You Made Your Bed, Now Kill Yourself

The Internet is a fucked up place. Well, it can be.
You make one mistake and people will destroy you. Nameless, faceless people, but people nonetheless.
You cheat on your boyfriend and get caught? Prepare to be called every name in the book. And if that name-calling causes you to try something you can't take back, like suicide, don't expect apologies from the name-callers. You brought this on yourself, remember, by cheating.
This unfortunate situation arose where Kyrie Irving's girlfriend cheated on him. Or it was his ex-girlfriend and she, therefore, didn't cheat. But it was definitely the first scenario, according to Internet detectives who did no actual detective work and just chose to assume the juicier scenario.
Anyway, this woman, Kehlani, supposedly cheated on Irving with an ex. When he posted a picture of what appeared to be the two of them in bed, the Internet went crazy. Never mind the fact that 90 percent of these people had no idea who she was. All they knew was that she (allegedly) cheated on a famous athlete. Kill her.
Sadly, these Internet warriors for truth and justice, i.e. trolls, were so callous in their comments that Kehlani attempted suicide. It's not the fact that they just assumed she had cheated, it's the fact that they felt it was their place to talk about it (even though, again, 90 percent had no clue who she was). She (allegedly) made one mistake.
Has no one ever made a mistake? When you cheat on your diet by having a cookie, do you get ripped apart with terrible names, names so disgusting that you want to kill yourself? When you cheat on a test, do you get shamed so badly that you want to kill yourself?
Everyone has made a mistake. Most of us make many every day.
These Internet warriors for truth and justice said that attacking her was OK because she cheated. They felt no sympathy, even though she attempted suicide, because she cheated. You make one mistake and you deserve to die, sayeth these bastions of the American way. It's sickening to think that one mistake, especially something as commonplace as infidelity can't be forgiven. (Not that any of us have to forgive her, since she didn't (allegedly) cheat on us.)
Maybe the saddest thing, amazingly, has nothing to do with feeling no empathy or sympathy for someone who attempted suicide. Maybe it's the idea that if the famous (male) athlete had cheated, he would have received high-fives and daps and slaps on the back from these same Internet warriors.
It would have been a lot of "your the man" and "get it" and "thats what she gets for tryna get wifed up" (these warriors tend to have terrible grammar and no grasp of the English language). But if a woman dare cheat on her famous boyfriend, then she's a "thot," a "ho," a "skank." What, men can't be hoes?
It would be a nice change of pace if, instead of tearing someone down for a mistake, we built them up. Instead of reminding them of the one bad thing they did, we reminded them that everyone does something stupid. We could tell them they're not alone. We could advise them to move on and keep trying to be the best person they can be.
Everyone deserves a shot at redemption . . . even on the Internet.