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| Jessie Slaughter was the victim of a cruel meme. Picture: Instagram |
A GIRL, who was turned into a viral meme, has opened up on how it has destroyed her life.
“You dun goofed!” was the line that turned 11-year-old Jessi Slaughter into an internet meme in 2010.
The youngster posted a lengthy video talking about her “haters” and her looks on YouTube, The Sun reports.
But when she posted another clip showing her dad, Gene Leonhardt, defending his crying daughter by screaming into the camera — the internet turned on them.
Not only was she trolled online and received death threats but was turned into a meme which made her life a living hell.
Now 17, Jessi, who now identifies as Damien, told Buzzfeed about how the viral video, which was viewed more than one million times, changed her life.
She said: “I kind of lost all my friends and had to make new friends.
“I had a clique of friends — the emo kids — in sixth grade, and none of them wanted anything to do with me after.”
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| Jessie Slaughter lost her group of friends after the meme went viral. Picture: InstagramSource:Instagram |
The allegation triggered bullies on file-sharing website 4chan to endlessly harass her.
But if that wasn’t enough to deal with, Damien was shortly placed into foster care after her dad punched her mum.
“My dad was really abusive toward me and my mum,” she recalled. “You kind of saw the anger issues with him [in the video], and that put extra stress on the family, which made him even angrier.”
A year later, he died of a heart attack and she moved back in with her mum in a small town in Florida.
She is now an active user on blogging site Tumblr, where she offers advice and tips to others with dealing with harassment.
The teen added: “I want to use my experiences to help other people, and also to help myself grow as a person and to get more involved with things that can help other people.”
This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission
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