A little while ago, a news story broke about a woman named Lori Drew who helped her daughter create a fake MySpace page to get back at one of her ex-friends. They created a profile for some invented kid and made the ex-friend fall in love with him. Then they made the fake kid break the ex-friend’s heart in a realistic way. The ex-friend killed herself, and now Lori Drew is facing twenty years in prison.

Now, there’s no doubt Lori Drew is a massive dick. I don’t endorse making up fake profiles online and trying to get kids to fall in love with them. However, I also don’t endorse killing yourself when your online profile boyfriend dumps you.

On the Good Morning America segment linked to above, the mother of the ex-friend is, understandably, pretty pissed at Ms. Drew. But can you be sent to jail for being a massive dick? Granted, it’s a bizarre situation. But what if this girl had killed herself over a boy who really existed? Would the mother expect that boy to go to jail for 20 years, too? I don’t feel any sympathy for Lori Drew … I just think that anyone who commits suicide over a person she has never met probably had some other issues to deal with. Why does “cyberbullying” somehow seem more criminal than the very real bullying that happens to kids all over this country every day?