Two weeks ago the parents of Megan Meier and Jeff Johnston spoke at Pace University about the horrors of anonymous Internet harassment, the cause of the untimely deaths of their children.

For Megan the nicest comments she read before hanging herself in her bedroom closet were "w h o r e" and "fat a s s." In Jeff's case, he was an intelligent teenager with long, brown hair and soft eyes who became a "f a g" and a "b i t c h," on AIM, Facebook, and even on his home phone.

Statistic evidence revealed that 85% of young people experience cyberbullying.

Christina "Tina" Meier in a tearful retelling of Megan's story said, "She was only bullied for less than two hours on that day, but that's all it took."

While Debbie Johnston said, "Jeff took a lot of the abuse because he thought he could handle it, until he just couldn't handle it anymore."

Both Megan and Jeff took their lives after vicious bullies harassed them on the web (an act now officially dubbed “bullycides”). 

The meeting was of interest to me, particularly because CollegeOTR readers continue to harass contributors by posting things that are entirely unnecessary. I've faced these bullies myself after posting subject matter regarding the Greek system.

A Random Sampling of Crude Posts from the “Astute Fem” archive:
 
“C U N T”

“Suck yourself "The Astute Fem"! You're caustic about fraternities/sororities because your busted ass didn't get a bid. Go sit on your thumb. Mmkaythanksbubye.”

“i want to slap you for calling the death of christopher wootton a "blunder" of the greeks.”

While it really moves me to wake up and check my blog posts and see C U N T written in all caps across the screen, the comment I love the most is the one calling me a “busted ass.” 
Just classic.

In many ways, my world is no different from  Megan and Jeff:  we are all forced to deal with malicious attackers who rejoice in vile name-calling.  The difference between myself and tragedies of Megan and Jeff is that I try to maintain a sense of humor about it all.

But what to do when maintaining a sense of humor just isn't enough?  

OTR's DJ PM from Northwestern has posted blog forums so commentors can spill it out their rantings in a “desired space.”

Petro at Penn State encouraged readers to email their thoughts on his work and offered to feature them in a weekly Fan Mail post.

These tactics might help my fellow bloggers handle Internet hate, but I don't find it necessary to respond to the haters, mostly because they're cowards.  People accuse me of hiding behind my handle “The Astute Fem,” when half of the most insulting posters are anonymous themselves.

To the UW-Madison posters or SigEps who anonymously posted, thank you for taking the time out of the day to write these malicious comments. The same goes for the commentors on "The Greek Blunders" post. 

For every post written by me, including the ones with mistakes, I stand by word for word. All the claims and jokes are there because, frankly, it's funny, interesting and true to what I believe.
 
I'm proud that my work actually elicits a response. I just wish people who take two seconds to think before they click send.  Two beautiful kids might still be with us today if they did.

For the "busted a s s" comment, I have never desired a spot in a sorority, but believe me I've seen enough dogs in some of those organizations to know that a bid shouldn't be that hard to obtain.