Of shutting down VampireFreaks.com
There’s been a recent uprising of folks who are asking the question “Should we shut down VampireFreaks.com” followed by a resounding “YES!”
The main reason for this line of questioning, is best summarized in a post from fellow Progressive Blogger Wendy over at Wendy’s Thoughts:
In the last 5 or so years since it’s conception, vampirefreaks.com has been linked to numerous violent crimes including:
- In 2003 vampires.com surfaced in the media for the first time when 2 boys were arrested for the stabbing (71 times to be exact), and killing of a 12 year old boy (a younger brother of one of the boys) known only as “Johnathan”.
- It’s also the place where 12 year old Jasmine Richardson from Medicine Hat, Alberta, met 23 year old Jeremy Steinke who helped her plan and execute the killings of Jasmines parents and younger brother. They also posted their killing plans on the site.
- In June of this year, three young men were sentence for a deliberate fire that destroyed the 105-year-old Minnedosa United Church, in Minnedosa, Man. One had posted his profile on VampireFreaks.com. Referring to Jesus Christ, he wrote: ‘’If he comes back, we’ll kill him again.”
- And just this past July, New York City police charged a 23-year-old man with a series of rapes of underage girls, some of whom he met through VampireFreaks.com. Police said they found a photo of him on the site depicting him standing over a tombstone with a black cape and long purple locks of hair hanging over his face. After an investigation he was arrested after arriving at a cemetery one night with the expectations of having sex a 13-year-old girl he met through the site. Unfortunately for him and fortunately for us his alleged online prey was actually an undercover police woman.
Of course, there’s Dawson College to toss into the mix there as well.
With such a dark alumni, many people have portrayed VampireFreaks.com as a “hate-filled” place, even wondering if another Kimveer Gill is festering in its bosom. After all, it’s apparently filled with impressionable young teenagers; Is VampireFreaks.com really a lightning rod for the sociopathic and a nexus for crime?
Not nearly as much as MySpace is.
Anyone who thinks about wanting VampireFreaks to shut down to keep Gill wannabes at bay should definitely go take a nice, serious read at MyCrimeSpace, a blog which records all MySpace-related misdeeds in a single place. Everything from beatings, to rape, to scams, to pedophilia. It’s all there in its undesireable glory and, trust me, you don’t really realise just how much garbage is going on until you skim through it. Like those teens who posted a video of themselves beating another kid up. Or how about brawls being set-up online? Or Matthew McCombs, who boasted on his MySpace that he wanted to be a killer, then shot a 16-year old in the face at point blank range? These aren’t all vampire-loving goths. They are kids from a range of social contexts.
Also, if you take one of Gill’s most publicized quotes, “I hate the world,” and do a Google search on MySpace, you’ll find 111,000 different results, ranging from usernames to comments to blog entries. Not all are related to doom and destruction, but a lot are. Therefore, by the same applied logic, should we assume that MySpace is the breeding ground for our next goth malcontent-with-a-gun and shut it down? Or should we just realise that most of these types of comments are made by distruaght people who are alienated by the world we live in? Should we start looking for real reasons instead of firing at the methods they took to momentarily flee their malaise? Because that’s what places like VampireFreaks and MySpace offer.
Some folks are literally flying off the handle because of some comments which are being made concerning the whole ordeal; comments being made by other teenagers. I would agree that there is something to be worried about when a child identifies him or herself with a killer, but not because doing so makes them a “potential risk.” I worry because somehow society has failed to offer them anything better to feel better about themselves. And calling them “white trash” isn’t going to help mend any bridges.
We sometimes seem to forget that teenagers are children who are becoming adults, who are entrenched in deeply formative years. Accusing websites (or video games, or popular music) of their strayings is an attempt to shift the guilt from ourselves. It is, after all, a whole lot easier to handle.
Ah, but I didn’t blame it all on their white-trashiness or video game obsessions dude. I blamed it on people: in short, individuals. Whatever happened to the notion of personal responsibility in our society?
K
Impotent. . . rage. . . building. . .
Must. . . blog. . . about. . . world. . . destruction. . .
In all honesty, the amount of times I’ve said ‘I hate the world’ must be in the thousands; I hate the world because of media overreaction. I hate the world because people can’t see through bullshit. I hate the world because no one comments on my blog. I hate the world because George Dubbya is a fucktard. I hate the world because I stubbed my toe this morning.
Wherever there is a gather of people, we’ll see crime, anguish, and undesireables. That’s how it works.
Why should it be any different when it’s digitized?
you can not blame all of those things on a website.
sure, you can say that its related to it. but its not because of it.
none of those plans or ideas started because of the site, those people had to already have had them, and just decided to post them on the site. not the sites fault that they did it.
i can bet you that most of those people, if they didnt join vampirefreaks, would have still done what they did.
so whos to say that it was all because of a website?
just becuase you get rid of a web site dosn’t mean that you’ll get rid of the problem
As a proud member of VampireFreaks.com for almost 2 years now, its great to finally see someone who has taken their time to notice that his ridiculous fad of blaming bad parenting on the internet, has been blown out of preportion.
Just the other day I seen some one bash the new fundraiser our site is having as “a new way to increase vampirefreaks.com’s blood-soaked image by adding in sick children.”
Thank you very much.
In my opinion people should really focus more that parenting can be blamed for these incidents more than anything in the media today.
You have no idea how much you have made my day.
I get so tired of people blaming things like websites, video games, etc. When it’s the parents that need to get their shit together and actually try parenting.
I have a profile on vampirefreaks, and personally..I’ve never had any problems. A few strange comments from someone claiming to be death (he called me ‘cold’ actually…lol). But for the most part, I’ve found intelligent, nice people that aren’t crazy or homicidal.
I’d actually recommend the site for anyone…because there is a place for everyone there. And it’s a lot more personal than myspace.
But in any case, thank you.
Haha lmao..this is so pathetic.
