What happens when you are too pretty and too athletic and someone notices?
An 18-year old high school pole vaulter, through no fault of her own, learned what happens the hard way.
Minding her own business and just trying to win California state pole vaulting titles,
1. someone took a picture of her adjusting her hair at a track meet in NYC and put it on the Internet.
2. Suddenly she had 1,000 new messages on her MySpace page. A three minute video found its way onto Youtube and was viewed 150,000 times.
3. Someone else put her picture on a California football message board and dozens of bloggers started posting her image. 100s of thousands of viewers later and now the young lady gets started at in coffee shops, doesn't leave home alone, and looks out for stalkers.
4. Then a big time = 1,000,000 visitors a month, posted her picture to a crowd of 18-35 year old males. 20 message boards and 30 blogs copied that link.
5. A search of her name on Yahoo! revealed 300,000+ hits.
6. Double the usual photographers started showing up to watch her vault.
7. International rags wanted to do photo shoots.
8. She became the background image on computers.
9. Unofficial fan sites with a slideshow and a fan group of 1,000 members on MySpace developed.
10. Sexual fantasies were posted next to her photo on message boards and in chat rooms.
11. Fake profiles, identity lost.
Almost...
She can still vault...she can set school records...she can win state meets...she can be recruite by the likes of Harvard, Stanford and UCLA.
But one thing she cannot do...she cannot defeat the Internet.
I have her picture but decided to not post it. It can be found at the Washington Post link that I read to write this. I won't do her the disservice of posting it here.
How about...we just give the kids a break.
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