This week for BuzzFeed, Ryan Broderick tells the tragic story of Rebecca Sedwick, a Florida middle schooler who was cyberbullied to death. Read that and these other stories from BuzzFeed and around the web.
“That Dead Girl”: A Family And A Town After A Cyberbullied 12-Year-Old’s Suicide — BuzzFeed
In September, after a year of being bullied online, Rebecca Sedwick threw herself off a three-story cement silo, sparking an international freak-out over the responsibility social media networks like Ask.fm have in fostering this kind of harassment. But for Rebecca’s family, friends, and neighbors, the problem isn’t technology or opportunistic startups — it’s people. Read it at BuzzFeed.
Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed
Planet Money Makes a T-Shirt — NPR
Reporters used Kickstarter to commission a Planet Money t-shirt and follow it from cotton farm to consumer, meeting the machines and people — like Bangladeshi seamstresses — who make it possible. A fascinating multi-media experience that will alter the way you see your own clothing. Watch and read it at NPR.
The Other Side of the Story — Texas Monthly
When Jenny Kutner was 14, she and her former eighth grade teacher, who was in his twenties, fell in love, and became sexually involved. A decade after her parents caught on, the DA got involved, and he went to prison, she complicates the concept of what it's like to be the "victim" in a case such as this. Read it at Texas Monthly.
Illustration by Tim Bower
Spring Break, Mumbai: How Surviving Sexual Assault Makes it Hard to Go Home Again — BuzzFeed
Rega Jha writes beautifully and honestly about a very difficult topic: "After having lived in the United States, going back home to India in 2013 means readjusting to more than modest dress and unwanted stares. It means confronting a past I’d rather forget." Read it at BuzzFeed.
Justine Zwiebel / BuzzFeed