that kid who became an internet porn star...

[Auggie27]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 10:00am

...All over the media yesterday, culminating with an appearance on Larry King. He's now quite literally the poster boy/walking cautionary tale for the seamier subrosa life of the internet, apparently.

I am more than startled by the odd focus of this "story." When he was 13 he was left alone in his room with a web cam? Got money in the mail daily for disrobing and masterbating for web pervs? Without anyone knowing? When Larry asked how much money he made, he stated he couldn't answer, on advice of his attny. Huh?

This is a story about a child -- and childhood -- ignored by shamefully inattentive, negligent parents. The web angle is a mere lurid symptom, not the problem. And we learned on King that his father later pimped for him, when they were living in Mexico, so the web cam could pick up shots of him with a hooker? Needless to say, this tale, sad, sorry, smarmy, is a unique one about a particular child in a particularly devastating domestic situation. I'm not sure what we're supposed to glean from it as a universal moral, except: if you're a lousy parent who sticks your 13 year old behind a computer 24/7, and later hired whores to enhance his web profile, you'll eventually be found out.

Updated On: 4/5/06 at 10:00 AM

[Jane2]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 10:02am

I'm not touching this with a ten foot pole.

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 10:06am

I was an internet port star.

[Elphaba]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 10:07am

I've been a port in a storm.....

Updated On: 4/5/06 at 10:07 AM

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 10:11am

i saw this a coupla weeks ago, auggie. it was dateline or something that did it and it was just creepy. i think that was the same night that they did their sting where they lured men online to a house in new jersey supposedly to meet a 14 year old boy for sex. what i couldn't believe was the fact that some of the guys were willing to have their faces shown on freakin' national television. unless it was part of a plea deal...

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 10:13am

Can "investigative journalism" be used as part of a sting operation?

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 10:15am

i'm sorry, auggie, i know we're getting a bit off track here and i apologize. i doubt that they can actively take part, bway, but if they were to turn their evidence over to the cops afterwards? couldn't it be used as part of a case against the guys snared in their web of lies?

[Auggie27]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 10:24am

Papa, threadjack if you must, it's fine by me. I don't get this kid's case, as I posted. It's being presented as if any kid could fall into this particular trap, ignoring the extreme dysfunction and neglect (and abuse, later) in his home. As a symbolic case study of the evils of the internet, it fails, IMO. It's about sad boy and a particularly icky set of parents. Again, my advice to avoid this in your own home, parents: don't let a 13 year old sit around for hours in front of a web cam. AND take the mail in first every day to pull his thousands of dollars of checks, AND then ... don't move to Mexico with him and find him sex partners. Jeesh, such a classic American family story. Who can't relate? June, your Beaver ... is somebody else's beaver.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 10:26am

i agree, auggie. the way i saw it portrayed was much less of a "it can happen to you" and more of a "look what this kid managed to do!"

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 10:30am

I saw that sting operation on Dateline a few months ago. I was actually in St. Thomas...it was so creepy!
Every time the guy knocked on the door, the decoy yelled from the other room "I'm just brushing my teeth!" Then these pigs would come in put the beer and condoms on the kitchen counter...

This poor kid is f'd up. I agree, Auggie, that as bad as the predator's were, this is hardly an indictment of the internet...I hate to think what kind of trouble I would've gotten into w/ a webcam instead of self esteem and parents like that.

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 10:31am

I just hated how it portrayed the kid as totally an unwilling party in it all. I just don't buy that. It's not like he was 3 years old.

[Jane2]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 10:56am

"I just hated how it portrayed the kid as totally an unwilling party in it all. I just don't buy that. It's not like he was 3 years old"

I made the same observation months ago when we discussed this after the kid appeared on Oprah. I was blasted to kingdom come for ever entertaining the thought. I think I actually made enemies here to this day because I dared speculate what you just said.

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 11:00am

If it's the same kid (who, by the way, Auggie, didn't live with his dad. His dad found out about it and started pimping him out, so his dad is not who began the whole thing through his inattentiveness), I read an article a few months ago in the NY Times. It sounded to me like the kid just enjoyed doing it, frankly, and saw it as easy money. And, given the great lengths to which he went to hide his activities, he was certainly not unwilling.

Papa, that's what I would think, too, but I guess my whole point was that it's a bit, well, twisted of a news channel to use THAT as a sticking point to get some idiot bloke to agree to the use of his unaltered image in the program.

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 11:02am

There was already quite a discussion about this...
http://www.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.cfm?boardname=off&thread=887134#1912479

[RobbO]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 11:11am

erik, pay attention. this is about a port star. the other link is about a porn star. it's a big difference.

[Jane2]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 11:12am

"It sounded to me like the kid just enjoyed doing it, frankly, and saw it as easy money."

this is what I thought could be the case, but I kept saying I hope it wasn't. I still received hateful responses for daring to suggest he wasn't an entirely innocent victim.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 11:17am

There is just something fishy about this whole thing. Is this kid's name J.T. Leroy by any chance?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 11:21am

A true Port star

[Auggie27]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 11:22am

I appreciate the clarification, but don't seen the major distinction as to when the child was pimped and by whom. These parents, collectively, during the web cam years and later were all anything but blame-free. And neither is this kid.

And yes Jane, sometimes I think "victims" should also be discussed as children with (bad) behavior issues. I'm a bleeding heart liberal who holds some very old school beliefs about the degree to which teenagers are left adrift these days. And how he acts...once adrift.

A teen who allows himself to be exploited should be counseled, yes, but also held accountable for his string of bad choices. We cannot just look at his "pain." He was class president who had no other friends? So he started stripping for cash on line to make a few friend, er, bucks? Whatever happened to working a the grocery store, or Burger King (my teen job). I'm simply not buying MO as having happened in an innocent vacuum. We should also look at how manipulative, scheming, and monitarily self-serving he was to turn a cure for his "loneliness" into a lucrative mini business. Was he expoited? To be sure. Did he play a role in it? Absolutely.

Updated On: 4/5/06 at 11:22 AM

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 11:29am

My personal port star. Although the '94 Cockburn is pretty fantastic (or will be in a few years).

Updated On: 4/5/06 at 11:29 AM

[Jane2]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 11:30am

Auggie-what added to my opinion was seeing this kid on tv for one hour. To me, he did not come off as an innocent child. Besides his cute little-boy hair style, he had some nervous twitches each time he answered a question that made me think he may not have been entirely truthful. Ås I said a million times-I could be wrong but this whole thing didn't ring true to me.