Oct 11
Mt. Whitney Dick on Facebook was taken down today.
The last message sent from the account was the rather descriptive: “een notified by the police i have to take my site down”; we would post a screenshot from Facebook, but by the time we read the message the account was removed. Here’s a TweetDeck screenshot:
(His Blogspot, as of the time of publication, is still up.)
Now that we know the police are on the case, what happens to the other two sites?
Oct 10
I’m trying to find a way to tie a Mean Girls quote into this but the only way I can pull it off is if another site pops up. (THIS IS NOT ENCOURAGEMENT, GUYS.)
Evidently not content with the Whitney-focused “559 for Real” or with submitting things to “Visalia Dick”, another Visalia Dick-alike has popped up, again focused on Whitney — with the name, rather creatively, being “Mt. Whitney Dick”.
With worse grammar than the first two, and the same exact site design and format, Mt. Whitney Dick is a total exercise in originality and creativity tha– okay, no, let’s stop even being sarcastic here, these copycat sites are getting OLD.
We’re not telling you to innovate in cyberbullying here, we’re telling you to either leave it to the guy who started it so that you don’t risk yourself getting caught up in a libel suit or being suspended/expelled for this stuff (CA law allows it, we’ve been over this) or otherwise just stop. Seriously.
Mt. Whitney Dick on Facebook: click here.
Mt. Whitney Dick on Blogspot: click here.
“I wish we could all get along like we used to in middle school! I wish I could bake a cake filled with rainbows and smiles and everyone would eat and be happy..”
- some girl, from Mean Girls.
So!
It seems some Whitney student was not content with El Diamante having its’ own Burn Book, and they did not want to deal with having to request people on a constant basis.
Instead, they decided that the hate must be spread further — and now we have the not-so-creatively-named “559 for Real!”
He’s gotten 450 pageviews at the time of publication.
Not much is known. But all the people on the page are Whitney students. So it’s more than likely a Whitney student, much like Visalia Dick is more than likely somehow involved with El Diamante,.
The page is available by here. It’s almost sad that they’ve essentially stolen the Visalia Dick formula down to the format (everyone on one big blog post) and what is said about people.
If you’re going to bully people and put yourself at risk of libel suits and getting busted by the District, couldn’t you at least be a little more original? Christ.
Hot on the heels of publishing yesterday’s Visalia Dick post, we decided to be adventurous and ask him if he’d like to be interviewed, over the privacy of Facebook, for a short piece here. And he accepted!
Is it hard-hitting journalism? Well, no. We’re not winning a Pulitzer for Investigative Reporting anytime soon, nor do we need to. (You guys are welcome to give us Pulitzer Prizes for any other category, though..)
He seems like a very nice person, despite what El Diamante and the Police Department want you to think. He even linked us on his Facebook page, and we didn’t even ask — honest.
Us: How did the site start, and where did you get the idea for it?
VD: “Well it started because too many people in this town are bullying others as well as laughing at others… but I notice that THESE people cant take being laughed at nor can they laugh at themselves. Visalia needed that to change.”
Us: What have been the reactions that people have messaged you about the site? I know there are a lot of people who find it funny – have you gotten any threats or stuff, too?
VD: “Alot of the messages are mostly people telling me that they respect and support what I am doing. And a vast majority is also just friends wanting to laugh at their friends, so they request them with some information to add to the given image. And yes I have received alot of hate mail. Everything from death threats to police threats. But these messages only come from the people who DONT know what this site is about. They dont care to ask. “Ignorance is not the best way to point a finger.”"
Us: Are you worried about your identity being found out by El D’s Administration and/or by the Police Department? Obviously El D can’t touch you if you’re not a current student, and the Police Department may very well not have any legal basis to do anything to you, but do you still worry?
VD: “Of course I worry about being in trouble over what I originally wanted to be a FUN joke. But Like stated before, people who dont know what my site is about, are the people who want it down. I have a LEGAL right to block my IP as well as my freedom of speech. SLANDER is not in my work nor is breaking copyright law. I willingly take down ANYONES image if they dont want it on my blog. Visalia DICK or not…. I can still respect peoples wishes.”
Us: To that end, are you also worried about any of this backfiring on you if someone were to launch a libel suit over content posted on the page?
VD: “Well lawsuit is a whole other world. Not too much can be done if I am not breaking laws. As of now I currently understand I havent broken any yet. And I dont plan to in the future.”
