11 Illinois teens charged with felonies after men lured and beaten using dating apps
11 Illinois teens charged with felonies after men lured and beaten using dating apps
The teens, all males 17 and 16, were charged with aggravated battery, criminal damage to property and mob action. Some allegedly took inspiration for the crimes from social media.
Summary
Eleven Illinois teens face felony charges after allegedly luring two men via dating apps and assaulting them last July.
Inspired by a viral social media trend, the teens attacked a 41-year-old and a 23-year-old in separate incidents, damaging vehicles and using slurs in one case, resulting in hate crime charges for one teen.
All suspects turned themselves in and were detained at a juvenile center.
Police urge parents to discuss the dangers of social media trends with their children to prevent such incidents.
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They refrain from mentioning what trend, what dating app, and what slurs these teens were using. But based off context my best guess is that these guys were convincing some gay men they were down to hook up only to just assault them instead. Why you would want to do this, I have no idea. I know kids do shitty things but I think these guys were just shitty people.
And what kind of fucking internet trend involves luring people just to assault them? If that's the kinda content you consume as an individual you're a fucking idiot.
Yeah, social media trends aren't the problem here. Being a piece of shit is the problem.
Social media is a factor. Unmoderated content encouraging violence results in events like these.
Let’s do the butterfly knife to the eyes challenge it’s on TikTok…
I prefer the Fargo Challenge! Who wants to look at my woodchipper?
Is it though? That kind of sounds like the next iteration of blaming movies/video games/d&d/whatever the latest crazy is.
The thing is, the boomers of the past were wrong because none of that media was promoting violence. They were making it up.
The Tiktok algorithm promotes violence as a fast-pass to fame. It rewards people for making abhorrent trends with clicks.
I don't know, it's hard to argue that the action movies of 40 years ago or games like Postal weren't glorifying violence.
Though I can certainly see an argument about the difference based on the fact that movies/TV/video games are all imaginary vs the actual violence in something like this.
The question is, does "glorifying violence" encourage people to be violent? Barring other factors, studies have not found that to be the case. There are some studies that show video games actually reduce stress hormones by giving people a release, and this might actually lower violence.
It's a lot different to connect violent rhetoric with gay bashing, refer to gays as predators, then provide a template for how to ambush them.
The major difference is that the app is the not content, it is the bridge to actioning.
This one has scientific backing. Just Google any combination of terms and you'll find studies showing harm.
Just Google
Why don't you and post a few links?
I wasn't sure exactly which aspect of harm they were talking about, so I left it up to them.
The trend is of homophobes luring homosexual men to be attacked using the app Gr*****r. It's been gaining steam since Trump won the first time and has escalated again after the latest win. In many places it will not be prosecuted unless it gains media attention. And most gay men in those kinda of areas don't want to be out, so don't even report it. So it's becoming more common.
And the solution is to make such hate crimes dangerous. Gay bashing used to be more common, but armed f*gs bash back, and that reduced it
Further reading on the historical context of "f*gs bash back" for anyone curious: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_Nation
I haven't heard that slogan since the 90s. Really shows how far we've come, and now we're sliding right back.
Why you would want to do this, I have no idea.
For real? My guess would be bigotry and homophobia?
Yeah, for sure that's the reason. But at the end of the day I still don't get it.
ah back in my day we didn't need an app or to even be out to get the shit kicked out of us for being gay*
funnily enough my bullies knew better I was gay* than I did
*bi
Ya if it was a group of 16 year olds luring a pedophile than all the power to them.
If it was a group of 18 year olds just luring a gay man and assaulting him for his sexuality then hopefully they get tried as adults and put behind bars for a good number of years.
It says right in the summary at the top that all the teens were 16 or 17.
What it doesn't say is what age they presented themselves as when luring these people out to be assaulted.