Kevin [Content Notice: This post talks about the importance of online safety and internet safety, and as such, it contains mention of abuse. While I’ve left out as many specifics as possible, there’s also mention of an abuser demanding what’s called CSAM. If these are things you need to take into consideration, I encourage you to give this post a miss, and go check out some of my other stuff instead. If you decide to move forward w/ this post, and it brings up difficult feelings for you, I encourage you to reach out to the peeps at RAINN, and the Crisis Text Line. As always, readers, if you have knowledge of a crime (or even suspect a crime) against a child or a vulnerable person of legal age taking place, I encourage you to report it to your local authorities, or to the CyberTipline.]
Yesterday, a reader by the name of Olivia contacted me regarding a post about online safety or internet safety, whichever term you like, and how it ties in with an earlier post of mine about National Be Someone Day. I’ve included the link here to bring you up to speed on it. While Be Someone Day ties in with internet safety, I’ve decided to make today’s post a public service announcement about it.
I’m sure a lot of you may remember hearing about internet safety or online safety as kids, if you grew up around the same time I did in the 1990s and the 2000s.
I remember when the internet and email came to my school, and it was a huge deal. Our teacher emailed another class, and we were so excited. We thought it was the coolest. At least, everyone else did. I didn’t know what it was, or how it was even possible. At that point, it would be a long time before a computer and the internet came to my house.
I’m sure that was the case for at least one of my classmates. I don’t remember getting any talks about staying safe online, but we did get the talks about stranger danger throughout elementary school.
In middle school, I got into those teen magazines, and I remember reading a couple stories about how these girls got involved with guys on the internet who pretended to be kids their age. Instead of being kids their age, they were creepy old men. One of them still stays with me, probably because the girl who shared her story was close to my age at the time I saw it in the issue of YM.
I dug it out from one of my milk crates, and re-read it for this post. The girl who shared her story used the name Heather. It’s not her government name, and if anyone out there thinks they know who I’m referring to, I’m warning y’all, keep it to yourselves. Heather gets to be the one who decides whether to come forward or not, not any of us, and definitely not me.
Heather talked about her life before all this happened, and how the Internet came to her house in the 1990s. She was in middle school at the time, and she’d be online for hours. She met this guy online, who stated his age was 16. I’ll call him Charlie, since that was the name he used when Heather dealt w/ him. She said Charlie reminded her of her older brother, called Jeff for the sake of the story. They talked about alternative music, and the bands that were popular at the time. They also talked about news stories, and soon, Charlie shared some tragic news about his mom. (Note: This is a tactic commonly referred to as grooming, where an abuser will get their intended target to like them by pretending to like the same things, and then share about stuff in their life from whenever ago, whether it’s real or something they made up to get their target to feel sorry for them.)
When Heather went off to summer camp, it didn’t go over well w/ Charlie, who gave her grief and guilt-tripped her into giving him her info to contact him outside the teen chat room where they originally met. Eventually, Charlie started calling her on the phone, the first one being when she got home from summer camp. He also started sending her letters, as well as other things in the mail, things her mom knew no high school kid had a snowball’s chance in hell of being able to afford to send. (Note: This is controlling behavior, which is a huge red flag even when it comes to involvements among those who are of legal age to consent. The expensive gifts and the letters are an example of love bombing, and grooming as well.)
Charlie was able to explain it away by saying he worked at a grocery store. At the time, her mom had no reason not to believe him.
Heather was going through a difficult time in her life, and one of her relatives had gotten very sick. That took up a lot of her mom’s time, so Heather’s involvement w/ Charlie went largely unnoticed. Her sick relative passed on, and her dad had a health scare that landed him in the hospital, so she was understandably scared herself. (Note: Abusers like Charlie look for a way into their intended target’s life, aka risk assessment, and since Charlie knew Heather’s mom was preoccupied w/ their sick relative, he took major advantage of it like the jerky bastard he is.)