You can’t blame a website for the crimes people on the website have done.
You must look at the person, not a profile on the internet.
Stupid media people.
:’D XD
It comes down too there has always been murders etc, just that now the world is more techinical with internet and blogging, its being blammed on this, if you shut down the WHOLE internet, people will still get murdered, and so 2 or 3 users on VF have been in trouble, nothing in comparison to the total ammount of users! And well for myspace, it speaks for it self!
Ive been on vf since 2000 and i say not all people on vf are bad.And you cannot blame all of vf members when it wasent all of them.And have you seen what Vf has beening doing they having been raisin money for chairty so you must think that they are not that bad,So stop writing crap thats says vf should be shut down if that happens then what website shall we(vf members) all go on???
^^^^ MIKE
If preps and jocks would stop this bullying and teasing, none of these school shootings would happen.
I’m a member of Vampirefreaks, and it’s good to finally see some truth.
Vampirefreaks is not responsible for the actions of a couple of people, it is completely there own decision and I have never seen anything on Vampirefreaks suggesting murder,violence or anything like that.
The problem isn’t myspace, it’s the users. Myspace has over 250,000 PLUS new accounts a DAY. Given the ratio to crimes, I’d say that it’s still embarrassing, but that the ratio isn’t as bad as the media makes it out to be.
However, I think that myspace is actually beneficial when it comes to these crimes. If there are people posting plans such as burning churches or how to kill a person, then the police and FBI/whoever need to get their pudgy little hands into these sites. Think about it. Your privacy isn’t being violated if your information is public, and the majority of profiles on both vampirefreaks.com and myspace are public, regardless of their profanity or theme.
In my opinion, these sites will actually help prevent crime, as the people who are on them will commit the crimes with or without the website.
I am also a proud member of Vampirefreaks.
I cannot beleive a website can be blamed for all these killings.
Just because villians join this website, Doesnt mean the website and its members make him do anything.
Vampirefreaks is a lovely culture and place to be. If anybody found out about anyone doing anything suspicous, As members, We would help moderate the website by telling an admin. The Last thing we would do would be to encourage such violent behaviour. Stuff last, We wouldnt do it at all.
I speak for a few hundred thousend VF members when i say that the media is P A T H E T I C .
Honestly..
And no, VF will not shut down just because we have once again been accused of shit we didnt do. We have faces it about five times, We can take it 100 times.
myspace, nor any other website, is responsible for the acts of the people on it.
end of story.
a website cant keep track of every single person on it. therefore, its not the websites` fault that someone did something stupid.
Oh, and i`ve been a loyal member of vampirefreaks for almost 3 years.
its not a bad site at all.
i dont understand why when one guy does something stupid, the website hes on gets blamed.
-_-
I think people should look at the parents, are they doing something wrong? Or maybe the classmates at the schools. We shouldn’t blame the websites. Kids make the decision on what they want to do, that also means killing someone. The Administrators can NOT always keep an eye on everyone on the site especially if there are alot of people on the site. Age restrictions don’t help anymore, because people can get past them.
Finally an honest open minded perspective i have been amember of vampirefreaks for awhile adn though what has happened recently is a tragedy not all of us are the hate filled horrid poepl make us out to be.. as a matter of fact it is not only goths on that site soo yeah… lol
hopefully people will some day realize the truth is the people responsible for the crimes are to blame.. not others
you know ive been on vf a while and ive never meet one person on there who has though it would be cool to kill someone
vf is just like myspace execpt its for goth metal head thats all ,hell you could meet the same person from vf on myspace i mean how can you compare and say myspace is better but to blame a site and its owner is just plan out bullshit if you want to shut somthing down shut the internet down couse the one who created it should be at blame couse hes the one who created a tool that people can you to plot shit or talk to little boys are girl vampirefreaks didnt nor did any other website on the internet
I have been a member since 2004, I have met more loving caring people on vampirefreaks.com, those “killers” lurk in the shadows, and wait for all the media to die down and when it has, they strike again. I think that those who post in there journals and blogs about killing someone should be monitored *and something*.
Fuck You..
Vampirefreaks.com are ok
I have been a member of vampirefreaks since almost the begining of the site. For people to blame crime on a website seems ridiculous to me. If anything I think vampirefreaks in some ways cuts down on some violence. Its true most of the people on Vampirefreaks are the ‘goths’ or ‘emo’s’ or whatever other labels society places on us. Alot of the people who use Vampirefreaks.com feel isolated in their home towns. Potentially they are the ‘different ones’ The ones who stand out, are picked on, beat up and harrassed, and vampirefreaks.com is a place to go… where everyone can feel welcome. Where even though where you live you may be looked down upon the people on that website accept them and give the feeling of belonging. If those teens did not have vampire freaks as a place to go to for belonging as a place to go to feel accepted, a place where they can talk to people and make friends just like themselves than i see a whole lot more violence occuring.
For people to blame crime on a website just doesnt make sense to me, the dots just dont line up. Vampirefreaks does not promote violence, does not promote crime. And just becomes a few recent crimes have all had the commonality of individuals belonging to the site doesnt mean the sote is to blame. Im sure if a deeper look was taken many more ridiculous commonalities could be found… maybe they all ate lucky charms for breakfast, are lucky charms going to be pulled off the shelf? Maybe they all drive a green car? maybe they all secretly watch my little pony… and the rainbow colored ponys are what caused them to commit such crimes…
I think the reason vampirefreaks takes the blame for these events is that the idea of a place where ‘goth kids’ can all meet up and unite scares society a bit… In fact the idea of ‘goth kids’ at all scares alot of people and thats due to all the mystery misconceptions about us. People associate the fact that black clothes are worn and maybe chains and spikes and fishnet and big boots and black make up some how add up to make us satan worshiping, sacraficial, crime loving people. They dont understand that underneath the clothing and appearance we are just regular people. The fact that they dont understand the culture or the people makes them frightened by it. So, they make the goth culture a scapegoat, blaming crimes comitted by people belonging to the culture on all members of the culture which seems terribly unfair to the rest of us.
