My RedEye Obituary: A Study of My Online Self

This morning’s RedEye articles about Jennifer Hudson’s nephew really did move me—especially the bit in 'A Family’s Horror' in which they discuss the elderly couple that called the police when the white SUV described on the news was identified by their yipping Chihuahua, L’il Man. Oh yeah, I was still with the article—feeling the pain, touched deeply—even as they described the heroics of a stupidly-named purse dog. I was almost in tears by the time they quoted the old lady who dialed 911 in the following passage:

“’The first thing I thought,’ she said, ‘was ‘Lord, don’t let the baby be in there.’’”
But he was.”

But he was. That got me. I was ready skip my stop, stay on my red line train, ride straight though downtown and continue south on a mission to go add to the—I am sure rain-drenched and soggy—pile of stuffed animals outside the Hudson home.

Then, this happened:

“Jilian King, who went by ‘Juicebox’ and ‘Dr. King’ comes across as an adored little boy, hamming it up, on the MySpace pages of his mother Julia Hudson.”

“On the MySpace page site of his famous aunt, Jennifer Hudson, the actress describes her mother and nephew as inseparable underneath one photo…”

“William Balfour… declared himself a ‘proud parent’ on MySpace and decorated his page with photos of a smiling Julian King. The boy also is mentioned in a seven-line autobiography Balfour wrote for the social networking site.”

All three of those quotes are from page seven of today’s RedEye and are Chicago Tribune articles. That’s right; all three of those quotes are FROM THE SAME PAGE and all involve MySpace. Now, what I am taking from my morning commute’s paper reading is not a message about responsibility to your fellow man or the prolificacy and pervasiveness of domestic violence.

What I am taking from my commute is, “Since when is MySpace a legitimate research tool for journalists?!?!?!?” Seriously? What. The. Hell. These people aren’t famous, and you need pictures and details about them ASAP. So, when interviews with friends and family don’t turn up enough blurbs, you fill it in with MySpace? And you admit it? I would at least find a way to disguise it, “Sources say that Balfour described himself publicly as a ‘proud parent.’”

This is when I thought to myself, “Oh God! Please, please, please, please don’t let anyone shoot me in the head and leave me in an SUV.” Why did I think that? Well, here is my best estimate of how a Tribune article upon my death would read:

“Anneliese’s facebook page portrays her as childlike-in-mind and borderline mentally deficient. Obviously afflicted with severe learning disabilities, Anneliese had touchingly innocent interests. Her favorite book was I am a Manatee by John Lithgow, her favorite TV show the animated children’s program The Tick, and her favorite song the Teenage-Mutant-Ninja-Turtles-themed hip-hop epic, ‘Turtle Power’. Her pictures and quotes indicate that she loved Darkwing Duck, dinosaurs, snowmen, lobsters, and ball pits and was finally learning to count with help from Lex Luthor. According to MySpace, she had always dreamed of meeting an Oompa Loompa. Only a true monster could willfully target a creature so simple for such astoundingly gruesome violence.”