Dear Loyal Readers,
Welcome to October. Thank you for being here.
In just a moment, I’ll reveal this month’s featured article. But before that, two things:
If you’re a newish subscriber: Since January 2020, I’ve chosen one article every month for a deep dive. Folks who are interested read it, annotate it, and discuss it. The author generously records a podcast interview. It’s been fun.
A small celebration: This will be our 51st article of the month. 🎉 I’m very appreciative of the 150 of you and the 51 authors who have participated.
If you’ve never participated (that is to say, most of you), you’re invited. We’re a kind, thoughtful reading community. I think you’ll enjoy it.
All right, let’s get down to business. I’m excited to announce this month’s article: “The Sextortion of Teenage Boys” Written by Olivia Carville and published in Bloomberg, the article is equal parts devastating and crucial to read, especially if you’re an educator or a parent of teenagers.
In short: I have no problem reading depressing articles. If you’ve subscribed to Article Club for a while, you understand this about me. But this piece was at a different level. In parts, not only was it sad, it was frightening.
Here’s what you can expect in today’s issue:
My blurb about this month’s article
A short biography about the author
A podcast interview with the author
What you need to do if you’d like to participate
Are you already confident that you’d like to join? All you need to do is click on the button below and sign up. 📖
1️⃣ The Sextortion Of Teenage Boys
First, a warning: This article is sad and disturbing. It discusses the suicide of Jordan DeMay, a 17-year-old senior at Marquette Senior High School in Michigan. Jordan played football and basketball and was the school’s homecoming king.
One Instagram message: That was all it took for scammers in Nigeria to convince Jordan DeMay that they were a sexy, innocent girl named Dani who liked to flirt and play “sexy games.” After sending a naked photo, Dani asked for one in return. Jordan’s decision to reciprocate cost him his life.
Even though this is a harrowing story, I found myself riveted and could not put my phone down before finishing the article. Professor Olivia Carville does an outstanding job reporting on the latest horrible technology trend: the sextortion of boys. She also follows Jordan’s family’s response to the tragedy, as well as puts the blame on Meta, other social media companies, and Congress for allowing these horrors to continue.
By Olivia Carville • Bloomberg • 26 min • Gift Link
✚ This article is free, but Bloomberg requires you to register your email. You can use the gift link above (made possible by paid subscribers). But for the full experience, which involves multimedia, I recommend the original link.
⭐️ About the author
Olivia Carville is an investigative reporter at Bloomberg News. She writes about the intersection of child safety and the digital world for Businessweek magazine. Ms. Carville is president of the New York Financial Writers' Association and an adjunct professor at Columbia Journalism School, where she teaches investigative reporting techniques.
Ms. Carville studied business and economics reporting at Columbia Journalism School in 2017. Prior to moving to the United States, she was working as a multi-media investigative reporter at the largest daily newspapers in both Canada and New Zealand. Ms. Carville’s stories influenced legislation in both countries.
⭐️ About the interview
I’m always grateful that authors agree to do an interview for Article Club. I was deeply appreciative of Ms. Carville’s persistence and determination. It took us several tries and several months to schedule the interview, but Ms. Carville never gave up. I’m happy she didn’t, because the perspective she shared is very important.
In our conversation, we discussed a number of topics about her article, including:
why Ms. Carville decided to write this article
how she protects her subjects’ dignity and sense of control in her reporting
how this piece affected her personally
what we can do to educate our youth about sextortion
I encourage you to listen to the interview if you have the time. Thank you!
🙋🏽♀️ Interested? Here’s what’s next.
You are certainly welcome to read the article, listen to the interview, and call it a day. But if you’re intrigued, if you’re interested, you might want to discuss this article in more depth with other kind, thoughtful people.
If you sign up, I’ll be sure to get you all the info you need, including the Zoom link and what you can expect from the discussion.
If this will be your first time participating in Article Club, I’m 100% sure you’ll find that you’ll feel welcome. We’re a kind, thoughtful reading community.
What do you think? Interested? All you need to do is sign up below. Or reach out with all of your questions.
Thank you for reading and listening to this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀
To all of our 10 new subscribers — including Lav, Leo, Og'abek, Ingrid, Gurur, Mike, Deborah, and Viv — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. To our long-time subscribers (Janice! Janet! Jeanette!), you’re pretty great, too. Loyal reader Wanda, thank you for getting the word out.
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#464: The Sextortion of Teenage Boys