This is a really long rant and I apologize for that, the fact that the media has been playing out the bad side of vampirefreaks, continually in the newspapers and on the news recently is really frustrating to someone like me who belongs to the site and still agrees with the rest of society that the recent crimes are a trajedy.
Well, I am a member of VampireFreaks and I can say that there are alot of truly great people on that site. Sure, there are immature teenagers who think that it is cool to be obsessed with death, but there are also mature adults who use the site as an avenue to chat with friends and to relax. So all in all I want to thank you for understanding that VampireFreaks.com cannot be blamed for all random acts of violence.
There is nothing wrong with Vampirefreaks.com. Pepole who blame website for acts of violence have nothing better to do. Just because you deleted the website, dosen’t mean he “Vampirefreaks” or “MySpace” name will go away, nor will the violence. idiots are going to plan our their bullshit anywhere and everywhere they want. They did it on VF & MS just beacuse it happened to be a website they were on.
If you are going to blame violence because of a website, maybey you should watch alot more TV, because it’s worse on there.
As a proud member of VampireFreaks I’m glad to see that people are recognising that it’s not a bad site, you can’t blame a website with over 600000 members on it for 5 crimes that have been caused by 5 members.
There are good people on VF. The site it selfs dose not make them this way. There is something already wrong with them. The person could have belonged to more then one site. but yet cause VF is different you point the finger of blame there. I belong to the site for almost a year now and have meet nothing but good people on there. dont blame the site its self for peoples aready messed up kids.
do NOT shut down vampirefreaks
all them things are incidents when you see how many people are on the website thats how many there is that have joined
and then your closing it due to like 4 cases or something
its pathetic if you close it down
What a great article.
Vampirefreaks is a community. The site doesn’t promote violence although this would be hard to convince the masses of such a thing. We have site administrators who go through countless profiles, deleting people who do not follow site rules (i.e. posting nudity on profiles, racism etc). They do everything in their power to make sure that Vampirefreaks is a safe place for the underage members of the site. Although they are a great bunch and are rather effective, Vampirefreaks has approximatly 634,882 members with several thousand on at any given moment of the day. Just like it would be ridiculous to asume that those in charge of myspace could control several million profiles.
Once again, great blog. I’m glad someone else realizes that it is not the sole responsibility of the webmaster to police half a million people over the internet.
The internet is evil. Turn off the internet for everybody.
this is like the 7th site i’ve commented on involving VF..i’m a member of that site and it’s not to blame! blaming a website for someone going on a killing spree is like blaming mispelled words on your pencil! neither the pencil OR the website promote violence (or mispelled words), it’s all how the USER acts!
if i go and kill 10 people with a gun, i can’t say the gun did it because the gun is powerless unless someone pulls the trigger! another thing, stop bashing the deceased! i’ve heard comments ranging from “the’yre better dead” to “that dead b*tch was a whore” so stop! its highly disrespectful and inappropriate!
you’re correct about all this before these websites came along there was no violence in the world, rape, murder and suicide has nothing to do wih the personality of each individual who chooses to commit crimes. It’s the interntet’s fault, it is satan’s vesse to control people. If these people hadn’t been part of those sites they would’ve never commited a crime they would be on their knees worshipping the lord Jesus christ.
Why would a site be resposible for someone’s actions when it clearly sais “vf is not resposible for the actions you do” I’m a vf member for only one year. And NOTHING made me ever do stuff that are illegal and such. No one ever told me to do stuff that are illegal and such. It is thrue that some of the kids there think suiciding is “cool” or stuff like that but i dont see how the site can put that in theyir heads? just because theyir parents werent able to make them understand the meaning of life doesn’t mean a website is responsable for theyir actions. Its just pathetic. I found on vf people that i could chat with about random things (and not crimes etc etc) just to make the time pass a little bit faster and not be bored.
As final words. Shuting down a site because some criminal actualy made an account on it and then made a crime, its just pathetic.
I have 2 friends that were in critical stage at the hospital. And i dont think that just because the guy was a gothic all the gothic people are like him. Everybody thinks different. If that guy didn’t had an account on vf… who would the police blame?
Its not Vampirefreaks.coms fault in any way. They did not create the kids who did all that. Everywhere you go there is voilence. Why blame a site with people who are ‘different’ for all this crime happening? With half a million people on one site theres gonna be at least one person that is or has been involved in crime. Anyone can kill someone, rape someone, beat someone, its not a site that made them think that way or want to do that. Its them. They are responsible for themselves. A site for ‘Goths’ or a site for anyone like Myspace (even though i SEVERELY hate myspace) shouldnt be blamed. Im a member on Vampirefreaks.com myself and I have never seen one person on there that doesnt have problems. Everyone has problems some choose to fix them differently then others. And I have been apart of Vampirefreaks for about…2-3 yrs and have NEVER seen any kind of influence of violence or hate. Vampirefreaks is a site for people to relate to people that are ‘different’ just like they are. Thats why I went on the site. Cuz I was tired of being alone and not having anyone to talk to. And vampirefreaks helped me find people to relate to. Knowing that ‘goths’ can be together scared people. They arent any different then anyone else. They are made of flesh, bone and blood like everyone else. I have met some of the nicest people on Vampirefreaks.com. Those killers were already killers b4 they got onto this site. It was always apart of them. Vampirefreaks didnt make them into killers. A website cant makes kids kill. Its their choice . No one elses.
I’m a member of VF & I’m not some crazy maninac wanting to kill people!!!!
Its sad that you have to categorise everyone like tha, just cos there part of the ‘goth’ scene.
Most of the people on there are verey nice, just because MEMBERS of the site have commited crimes DOES NOT meen that THE SITE WAS RESPONCABLE for the crimes.