Us: People have started to say content’s getting stale. What do you plan to do to liven it up – or do you still plan to even keep the site up much longer at all?
VD: “I will personally NEVER take this site down on my own. However I cannot help it if the site owner [Facebook, Blogspot] does. And to be honest my content has gotten SOFT in my eyes… not stale.. only because the people on my blog think I am a bit too harsh.”
Us: How much of your content would you say is original (that you’ve written) versus requests (that you’ve gotten from other people) – and how many requests do you think you’ve gotten, approximately? How many of those have you filled, and how many more are waiting to be filled?
VD: “Well the majority of it in the beginning was mostly me just bagging on funny images that people had sent in to me. But people would gradually give me things to add to anothers BIO. Which also lets people wander whats TRUE and not. Shouldnt matter anyways, its all for laughs.
And as for the amount of requests… I can say it reaches around 400 in all. Alot I never consider due to lack of information. (hard to keep up on fresh ideas) but I get a good 100 messages a day, and 20% are requests. I fulfill a good amount but some get asked to be taken off. Respectfully I oblige.”
Us: Willing to give us any hints to keep us guessing as to who Visalia’s Visalia Dick really is?
VD: “I cant give any hints. But I can proudly say I walk among ALOT of my “haters” with a smile on my face.”
Us: Anything you would like to say to your adoring public?
VD: “For all the HATERS – Ask questions first, prosecute me later if you still have hard feelings.
For all the LOVERS – Thank you for growing a pair, and learning how to laugh. I respect that.”
PREVIOUSLY: Visalia Dick, and the furor surrounding
UPDATE: Visalia’s Burn Books – in summation
UPDATE #2: KSEE24 looks into Visalia’s Burn Book.
So.
What got 834 friends in a matter of a week or so, is talked about by everyone at all four high schools, and is reviled by half of Visalia, loved by another half, and not cared about by a third half? (I failed math. Stop whining.)
Visalia Dick.
Here’s the basics.
The interesting.
Another student, meanwhile, describes being called into the office at El Diamante by assistant principal Jeff Brown (In this bio that lists precisely none of his responsibilities at El Diamante, he says enjoys hunting.. perhaps hunting bloggers? Should we be worried? We’re going into hiding now.) and “a sheriff”, and being asked to arrange to meet V.D. by both.
(We have taken the screenshot that was here down preemptively as well. It was not captured off of someone’s profile; rather, we used the Facebook Search feature and then hit “Posts by Everyone” — a feature worth checking out!)
I am writing to inform you that the Visalia PD has been notified about
the content of your website/blog. Please immediately discontinue
harassing/slandering students, especially Redwood students since our
campus cop is investigating your project.
See, the problem here is no one gets to take the moral high ground unless they understand the difference between libel and slander, the end.
(Whitney students wouldn’t get this wrong.)
He also seems to be a bit worried about the prospect of the Police Department finding out who he is, too:
And the rest of the stuff..
Well, this is not for you.
Of course, if you know anything — text the tipline at (559) 759-6397. And if you’re an El Diamante administrator, you’re welcome to reply to that email we sent any time.
UPDATE #1: A Facebook Interview with the illustrious ‘Visalia Dick’
UPDATE #2: Visalia’s burn books – in summation.
UPDATE #3: KSEE24 looks into Visalia’s Burn Book.
So, if you haven’t already heard, there’s a new tardy policy. It’s pretty interesting at best, and horrible at worst. Depends on your outlook.
We took the new Student-Parent Handbook a few days ago (read: before Pioneer Day) and thought nothing of the statement contained in it:
Possible revisions may be made to the tardy policy for the upcoming 2010-2011 school year.
Of course, that’s because we didn’t expect anything drastic to come up. Nothing was mentioned before the end of the year last year regarding new tardy policies, and there were no rumblings that indicated any shakeups would happen.
But! Lo and behold, yesterday people got letters in the mail that clearly outlined a new tardy policy that, while it sounds clear enough on the surface, almost certainly has multiple levels of complication in execution. (Oh, and they used Comic Sans, of all fonts. We had some seizures because of that but we’re fine now.)
At a glance it seems simple enough: if you’re late, you get lunch detention the following week. If you’re late for 1st or 5th period, you get holes punched in your ID card and after the third punch (and every punch after) your ID card is taken away for a week.
Read on to learn more about the policy and see why we think the policy is doomed to fail.