Charlie had sent an instant camera, which likely cost a fortune even in 1990s dollars, and an envelope of pictures, which Heather threw into her closet w/o even opening it. Something felt off to her, like she had a feeling as to what those pics were of. (Note: The instant camera is a huge red flag, and the fact that something felt off to Heather shows that she was starting to pick up on something being amiss, even if she didn’t yet have the words or the wisdom to put a name to what was happening.)
Around this time, Jeff passed on after he suffered a stroke due to a genetic blood disorder. Instead of being supportive, Charlie hassled her and accused her of neglecting him, and demanded illegal imagery of her in a letter he sent her. (Note: This is a huge red flag in any kind of involvement among ppl who are of legal age, and knowing this was done to a child is horrifying!)
Heather’s mom was cleaning out her room, and found the note Charlie wrote her. She knew there was no way in hell a 16-year-old high school kid wrote that letter, and she wrote him back, stating that he was never to contact Heather again by phone, email, or letters. (Note: I feel like since Heather left the letter in her room in a place that’s more out in the open than the closet she threw that envelope into, I feel like deep down, she wanted someone to know about what was going on, and I’m glad she had someone safe to tell this to. As sad as it is to think about, so many other kids in similar places don’t!)
Shock of shocks, Charlie never contacted her again. Several months later, a detective from the local police department in Charlie’s town reached out to her mom, telling her the truth about Charlie, and who he really was: a married thirty-something w/ KIDS!
Heather had a chance to talk w/ the detective. She told him about everything that happened, and everything he sent her, including the envelope of pics she threw into her closet and never opened. She opened the envelope w/ her mom, and she saw that they were indecent images of Charlie himself.
Heather and her mom turned everything over to the police, and eventually Charlie took a plea bargain. He got a 6 year federal prison sentence, which is nowhere near enough after what he’s done, imo.
I’m so sorry for what Heather and the other victims went through at the hands of that sick bastard. He’d done the same thing to dozens of other kids, both boys and girls. The article even said that he used to be in education, but got booted after a student came forward about what he did to them.
Damn, my heart breaks for Heather, as well as the rest of his victims, whether they’ve come forward w/ their stories or not. Heather, if you’re out there, and you find this, I hope you’re doing ok, or as ok as you can be after something like this.
I haven’t been able to find much of anything online about the case beyond a handful of super-ancient news articles from a local news outlet. I will say that it happened in Utah, and Heather lived in another state. Nor have I been able to determine whether or not he’s currently on any registry. His full name is somewhat common, and since I couldn’t find a pic of him, I couldn’t confirm it either way.
He may have been one of those cases where he was on the registry for a certain amount of time, and that time has passed, which really sucks in this instance.
However, if the articles I found, and the magazine article about it was anything to go by, I wouldn’t doubt for an instant that he’s still being a complete dick to kids online. If that’s the case, I seriously hope someone comes forward, even if it’s here through the messaging form. I’ll pass it on to the authorities.
This article talked about the ways to stay safe online that often come up in posts of a similar nature. Like, for instance:
- Don’t trust strangers w/ private info.
- Don’t give out your real name, addy, phone number, school name, or work name, and don’t list it in your profile on whatever site.
- Stay vigilant, and remember that ppl can pretend to be something they’re not.
- Never agree to a public meetup w/ someone from online unless you’re w/ a grown-up and meet in a public place.
These ways worked back then, and work today, even though the intended audience was kids my age w/in 3 to 4 years both ways. However, this article came out in the late 1990s, when the Internet was a hot and happening thing that not as many ppl had access to, compared to today in the 2020s.
The advice in this article also didn’t take into account sites like facebook or LinkedIn (which isn’t meant for kids, but I’m betting there’s kids on there anyway), where they want you to use your real name or bust. Sites like these two didn’t even exist back then, and they wouldn’t for several years after this magazine issue came out. For the sites that demand real names (don’t even get me started on the prejudiced implications of what some certain websites decide counts as a real name and what doesn’t!), there has to be privacy settings you can change to your liking in order to stay safe.
