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Musician Jailed Over Prank YouTube Video
An anonymous reader writes "Evan Emory, a 21-year-old aspiring musician, edited together video of him singing a G-rated song to a bunch of giggling school kids with video of him singing a song with sexually explicit lyrics, and posted it on YouTube. For this stupid joke, done many times by professional comedians (all NSFW, obviously), and admittedly done without getting permission from the children shown 'hearing' him sing naughty words, he was arrested and could face 20 years in prison as a sex offender. On the pretext of looking for 'souvenirs' of child sexual abuse, his house has been searched by police, and the Muskegon County (Michigan) Prosecutor has insinuated (with no further evidence) that Emory actually wants to have sex with children and claims he 'victimized every single child in that classroom.' Emory insists he had no such intention."
Better jail Monty Python as well.
Welcome to United States of Iran
By railroading this guy, what the Muskegon County Prosecutor is actually doing is weakening the severity of real child abuse in the public's mind by diluting it with dumb but ultimately harmless comedy.
Gee, I wonder why he would possibly want to do that....
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
CSI just showed somebody shooting an underage person a dozen times in the chest. Better arrest those actors for murder, then. Idiot.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Sadly, this feels all too true. I have a 2 1/2 year old daughter. I am a 28 year old male. I'm in a happy, stable marriage with my wife. Nothing that I can see is unusual about me in anyway. That said, when I take my daughter alone to McDonalds, or the grocery store, or the park, or (heaven forbid it) the bathroom it often feels that every eye is on me. I see other moms with their kids staring at me and I like to make myself think they are thinking "why doesn't my husband take our kids anywhere", but in reality I know they are probably thinking "I better keep an eye on that guy, he is alone with a little girl. He may be her dad, but who knows and even if he is, all men are sexual predators because that is what the media tells me."
Wow and people wonder why males aren't entering the education system as teachers.
What's even bad taste about it? TF summary links to six examples of the same thing. It's a common joke. Having a character do or say something inappropriate in front of children has been done forever.
This is just some retarded prosecutor thinking a clip of someone using dirty words in front of children is the same as a clip of someone actually fucking the children. This is just moronic. Saying "fuck" in front of little Billy is not the same as fucking little Billy.
When did "sexually explicit" go from participating in sexual acts to just saying sexually themed things? Next thing you know, thinking dirty thoughts near children will be a crime.
The fact of the matter is, whether the guy actually did it in front of the children, or merely post-edited to make it look like he did, he should not be considered a sex offender. He didn't actually have sex with the children, or even have sex (with an adult) in view of the children. He is facing 20 years in prison for making a bad joke. People who actually had sex with children have gotten shorter prison sentences.
This hysteria has gone too far. It's one thing to investigate this video, determine that not only was no sexual act involving children committed but in fact the video was edited after the fact, and then drop the investigation. It's entirely another thing to decide to charge the creator of the video with sexual abuse of a minor. If successful, this will literally destroy this person as a human being. Assuming he survives the prison time (which most likely will involve frequent, genuine sexual abuse), he will be placed on the sex offender registry, which is essentially a life sentence. He will not be able to live or approach anywhere near any place that has anything to do with children (i.e., most of the country), his name will be publicly and legally slandered in perpetuity, and he will be unable to secure any meaningful employment. Even if the prosecution fails, his name will have been dragged the mud so badly that he may be disowned by his family and forced to move.
All for what? Because some child somewhere may have possibly been exposed to some slightly disturbing words? Even if the video genuinely showed some guy talking trash to children, chances are they didn't understand it or found him silly and ridiculous. Children are remarkably resilient to such things.
You know, when you treat it as an isolated thing, what you're saying is reasonable.
But there are a lot of unintended consequences to what seems like an absurd moral panic.
Read this thread, just down a little further, and then balance what is in it with what is written above. A whole new generation will grow up with no male role models at all. None, at least none that are sane. People who don't particularly like kids but might volunteer just to be a good guy... there is NO WAY in hell those guys are going to volunteer to work with kids now.
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2003860&cid=35255896
What is the result? Kids raised in sterile environments, by all-female troops of social workers? Males who are still willing to volunteer are MUCH more likely to have ulterior motives, people get even more suspicious of males... ad infinitum, until the insanity is backed down a few notches.
While in isolation, this reaction seems reasonable, I would like to point out that the hyper-paranoia that comes along with this moral dillemma might have something to do with the relative decline of youth productivity and behavior during the last 20 years. English speaking countries have unusually high levels of childhood obesity, childhood suicide and relatively low performance metrics in a variety of things such as education.
Perhaps they're ALL completely unrelated, but the culture of fear surely can't help.
When I think about having kids and raising them, I think that I would prefer I was in the 1940s or 1950s. I know that the kids are MUCH safer today. The rates of violence are SO much lower now than they were in the 1950s, but I feel like that comes at the expense of the "human" factor. It does "take a village" to raise a child, and that is NOT a village full of background-checked female-only therapists and social workers under constant supervision.
My grandfather talks fondly of the old man down the road, who was a mechanic, who used to keep a bowl of candy in his shop so the local kids would come by. You could have some candy, but you had to sit and talk with him for a bit. My grandfather ended up becoming friends with him and ended up later crediting him with the inspiration to start his business, which made him wealthy.
This would not be possible today. In fact, this guy would have the police kicking in his door.
That's no the right reaction.
It's not the THERAPY that is hurting kids. By all means, give the kids some means to talk about abuse, yes yes yes yes.
But FUCK, do we have to dismantle society in the process, because we're so afraid of it?
To me, this is a much greater issue than any one individual (or group of individuals) getting therapy...
It's the ability to move past it and say "yeah, that sucked and therapy is good, but I'm really doing alright today."
Potentially jailing someone for 20 years after making a parody is a slap in the face to victims of real child rape.