This is one story where I’m sure there’s a lot more below the surface and behind the screen.
Draven Rodriguez, 17, from Schenectady, New York (not far from where I grew up), committed suicide at home on Thursday, Jan. 19, according to his parents. He initially became famous for creating an intentionally cheesy portrait of himself with laser beams and a former stray cat, which went viral.
From the Albany (N.Y.) Times-Union:
“He wasn’t trying to stir things up with it,” said [Rodriguez’ stepfather, Jonathan] Stewart. “He honestly just wanted a silly photo because he had a great sense of humor.” Working with Schenectady-based photographer Vincent Giordano, Rodriguez created an intentionally cheesy, laser-streaked portrait of himself holding Mr. Bigglesworth, a long, bushy stray cat who’d gotten into the family home and never left. Anticipating resistance from the school to his desire to have it included among the senior class’ formal portraits, Rodriguez posted the photo online to garner support. It blazed around the Internet and was mentioned by Jimmy Fallon in a “Tonight Show” monologue and by talk-show host Ellen Degeneres.
Citing school policy, Schenectady High’s principal, Diane Wilkinson, rejected it for the portraits section but participated in the making of a similar photo in which she posed with her rescue Chihuahua, Rodriguez, and he with Mr. Bigglesworth. It will get its own page in the yearbook with a message about the importance of adopting pets through shelters and rescue organizations. Stewart said Friday he believed the page still would be in the yearbook.
Rodriguez’s Facebook posts ranged from thoughts on world affairs to struggling with the lid on a jar of peanut butter to his latest efforts on guitar, all delivered with proper spelling and punctuation, including a correct deployment of hyphens that was atypical for someone his age.
Looking at his lightly used Twitter account, Rodriguez seemed to be interested in pop culture and science, following people from Trent Reznor of the band Nine Inch Nails, to the TV show “Breaking Bad,” to scientists and pop-culture personalities Bill Nye and Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
According to Stewart, Rodriguez had many friends and varied interests.
Faith is not mentioned in the articles about Rodriguez, and the Times-Union says that funeral arrangements have yet to be finalized.
There’s no value in making pronouncements about the inner pain of a teenage boy or his family, so I won’t. But I do wonder about the aftereffect of his photo lighting up social media and the Internet and causing a flurry of press interest to descend on Rodriguez.
The media stories are amused and mostly benign, but there’s no telling what he heard via social media, where the devils of people’s natures often run free.
According to a post at RawStory.com:
For that photograph, Rodriguez was honored by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Animal Protective Foundation of Schenectady. At the time of his death, he was also involved in a local anti-bullying initiative.
Millions of kids (myself included) were bullied. That was bad enough, but with social media, the bullying never ends — it follows kids into their phones and computers, through photos and postings that are flashed worldwide and live forever on the Internet.
I don’t know if bullying contributed to Rodriguez’s death, but all of us should remember that every word we see on social media has a living, breathing soul behind it. And if we must answer to God for all the sins we commit against people we actually see, we’ll answer just as much for sins against those on the other side of a screen.
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