I have MySpace too & it bores to be honest.
Don’t be so harsh on VF & VF members.
I was a member of that site until recently. I found that even though the members want equality they are in fact close-minded and to an extent racist. Racial and Religious hatred are bred whilst ignorant views are incouraged by the more popular, more confident members,. The lesser, more vunerable members, who desire to be accepted by the majority are taken in by these views and this hatred is spread like cancer.
VampireFreaks is a culture of bullying and ignorance that affects people as young as 13. Down with VF!
Hello to all members of VampireFreaks.com!
I appreciate your stopping by to let “the rest of us” understand a little better what goes on over on your community of choice. It’s good that you’re taking the opportunity to counter-act the media frenzy which hasn’t really left you or your moderators the necessary time and space to defend yourselves.
Hopefully, this will help out!
I have been on vampirefreaks for almost 3 years now, and to say that we are all vampire, bloodsucking, freaks who all want to kill people is THE stupidest and biggest scapegoat reason EVER. Why blame an inanimant object and stop your kids from getting so isolated they can make up ways to kill people, or fuckin pay attention to them and realize, that they have a twisted sense of reality, or just a bad way of looking at life, and need some help. Stop shifting the blame, take it on yourselves!
PROUD VF MEMBER….THANK YOU JET!!!
leave us alone…rest of the world….-.-
I laugh at whoever wrote this article. Just because an individual decides to kill, rape, murder, etc.,. Doesn’t mean the website forced them to. There is a lot of nice people on Vampirefreaks.com. They are a lot more supporting to depression, lonesome, and shyness then on Myspace.com. I’m also pretty sure those who used Vampirefreaks.com also had a myspace. Grow up to whomever wrote this article..And yay for those who support Vampirefreaks.com 100%.
I disagree, I believe we SHOULD shut down any organization that openly supports murder.
For instance, in this world we live in, there is an organization that has had its hand in well over a million deaths through the ages. This same organization has had a hand in every major war and has often been friendly with both sides, encouraging them to slaughter each other whole-sale. They have been proven accountable for supporting pedophiles, sociopaths and just about every twisted and disgusting individual imaginable. They have also been known in the past to do such things as burn people alive, disembowl people in public and cut off the testicles of young men…
How could an organization such as this still exist in the world today? Beyond that, how could an organization like that be pulling strings behind almost every government in the world? You know, I wonder the same things.
Perhaps we should ask the Pope how god could allow the christian church to continue after having commited such atrocities. Shut down Vampirefreaks.com? I say that we respond with “We will shut down our dark and sinister organization when you shut down yours.”
Hmmm… I just want to make sure we’re clear: I’m not asking to shut down VampireFreaks or MySpace. I’m just comparing both in scope and saying that the website isn’t the problem and social sites like those offer escapism to other problems.
I am definitely not asking to shut down any websites.
Just so we’re clear. I do hate being laughed at.
it was sarcasm.
There is nothing wrong with vampirefreaks.com it’s a place of refuge and advice for many people, support and trust is also a key part to vampirefreaks. If parents are still blaming things on other people, they are shifting the blame, refusing to take responsibiltiy, and using vampirefreaks as a scapegoat, wel in that case they realy need to grow up, realise their children are their responsibility and start taking that responsibility. If not maybe they should be questioning their parental skills rather than a website.
You people have no idea how much you piss everyone off on VF. People who go out and shoot other people blame it on vampirefreaks because they’re a******s. JUST because someone goes out and murders people, doesn’t make EVERYONE ELSE on the site like, “Oh, I think I’ll go kill someone!” Everyone has a right to make their OWN decisions and vampirefreaks does not promote ANY violence at all. Maybe some mean comments once in a while but HEY.. everyone gets mad once in a while. Are you gonna forbid them from that? If you read the posts on there YOU WOULD KNOW exactly how the site works. But of course you people assume right away before you look into things. Myspace is way worse than VF anyway…
Everyone who supports VF, you know exactly what I mean.
Oh yeah, and suppose someone brushes their teeth with a certain brand of toothpaste and then goes out and kills someone. I guess you think that EVERYONE who brushes their teeth with that particular brand is a murderer too right???
It wasn’t directed at you, Mckye.
P.S. After reading through my comment i realise it sounded like im having a go at the person who wrote this article (the second one comparing vf & ms) im not, thank god soemone has atlast realised how stupid this fad of blaming things on websites realy is. :]
Are you serious? I honestly think shutting down vampirefreaks is stupid.Myspace has the same issues..Did you not read about JakeJeckyl he snapped out and and stabbed ppl with hacchets and shot others in gay bar. Shutting down Vampire Freaks won’t solve anything permanently.Just a temporary fix to an on going issue..with VF gone it will just be another website that it happens on.I think honestly VF is gettin the brunt of the hostility because it is a gothic indrustial site..we are being frowned upon because we are different.If there was better gun control laws and what not maybe this incident wouldnt of happened in montreal.NOT EVERYONE ON VAMPIREFREAKS.COM are killers.
So, you people are saying that VF tells the kids to go out and kill people? If you join, you’re going to have the urge to murder?? Funny, I was on VF since 2000, and out of the six years that I was on, I have never killed anyone. I’m sure that these people have tons of other accounts on myspace and gothic dating sites, so why does everyone target VF? Because it makes your mommy and daddy mad? BOO HOO! People are logical, thinking beings. Their decisions are made by THEM, not a website. If you’re stupid enough to say, “Hey! This website is for GOFFFFS! I think I should kill someone!!” then you seriously need to kill -yourself-. This website is just as able to hoard murderers as ANY. “Hey person, like my comment. Wanna see pix? Here’s my number, my address, my e-mail. Let’s hang out.” it’s as easy as that. They wont shut VF down. They can’t. Jet is a very smart guy, he knows what he’s doing, and he knows that the internet is just as dangerous from a website like, “websiteonlyforkids.com” to websites like “comehereforunderageporn.com” (Neither are real, just examples.) The internet in general is dangerous, but it’s the person’s fault, not a website. Yahoo chat rooms, neopets, VF, myspace, runescape, WoW, PS2 online games, XBOX online, the mall, your very town; No matter where you go, there’s always danger. No matter where you go or what you do online, NO ONE can influence you to kill people. You’d have to be pretty god damn stupid. Think for once, quit with the stereotypes that us Gothic kids are “evil” and MEET a few of us.. Half of the people on VF are posers, and are probably like you and your preppy friends. We’re just as human as anyone.. So get over blaming a website for us rejected kids to hang out, and open your eyes to the BIG picture for once..
