Comments on: 21st Century Cautionary Tale

By: Richard Veads Sr

Richard Veads Sr — Wed, 05 Feb 2003 15:14:48 +0000

I am so sorry that the world has become so detached from reality. The logs need to be there, these were real people in a real life situation in cyber land. Is what I see real? Did that really happen? If it were your son or daughter would you want to hide and cover up the facts? That would be so easy to close my eyes and not face reality, as so many peole do.The facts are if you were in a face to face situation such as this, you would be responsible for what happened . But this happened in cyber land where ther is no accountability, or real emotion. The face on the screen means nothing. I can not spend more time on this as I still have to make burial arrangements for Brandon. We had a memorial service, we need to put him at rest.
Think what ever thoughts you want. We need to change the way we think of our fellow man. The net is a great escape for many people. Try talking to real live people in person, neighbors friends. The keyboard is not the way to go through life. Live life in a real true sense. If cyber land is your life, you need help. This will be the last from me until my son is at rest. Richard Vedas Sr

By: absolute

absolute — Wed, 05 Feb 2003 08:06:21 +0000

to whomever said you felt this was a hoax i too thought it, intitially...then i found http://www.legacy.com/azcentral/LegacySubPage2.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonId=725033 and i dont think its a hoax at all.

the pain is real and its a terrible thing what happened. we forget the mortality of ourselves and of friends far too often.

maybe something good can come of this horrible story. maybe one person who hears about this or is involved will save someones life down the line. one can only hope.

so much uncertainty for those involved in the chat--i don't blame them for this incident. they never forced him. many requested him to stop. i don't know.

i hope the healing process begins soon for the family of brandon. perhaps trying to educate high schoolers/middle schoolers about the absolute dangers of drugs could be a step towards recovery as it is for many in similar tragic situations.

By: xtyn

xtyn — Tue, 04 Feb 2003 15:53:48 +0000

Google searches for BV may also come from people trying to follow up or verify the truthfulness of the report.
The story was linked to from irc-junkie.org ’s news page which also held links to the log and the news writeup.

That search is what lead me here.

By: SilverSky

SilverSky — Tue, 04 Feb 2003 11:15:00 +0000

This is aweful! Too bad a such nice young man had to die

By: Saddened

Saddened — Tue, 04 Feb 2003 09:23:49 +0000

Mr. Vedas,

I came across the tragedy involving your son in in an Islamic newsgroup of all places. The agenda behind thier posting was to show how “American Life ” is so they can score some brownie points amongst thier fellow brothers.

I use the mirc client for discussions so I became interested and decided to do a bit more delving into this, and then came across your logs via a search for keywords from the press release.

I feel I have the ability to place myself in the mindset so as to understand what everyone is talking about and the mannerisms involved. A lot of it is called empathy which unfortunately this world is lacking.

I can’t say anything that would alleviate your pain, but the mentality involved in that chatroom that night is typical given the subject involved. A chatroom involving any other subject would also have the same mentality for whatever subject is covered.

My point is that the people involved on that chatroom are playing a role of being tough and taking it to the limit when it comes to drugs, and Brandon played along unfortunately.

This is the consequences of free speech in this country. Im an agnostic in case you think otherwise, but I have to agree the morals in the country are going downhill, and perhaps stricter religious doctrines imposed by parents (Never the State) onto thier sons and daughters regardless if a god exists or not might help society.

Your son was not wrong, nor were the people in the chatroom, it was the gusto attitude on both sides that contributed to your sons demise.

With your permission, I would like to post your response on this forum to many I have been to that have this as a subject, so that those with a heart will look at the situation on a more personal level.