The premise that Facebook and Social Media ruins lives is old news. (See my #SlaneGirl post) If you utilize social media in a non-strategically smart way, it has the ability to bring your entire world crumbling down in an instant. Yes, we hear a lot more about news of celebrities and their questionable instagram pictures, but have you noticed how much social media and Facebook posts have been added to news stories these days? Or when someone commits a horrible crime or something unusual, they will reference an ambiguous status of the offender that they wrote, just 3 hours prior? Social Media’s power has grown exponentially.

Well one of my favorite holidays, Halloween, has just passed and as such the lives of some were most definitely ruined. If not, at the very least they are experiencing the virtual finger wagging from millions of anonymous people in the internets that be. Which is pretty much the same thing. Let’s explore.

Behold Halloween’s 2013 biggest fails, and now national headlines:
• Meet Caitlin Cimeno who let her sons dress up as Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman. Please note, if you’re going to Instagram everything in your life (as I do) anyone can track you down AND where you work. This is exactly what happened to her and Cimeno is now jobless.

• Next we have Alicia Ann Lynch, who thought dressing up as a Boston Marathon survivor was giving them respect in a way. While the jury is still out on that, she is also now jobless. Unfortunately in this case, Alicia is now the victim of public out of control cyber bullying (of which I do not condone), death threats to her and her family, and even a victim of found and circulated nude pictures of her across the Internet.

London girls dress as burning towers

• Lastly, we have Amber Langford and Annie Collinge. These 19-year-old Brits dressed up as the burning World Trade Towers. Including fake fire, planes crashing, and people jumping to their death. To boot, they also won “Best Costume” at the attending party. While these girls are college students and may not have any adult repercussions, having made this front page of the London paper The Sun, I highly doubt they’re going to live this one down anytime soon.

While I fully support people’s rights to post any opinions/articles/thoughts on any worldy news, these are just unfortunate examples of insensitivity and social media gone wrong. Nowadays, something you think is just your fun, everyday check-in of your life, can easily turn you into someone with no job, no friends, and the laughing stock of a random school in Australia who will put up your news stories to remind young children what not thinking twice can do. Be Safe!