Thank you! Finally an article that doesn’t depict us [VampireFreaks members] as the scum of the earth, and start pointing the light at someone else. In 5 years, we’ve had a whopping 5 instances where crime is linked to us. That’s only one a year. Go to myspace and you’d probably find and average of one a day. And then there’s all the hundreds of thousands of other community sites on the internet. I’m glad to finally see an article like this as opposed to all the negativity being shoved our way since the infamous Kimveer incident.
Eh. I dont think It’s right if you shut it down.. Its a really fun place to go to..
Sure, there might have been threats n stuff, But No website can be perfect.
Also, Most of the threats on that website, like “ill kill you if you do this” or ” You will die if you do that” we all know its juss some Idiot trying to act tough.
Let’s all say that i’m a happy person. I join vampirefreaks.com and baaang i turn into a criminal.
Does this seem a little odd and disgustingly stupid?
What if i’m a murderer and i join happythings.com ?
Would the authorities/parents/etc say that happythings.com is the source of the problem?
It doesn’t matter what site i’m on. What matters is what i’m thinking.
All the parents should think of what the heck THEY did wrong and not who else to blame!
INDEED there are all the other members that influence each other, but doesn’t that happen in real life too?
I’m a punk. I have a mohawk, piercings, chains.
Everyone should ask himself one question: does that make me a criminal?
If the answer is yes, than how come i never killed, raped, slaughtered anyone?
I hate even the thaught of stealing.
Bottom line is that we all should think about REALLY solving a problem, and not just cover it up.
Shutting down vampirefreaks.com means that we’re covering it up so that we have the feeling we solved the problem.
ofcourse saying “its theyir fault” its just another way to say “we have no one to blame so let’s just pick someone”
Dude, likening violent crimes to any one particular website is exactly like when those morons were blaming Dungeons and Dragons for the Columbine shootings. If someone has an underlying problem, it’s going to come to the surface in one way or another anyway. It’s not like that girl WOULDN’T have killed her family if she hadn’t met someone online; she’d probably just have found someone else to help her elsewhere.
So if we’re blaming this one particular website, why don’t we just blame the entirety of the intarnets while we’re at it? Shut down the entire thing, because it’s obviously causing more harm than good.
People are stupid. Plain and simple. People will do stupid things, whether or not they’re “helped along” by a website.
I am one of the representatives for the site www.vampirefreaks.com. I have been a memmber for a few years but trough the past year of working with affiliated people who help make the site successful I have met many user’s who are active user opun this site. In the defence of this site, we do not promote volince and hate of any kind but try to bring people of defrence together.
So my last thoghts on this subject is that you cant blame a person action on a large scale community when the community it self try’s to brng good into the growing world.
Thank you for taking the time of reading this post and if you have any question, I can be reached at bears_corp@hotmail.com
i have never been so offended in my life i am a vp member and i have to say im ashamed of the shootings and i am very sorry about what he did but you cant blame others for his actions. Goths are normaly loveing people and we shouldnt be shutdown were only trying to help out and thankyou mike for this. Lark_wildfox
I think it’s not one site or another’s fault, if teenagers are so fill of angst and psychotic attitudes it has more to do with the society they grow in and the values they get at home, it’s time to reevaluate if in this modern society the new generations are getting a sane education and environment…
It’s a good article Mike, in fact it’s the oppinion of anyone that has common sense, obviously a lot don’t. And about you commenters insulting the media, well, they don’t care, they just want an article and someone to blame, it’s trully that simple, sad, but true.
I think that this is a load of bull. VF isn’t bad. It’s just entertaining to people. VF is like myspace, but not as bad.
the press only likes to point fingers at people, thus neglecting the fact that these people are fucked in the head. Im sorry if it seems harshe, but get real. people dont go crazy becuase of the gothic culter (gothic culter by the way is far from mordhid,death, or darkness. its simply art) stupid people alterd and corroded it changing it into what people fear. and what do kids do when they others doing somthing? thats right they folow, and if they are not happy with image alone, they will try to take an attitude to what they think fits the image. I do not know where people got satanism from though =/ . please people, take this into account that some people purposly snap. some people will kill and be perfectly fine as it goes for sanity
I’m greatful you posted this. Maybe those who are talking shit about “goths” can open their minds and see this. Just maybe then they will look at what they were saying about us, then think about it and see that they were wrong.
Ahahahahahaha
Faggots.
Get a fucking life.
Tools.
LMFAO
I’ll sacrifice you to lucifer.
Since its the stereotype.
Oh waaaah… there’s a website out there that I don’t like, let’s shut it down. People on this site are just weird. Even though this webpage is obviously causing an enormous amount of publicized crime, somehow, I never even fuckin’ knew about it until last week. Wow, what an enormous impact this website has had on society! Imagine, it takes someone to shoot 20 people before all the cry baby bloggers even know it exists. Sounds like a real influential and popular site.
How about focusing your energies on getting rid of say, Al-Qaeda websites, or other websites purposely made to convince people to kill others? Oh right.. because you’re useless.
