It took place last weekend and Eminem headlined
But in the days that followed, it was not Eminem who grabbed headlines but a young girl from the west of Ireland
She was found alone, distressed and in tears among the concert goers who had traveled to Slane Castle last Sunday evening
The concert had past without event up until about 9.30pm when gardai were alerted that a girl had been subjected to a serious sexual assault
At first details were sketchy
The 17 year old didn't know who had assaulted her and insisted that she wanted to return to her friends in the crowd
The girl was moved to a first aid tent and then on to the sexual assault unit in the midlands
Her parents were contacted
Although very upset, the girl wouldn't consent to a medical examination and was released in to the care of her shocked parents
The following night images of the same girl preforming sex acts on two boys began to circulate on line along with an image of the girl kissing one of the boys with his hand in her crotch
In the photos their faces are clearly visible and and they are in a very public place with many people standing around watching
The boy has in arms in the air as if to say 'I'm the man!'
The images went viral and later that night a friend of the girl inadvertently named her on line
Attempts to protect the girl's identity were doomed to failure
'Slanegirl' as she was now being called, trended on Twitter and rapidly spread across Facebook and Twitter
And of course everyone had an opinion
The poor girl was the victim of a slew of abusive and downright nasty comments
The boys were barely mentioned and of they were they were deemed a hero
Slanegirl was called a 'slut', a 'tramp' and every derogatory name under the sun
She became the butt of endless offensive jokes
Eventually the gardai decided to act on humanitarian grounds and made contact with Facebook Twitter and Google urging them to remove the images
Within 24 hours all images had vanished and any that just showed their faces were blocked
The story broke last Monday while I was away so it is only now that I am catching up
I've since heard that the girl was admitted to hospital in a stated of distress and had to be sedated
I can't imagine what she is going through right now
This country is so small so I'm pretty sure that everyone has heard about it if not seen the photos
She must be beyond mortified
And the sad thing is that as she is deemed a slut, the boys are praised
It's so hypocritical and messed up
This girls's reputation is now is ruins
That's the thing about reputations
It takes years to earn a good reputation and minutes to destroy one
She will never hear the end of this and the story seems to run and run
But what has she actually done wrong?
She gave someone a blow job
That wasn't crime the last time I checked
An act that has been preformed since time began
I guess what is so shocking about this story is that she was so young
Obviously extremely drunk
And she engaged in this behavior in the most public of places
Concerts in this country especially a certain type of music, have always been a place where people get trashed and make some pretty bad decisions
What is the difference here?
The difference is that is was captured on camera and put up on a global notice board
I'm sure this girl was not intending for that to happen and is now wishing that she could turn back time and change last Sundays events
But I think the real crime is that the public seemed to take on a mob mentality and totally condemned this young girl
People who shared this image made no consideration for this girls feelings
It was just a funny photo to them
Apparently it was a girl who uploaded the photo in the first place and a a lot of the negative comments were from females
That's the thing with technology these days
Yes, it is fantastic to have such advances such as camera phones etc
But along with these advances comes the reality that anything we do, anything we say, any mistake we make can be captured on camera, uploaded on to the internet for everyone and their mother to see and there it stays for eternity
After reading about this story I started to think about myself and had anything like this ever happened to me
I guess I am lucky as when I was a young teenager there was no Facebook or Twitter
Any mistakes I made (and there have been many) are all but a memory filed away in the back of my mind
The only time I can remember something like this happening was when I was about 18
I was at a friend's house party
I was wrecked and went to bed with my then boyfriend
One of the girls was filming with a camcorder and she came in to the room where we were
Even though we were doing nothing, we were still captured on camera in bed and I remember thinking 'Shit, I hope no one sees this' as it could have misconstrued
To my knowledge no one did see the tape but if that happened today it could have been a very different story
Another event springs to mind
I was 14 years old and me and my cousins were staying with my uncle up north
My 16 years cousin and her friend were going out one night and my mother allowed me to go with them
I had nothing to wear so I went shopping with my mother where I bought a see through white dress with a white bra and hot pants underneath
To my innocent 14 year old eyes it was just a cute dress
But now looking back I can see that it was extremely revealing and risque
That night we got drunk before heading to the club
I got very very drunk
It was my first time in an adult night club and I was getting quite a lot of male attention
I wonder why??
Because I was so drunk I kissed alot of boys
In my mind they were just kissed but it was clear that some of the boys wanted more
If that had happened today would people have filmed me as I bounced from boy to boy?
Probably
I feel so bad for this girl
She is a victim of a generation where nothing happens with out an accompanying photo and Facebook post
And of course the whole 'Should the internet be censored?' debate is being discussed up and down the country
Personally I don't think that it should be censored but surely there is a line when it concerns someone under the age of 18
Some are crying out that this photo is child pornography
But the legal definition of child porn is Ireland stipulates those who feature in such images are 16 or under
It's a mine field really
But I am glad that the images were remove even if it did take a few days and the intervention of the Guards
So where does Slanegirl go from here?
Will she return to school or college next month?
Will she even be able to?
Will she want to?
If it was me I would be crumbling
I would be hiding under my bed or moving to a country where there is no internet (is there even such a country?)
But I still believe that she did nothing wrong
Yes she made a stupid mistake
And boy is she paying for it
But who hasn't made a stupid mistake in their lives
Not I that's for sure
It's just so unfortunate that so many people 'shared and shamed'
To quote another tweeter 'Let those without sin retreat the next photo'
I was wondering about you?
Have you ever been captured on camera doing something you really regret doing?
What do you think about Slanegirl?
Do you feel sorry for her or do you think it was her own fault?
I'd love to know what you think
