A bunch of eighth graders in a “wealthy Philadelphia suburb” recently targeted teachers with an extreme online harassment campaign that The New York Times reported was “the first known group TikTok attack of its kind by middle schoolers on their teachers in the United States.”
According to The Times, the Great Valley Middle School students created at least 22 fake accounts impersonating about 20 teachers in offensive ways. The fake accounts portrayed long-time, dedicated teachers sharing “pedophilia innuendo, racist memes,” and homophobic posts, as well as posts fabricating “sexual hookups among teachers.”
it’s not really a joke to label a private citizen as a pedophile through impersonation
This was impersonation on the level of “hey look at me, I’m funkless_eck, I’m a pedophile! dur dur dur” not some attempt to make it seem like those teachers were actually pedophiles.
regardless, as a parent and educator, it would be an important lesson to teach wrt boundaries and acceptable behavior
Yeah I’d say it’s equivalent to any other inappropriate joke a kid might tell - a moment for a conversation but not anything too serious.