Haha, it makes me laugh when I see stuff like this, people ALWAYS like blaming Vf/gothic culture for EVERYTHING that goes wrong when a couple kids that have an account on the site decide to do something stupid. ITS NOT the sites fault they decide to go be idiots and do something stupid, just cause they post what they’re going to do doesnt mean the site influenced them to do it. and its not like the main page says “Go be stupid! and do something retarded!”. anything that kids and people do is decided by them and THEY are responcible for their own actions, its the persons fault!! not the site! like kids that meet men and end up getting raped. its not like the site said “Go meet this guy!” its their dissicion and the site SHOULD NOT be blamed for it AT ALL!
Yeah, that’s gay. How can Jet go through everyones things and delete them if they say something that they shouldn’t? There’s 635024 Members at the moment..
I happen to be one of them..
Good luck with that.
Finally a good artical about Vampire Freaks concering this whole ordeal. I’m glad people actually have a clue. A website cant be blamed for somthing like this. And if you are going to, you also have to take a jab at Myspace. I’m glad someone has finally.
I dont see what the website has to do with these killings or rapists. Hell, a person could be a member of yahoo and still do this kind of crap. but your going to blame a website that is dark and somewhat sinister looking for what other people have done? I’m a member of vampirefreaks, and its no differnt then being a member of yahoo, which i am also a member of. Its just differnt people. So you cant exactly blame the damn website.
Well, thank you. This is the first article that I have read that says negative things about NOT just Vf, but other sites. So thank you to whoever wrote this. Not everyone on Vf is a criminal.
There are criminals everywhere. Can’t judge em all cause of one person’s actions.
On a lighter note, one of my favourite songs of all time is The Cure’s “A Forest.”
And I’ve never been or considered myself to be part of goth culture. And maybe just by typing that, it’s blatantly obvious.
Loved this.
I myself am an Administrator of VampireFreaks. And I can honestly say, without a doubt, that VF in NO WAY condones in muderous acts. The problem isn’t MySpace. And the problem infact, isn’t VF. The real problem herein, lies with the troubled youths themselves.
Our website clearly does NOT state, “if you’re pissed off, kill someone”. I’m quite sure that Tom’s website clearly does NOT state the same thing. So to blame these acts on a website and memberbase as a whole, is a prejudiced act. If you want someone to blame, blame the real contributing factors. Parents, and friends (or therein lack of).
Videogames are not the cause of someone over the age of 18, killing someone. A responsble adult has more of a motive for killing someone, aside from the honest curiousity of blood, gore, and guilt. Maybe a 12 year old could blame it on videogames, and maybe the uneducated media can blame it on videogames. But anyone with half a brain would realize that these are grown adults. They probably don’t even play videogames. So to blame videogames on their psychosis, is preposterous.
Let’s blame the real guilty ones here.
The media - For ignoring the fact that these killers are grown adults. And throwing “videogames” into the contributing factors, just makes game publishers look bad.
The parents - They whom raised these kids. Bad parenting leads to early independence. This at times is a horrible thing for a child, and can lead to psychosis, and long-term reclusive actions.
The friends - Or like I said, lack of friends. Any true friend wouldn’t allow anyone to carry out any type of dispicable act. Be it homicide, or suicide. If these kids don’t have people holding them back telling them “no”, there’s nobody to stop them.
So let’s get real. A couple of websites aren’t to blame here. And shutting them down isn’t going to stop anything. Murders will still happen. Underage girls will still be raped, and beaten. And suicides are still going to happen. The only thing that’ll change, is that the media wont have a “VampireFreaks” or a “MySpace” to blame it on, anymore.
Then what? Videogames?
Ha.
I thank you much. All the hate has been going to Vampirefreaks and I ahve been asking myself, what about myspace? Much worse happens their, and it is only beig pointed at the gothic culture.
As a proud member of VF for the past, I don’t remember how many years. I’ve made quite a few accounts. The site is full of nice people. The owner of the site is nice himself. He’s actually hosting fundraisers at the current moment as well. None of these crimes should be placed on the site. It’s not the site’s fault that idiotic people decide to rape and kill other people. In fact, they probably had thoguhts WELL before they joined the site. I have met a lot of nice people on the site over the years. None of which who have done anything wrong. So you can’t blame the site for the wrong doings of other indivual acts.
If not on Vampire Freaks, it’ll move to somewhere else. There’s sexual solicitation on MySpace.com which is deffinately as popular if not more popular than VampireFreaks.com or any other internet profile, meeting place. There’s other bigger issues in the world than just what one guy decides to do with his afternoon. Which I promise you Vampire Freaks had NOTHING to do with. The site is dark, yes. But half of the members aren’t even Gothic anymore. My self, i’m not gothic, I don’t believe in living my life by a label, status or givin name or ridicule. Vampire Freaks has been around for quite some time now, the owner of the site is very open and un-cruel man. his staff is as vigilant as they can be but how can a hand full of people monitor well over 9,000 people? Ontop of that all one has to do is host a picture on a photo hosting site and send it to others if it’s against the rules of the site. Which nudity, no matter the age is not allowed on the site. Shutting down the site will only bring rise to the others and possibly new ones. I’ve been on the site for well over 2 years now and have seen many people come and go and I have personally never ran into any pedophiles, anarchists or murders. Don’t pass judgement on a group of thousands based on the actions of a hand full.
*laughing*
I’m so glad to see so many supporters - and for a change, so very few jerkoffs posting.
You have my thanks Mike.
You cant blame those things on a website.
If you cared to look at vampiefreaks you would see its a place for people who like industrial/alternative music and is place to meet people with simialr instrests and chat on forums about those such things.
You should look into the people on Myspace and Xanga. There are far worse thing there.
But ofcourse, because the background page is black and it about alternative music you blame that for murders and violence.
HELLO? have you watched tv recently?
Or played a video game?
Or read a newspaper.
Far more things are WAY more influential.
Firstly I would like to ask people to actually read this article properly.
