username is screaming dot com e-commerce agenda. She is probably both a promising webpreneur and a reckless cyber bully who knew what was going to happen and how Amber Cole would be affected once her video flies online.
Was it just Jordan Marie, or was it all an elaborate scheme that hooked at least a million internet users?
The final question here, and the one that should be most bothersome if not maddening, is why would people spread a 14-year-old's sex video? Now that more people teens knew they can make something out of scandals, and that people will help you spread scandals while you just watch, whose video will it be next time? And what more consequences await us, web users?