For sites where you can use a screenname, like in Minecraft, various online multiplayer games, Roblox (which I only played a couple times and abandoned after some creepy old jack-off harassed me. No worries, though, I royally suck at it anyway, haha.), or whatever game on Xbox, definitely use a screenname, and don’t give out any other identifying info about yourself, whether it’s in the chats or on the profiles. Whoever’s on the other end of that communication could be totally different from what their screennames and profiles there indicate, so better safe than sorry.
I would also mention that for adults looking to meet someone online, I feel like the same principles apply. Like for the meetup w/ someone from online, I’d recommend telling a close friend or two about the proposed meetup, where you’re having the meetup, and arrange for a safe call. Maybe you could say that if you don’t call them by whatever time, they need to call you, and if you don’t answer, send the police to whatever the meeting location is.
The most important thing is that if someone behaves abusively toward you the way Heather describes Charlie doing, you have every right to end contact w/ them, no matter what they told you or threatened you. Block their stupid asses and report it all to the admins of the site they found you at. If it comes to it, contact the authorities if their abuse escalates beyond the site.
However, reporting something like this is often far easier said than done, since I never reported what happened to me a long time ago in an online involvement. Nobody believed me, and the one agency I reached out to for help ultimately didn’t give a rat’s ass when push came to shove. Instead, they sucked both times I went there by adding to my problems and belittling me over it. This agency was apparently the gold standard in my town, so what’s that mean for everyone else?
Exactly.
I never told my mom about it, and I had plans to come forward w/ it before she died. I sorta told an old friend of mine when we ran into each other at a craft store about a month after it all ended, but kept it vague since we were in public. I eventually found help elsewhere, online in a message board. If that’s what’s available to you and nobody in your area can or will help, then so be it. Maybe you’re afraid nobody will believe you, and nobody will do anything. Maybe there won’t be anything done as far as law enforcement goes, but if nothing else, it gets a paper trail going. On the other hand, maybe you’ve decided that having nothing more to do w/ these stupid jerks is an all-around better idea at the end of the day, and that’s understandable.
Whether what happened to you was 20 years ago, 20 months ago, 20 weeks ago, 20 days ago, or 20 minutes ago, I want you to know that you never deserved what happened to you. They broke the law, and this is their fuck-up. Not yours. I believe you, and you matter to me. Your story matters to me.
The sad thing is that what happened to Heather back in the 1990s is something that still happens even today. If you’ve been on YouTube for a hot minute or two, you’ve probably come across videos of concerned citizens and online watchdog groups going after adults who abuse kids online. Chris Hansen and Dateline’s To Catch a Predator was the OG, and the group involved w/ those catches has ended operations due to the lack of resources needed to adapt to today’s technology demands. I’ll say that the watchdog group has a bit of a checkered past, and that one of the members has engaged in some questionable doings, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention it.
That’s where these catchers on YouTube (and as of March 2023, on Rumble, Locals, and other platforms) come in, since YouTube’s deplatformed and demonetized several of these channels. These channels are living proof that internet safety and online safety aren’t relics of the 1990s, they’re an issue that’s super important today.
It’s also why it’s important for any caregivers of minors out there to check their devices if that’s something they have access to. Check it regularly, and make it an environment where kids feel safe talking about stuff they see on the internet and ppl who talk to them. It doesn’t matter what gender kids identify as. This shyt doesn’t just happen to girls assigned female at birth, contrary to popular belief. It happens to boys, trans boys, agender kids, and trans girls, as seen in the YouTube (and Rumble) videos.
That’s what I’ll be doing when my kids come along. I’ve seen way too much of these videos not to do so.
Over to you, readers. Have you ever had a close call w/ some creep online? Or did this hit closer to home for you than you care to remember? If so, I’m so sorry this happened to you. Do you have other tips to stay safe online that I didn’t get into, whether the tips are for minors or for those of legal age? Either way, I’d love to hear your thoughts and takeaways, so drop it all like it’s hot, and let’s talk.