Then re-read it. The writer is not suggesting that VF should be shut down.
He is stating that web-sites such as ours cannot be blamed for the deeds of it’s users.
Thank you Mike for putting common-sense to good use.
If only some reporters could do the same.
As one of the administrators of VampireFreaks, I have been truly sickened by the reports of the Montreal shooting, especially those from the Toronto Sun.
Whatever happened to the old addage my mother used to recite to me all the time when I was younger “If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” ?
Honestly, why blame it on a website when you look in the media and find crimes branching back to MANY different things.
Exactly, Because we want to find a concrete structure to blame it on because we don’t want to admit it is human error.
If you want to blame something, look into the minds of those who have committed the crimes. Look into the individuals who have NOTHING to do with these sites and look at some of the things they do, such as dipping a puppy in paint, tying all of its paws together, and trying to light it on fire. When that didn’t work, they put the puppy in the oven and baked it. NOW, if you call that humane, I hope every single last person on here has a psychiatrist.
People do indecent things. It’s in their nature. Blaming it on a website puts you in the wrong, just like the people who commit the crimes. What do you think possessed killers before the internet? Exactly, their own mind.
Now, each and every of you should probably get your heads out of your rear ends and look at the big picture. It’s not a website. It’s the human brain.
Now please, lay off.
Thanks,
Jezebel, a vampirefreaks.com user, a myspace user, and various other website user who has never committed any crimes.
oh please…how pathetic
“we’ll blame it on a website because it’s too much effort to blame it on anything else”
Whatever happend to go old responsability of your own actions?
But then again…whatever happend to good articles?
Don’t quit your day job. =)
For those of you saying vampirefreaks.com is a racist site, get a clue. Of course your entitled to your opinion but get a freaking clue. Yes we have our prefrences of religion, who we don’t or do like, but calling us racist is not right. Again, GET A CLUE!
I’m glad someone accualy took time to relize we aint the blame.
I say i hate the world, Tough, Do i look like a freak to you?
Most of these peoples are kind, Loving.
We want to help those sick childern! It’s about the childern, not about us, how we WANT to look like, what we WANT to listen.
Everywhere are individuals, who makes us different? WE are all different,and every where are rotten apples. Esp. on Myspace.
Think about this: If VF wasnt there, where should we go to? WE the YOUTH, the not yet grown ups. The onces with troubles with themselves, with society. Abused by others? WHo can we turn to? Shrinks? They don’t do anything. VF has people that went there too, that where in the same situation.
We aint just a community, we are FAMILY. And im proud of them, each and every single soul that wants to help. True, there where bad members, that killed people. But there are ALSO people on there who family was murdered, or where raped by family, or people they trusted, or random strangers.
True, Internet is NOT safe. But those who meet someone off the internet, take their own risk. And i can know.
I bet you dont know about cu2.nl , it’s a dutch site, And I met someone there, He was a rapist, as i found out myself.
EVERYWHERE are bad persons, in society, maybe even your neighbour. Everyone has dirt on their history, everyone has cuts in their soul.
Everyone get hurts sometime, and some even more then others.
Who you gonna turn to when you get hurt? People that just comfort you, but don’t understand you? Shrinks who only listen and give advise they learned out of books? Or people that have been there, in that situation, people that can say what they learned from it? No not a talk group, those are mostly people feeling sorry for themselves.
On VF everyone is equal, and that is what the world needs.
Love, Limaradragon. AKA, Renee-Emma from the Netherlands.
It seems like people are just blaming VF because everyone there is different.
What, because we don’t play field hockey and watch Laguna Beach we’re criminals and the site needs to be shut down?
THATS PATHETIC. PEOPLE DIE ON MYSPACE AND THEY DONT SUT THAT SITE DOWN. DUMBASSESSSSSSSS!
i’ve been a member on VF for sometime now, i’ve met the stupid people who are immature but thats like 5% of VF and the other 95% are such sweet lovely people. i’ve found friends i can talk to.
i’m personally against what happened in the Dawsons school, it’s sad to know someone as nice as him would of done that, when i first met him he was very nice and such a sweet person towards me.
But we can’t blame the media or websites for these kind of things that happen in our world, it is the same as blaming Marylin Manson for the Columbine shooting years ago. i don’t understand why they don’t blame the presidant? he sends bombs over to two countries everyday. its sad that they have to cover their ass’s by blaming video games or movies. and now its websites!
okay. this is the first arcticle that i read that is completely showing the truth.
i don’t know why everyone thinks that vampirefreaks.com is breeding murderers and other criminals. People only has eyes for what they want to see. i’ve read an arcticle (http://torontosun.com/News/Canada/2006/09/17/1852400-sun.html) where you can see how stupid people is. i don’t know why people are so close-minded.
and i know a lot of people in vampirefreaks.com that has nothing to do with murder or death, they’re just emo or silly things like that.
i don’t know where we are going as a world. i hope it could stop somehow.
please feel free to comment back to me,
www.fotolog.com/_nekromancia
ane_fftl@hotmail.com
Well I believe the shut-down of VampireFreaks is wrong. Jet has worked so hard to make it better. Plus he can’t control what every single member does. Yes there are some rotten people who will spoil it for us. Just because people commit crimes, and they are a ‘member’ of this site, Does not mean this site is bad. It means that person was bad. Not the site. This is bullshit. Shutting it down is not fair to us all.
What are they going to do next? Just because someone listens to slipknot, If someone kills themself? Are they going to blame slipknot for the persons death? Grow up. It’s different than other sites. just because we represent what we believe in, doe sthat mean we’re bad as well? You might as well just blame yourself. your bashing vampirefreaks for no reason whatsoever. Get over it. We had nothing to do with it.
These things posted above we’re stupid indiviuals that thought nothing of what they we’re doing. They should have gotten their head screwed on straight or not join the site. They’re going to make a bad name for us all.
