195 days

Helen A.S. Popkin

Tumblr infected with Justin Bieber-fueled rage

Flanked by a SWAT team in full body armor, Detectives Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler of New York City's Special Victim's Unit swarmed Tumblr's Manhattan offices, armed with a warrant demanding the identification of the user of the popular blog platform who graphically threatened the life of Justin Bieber's ex girlfriend.

That’s how it happens in my "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" spec script anyway.

It didn’t go down like that in real life, obviously. Everyone knows Det. Stabler took early retirement last season after shooting that one girl in the line of duty. Alas, the real Bieber story — as with so many things on the Internet, especially things posted on TMZ — is actually kind of depressing.

Threats to skin alive Caitlin Beadles in her bed, accompanied by statements that the perp had cameras on the singer/actor 24/7, apparently came from a 14-year-old developmentally disabled girl living in Kentucky, TMZ reports.

Her identity was discovered after the Los Angeles Police Department issued a warrant to search Tumblr for the IP address associated with threats posted under the Tumblr user name, KILLSGANDCB. (TMZ helpfully points out that the nom de plume no doubt means kill Bieber’s current squeeze, Selena Gomez and ex, Caitlin Beadles. At least Mariah Yeater's initials can breathe a sigh of relief — the warrant’s Sept. 22 date occurred before Yeater publically accused the Biebs of being her Baby Daddy.)

Before you judge this girl harshly, remember: It’s common knowledge that the 10 percent of the Internet not composed of cats is made entirely of Justin Bieber-inspired death threats.

Over the summer, Bieber's defenders took to Twitter to threaten bodily harm against someone — maybe a cop, possibly a "crazed fan" — who allegedly brutally attacked the Canadian idol or something outside Macy's Herald Square in Manhattan, where the kid was shilling his new Bieber-branded stink juice, "Someone." 

Before that, Kim Kardashian, Selena Gomez, Esperanza Spalding (who foolishly beat out Bieber for the"Best New Artist" Grammy), Greg Leuch (the dude who made ShavedBieber, the Firefox extension that blocks Bieber on the Internet) and that one girl who foolishly tore up the Justin Bieber poster on YouTube, were all briefly targets of Bieber-fan ire.

Why, if warrants were issued to investigate every Bieber-fueled death threat on the Internet, there’d be no official left to allegedly pepper-spray protesters at any of the Occupy movements nationwide. As it is, TMZ reports that the LAPD contacted KILLSGANDB’s mom, “who is now closely monitoring her Internet activities.”

Would that parents of adolescents everywhere do the same!

More on the annoying way we live now:

• Justin Bieber's 'attacker' dead ... if tweets could kill
• Bieber fans go on Grammy-fueled Wikipedia rampage
• Justin Bieber army invades Instagram
• Teen survives Justin Bieber-inspired death threats

Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about the Internet. Tell her to get a real job on Twitter and/or Facebook. Also, Google+.