What About the Boyfriend in a Closet and the Biggest Question for Dr. Phil?

“I picture that young living brain in my hands again pulsating to the vibrations of what I think I want to call the Media Monster. A bigger question crosses my mind about how to protect teenage girls from falling prey to this giant clown face with its cavernous mouth feeding off Celtie Selfies, power-tripping them, stuffing them with stuff the crowds want to see, rather than something that will benefit them as an individual.” Excerpt from Teen Girl Faces Time in the Sand

I do not regularly watch Dr. Phil … lack of time, depressing topics of families hitting rock bottom in full frontal view of the world. But when I do, I am always impressed how he can turn around the most bitter vibes of accusations and dysfunctional relationships to get both sides talking with reasonable tones when focus is on regaining personal traction and truths. Given a choice, don’t most of us want to choose to be better?

But I did pay attention to one show called Social Media Meltdown Parenting Gone Wild. It centered on two mothers who were live streaming, or posting videos, for what they thought was for their private audience of social media friends; but which reached over 100 million combined views due to the voracious media’s nature of seeing vengeful feedback verging on psychotic.

Dr. Phil was interested why these women’s buttons were pushed but I was interested in how this giant social media circus swallowed them by the millions and spat out their bones according to their tastes.

Late one night, the first mother knocked on the door of her 17-year-old daughter’s bedroom and found a 20-year-old boyfriend hiding in her closet! Out whipped her cellphone with video and out came the most profanity infused dialogue with the furious mother overcome that her daughter and a visitor were exercising a forbidden dalliance which may be followed on Snapchat but not in her scope of upbringing. How would you feel about this?

Yes, the case can be made that a mother’s disappointment is justified, but what degree of virulent anger and condemnation needs to be posted for other people to stare at, share and maybe joke about? Who looks for this kind of volatile distress for what purpose?