I am karyn. Lady_Dark from vampirefreaks. I have had various accounts, and nothing like this has happend in the 3 years I have been on this site. The new generation bullshit is happening. It should pass, but it also should be a lesson to parents not letting there children have certin thoughts in there head. if they do seriously GET THEM HELP. stop blaming the site because they are these stupid ideas in their heads.
Ok WTF?
Yea, and so, I would want to kill 100 people, and just becouse I am on VF.com…
Like the site matters… Retards…
Gill would kill, VF down or not get it?
And yea, we have 600.000 members, and you have 5 crimes in 3 years… man that is high! You are right! We must shut it down! WTF?
How many sites have people on that make a crime, and they do not belong to Goth culture…
Then, we try to help and show that we are not like those few individuals, and we get criticised for that to? Were is this world going actualy?
Anyway, thanks to everybody who support us and are not such morons to think the site or the Gothic cuture are responsible for the idiotic acts of few…
It’s great to see how many people are being supportive regarding the site. You know we’re in the right here.
As a member a Vf for almost two years now i feel like the media just wanf to point there finger at someone/something and to feel like be labled everyday by people i dont know. I’m just 15 and i feel like we’re being blamded for someone elses horrible mistake you cant judge us 1 out of the many of us we are not clones WE ARE HUMANS!
Oh! Please theres many people out there who have killed and are not in vampirefreaks.Just because those guys did that dosent mean that everyone in VF will do it.Most of us have really awesome profiles with lots of colors and cool designs.Theres many moms in VF,and im happy to be a gothic mom in vampirefreaks.Im a mom and i dont want to kill and i know everyone in vampifefreaks loves being there why take away a cool website,and theres other websites that are the same so vampirefreaks is not the only goth site in the internet.!so please stop it.let VF be vampirefreaks!:)
Yay, thats an article that shows off how a site is not the reason why people are making crime. For once, we have real stats^^. VF just owns, people around there are cool(well, most of them!) I’m on Vf and Myspace, it doesnt make me a criminal. Really, thnkx for this article, it’s a good one, a rare one, it rocks!
On Vampire Freaks, not everyone are goths and freaks and most people on it are generally nice.
I get more bloody weirdos message me, wanting cam who are 3 times older than me, on Myspace, and Faceparty etc.
These people probably had profiles/blogs at other sites, but still only VF gets the blame.
I’m not a goth, or from any “group” but I love VF (so much I’m Prem), doesn’t mean I want to kill people. I’m just like any other normal person.
xX-Gutterflower-Xx
i think that vampirefreaks is not moderated and needs to be shut down and the site is always slow and having problems . charging teenage people for money to exploit themself and more. there are alot of issues thats we need to make sure that site take cares of or else i think that the site just should be closed
“We sometimes seem to forget that teenagers are children who are becoming adults, who are entrenched in deeply formative years. Accusing websites (or video games, or popular music) of their strayings is an attempt to shift the guilt from ourselves. It is, after all, a whole lot easier to handle. ”
I really couldnt agree more. I think the media has been giving vampirefreaks.com too much hassle lately. I dont see them attacking google, hotmail or myspace for violences related to them. They seem to pick on VF because of its darker nature and thats really wrong. People generally are what they are because of society, family etc and the support they recieve from them.
People need to stop putting the blame on video games and websites and deal with the fact that they failed that certain person. But even then its not directly their fault, because some people really are infact hopeless cases.
Xx_Accalia_xX (VF)
Sorry Josh I dont agree. Yes the site does have some slow moments but that isnt a basis for closing a site! Vampirefreaks.com is moderated and the admins to the best job they can to provide a safe environment. The site also provdes help groups for people with self issues such as cutting. Lots of teenagers are helped by others this way and many are helped by getting convinced to see doctors etc.
Seriously I think that you should know what uore talking about before posting something ridiculous as that.
Xx_Accalia_xX
im an other proud membre od vampirefreaks.
Blaming the site for that kind of event makes about as much sens as blaming the hospital if a sick person kills somebody.
Lets shut down the hospital!!!
Personal responsibility needed. But, scapegoats are great for society’s well being. I’m pretty sure there’s not so socially correct people even on the Disney site, but who would investigate that.
this article is nothing but bull;; u cannot shut down teh site just bcuz of a member, who to me, had every rite but to be angry. u cant help feelings, everyone feels that way and u CAN`T help it. Dig? nowww, dip!!♥
This will be a never ending topic the good thing is that nothing is getting shut down adn certainly not over this incident… it would be ridiculous if it were to be sht down then other things would be getting shu down it is a dominoe affect…
I hope that poeple can see that were not all bad and if you actually talk to us and give us the same respect that you want to get, then we can be, and are very nice, intelligent, caring people
what /they/ said____;;
I have been a member of Vampire Freaks for some time now, useing different names, but its always been me. To sum up the site, Vampirefreaks is a place where us outcasts, those of us who dont fit into the “norm” of society can talk to others who dont fit in.
Do not Mistake Goth for Satanist, Gothic is a huge subculture, and theres more violence being done by “gangsta” people that you dont hear about half the time on the news because its old news, “a group of people wearing red shot up a group wearing blue” that would be the story, sounds boring huh?
Yes, alot of gothic culture Has symbols of Death within it, but its not like we worship death, no, we find death, in many ways, attractive, but we would not cause death to another human being, well most of us, there are those even in our society that will.
also, To Summerize up the people who want to use Vampirefreaks as a scapegoat for provlems. 1. they fear the unknown, since they dont know alot about our culture, they make up ideas about it and they fear the ideas they make up about us because of our scary exteriors. 2. They have no open mind, they will not listen to what others try to tell them about our culture, what we try to teach them, so they can better understand us. 3. Asides from the two above reasons, People seem to associate us with satanists in shows, and everywhere, creating more people who fear us because they dont understand us.
We do very enjoy being called Freaks, it does not offend us, because what is a