As if I needed another reason not to like the influencer "culture"

 As you can imagine, I'm not a big fan of Stand Your Ground laws, which seem to pretty much let anyone justify killing someone by claiming they feared for their life. As in George Zimmerman taking the life of Trayvon Martin, who was armed with nothing more than Skittles and Arizona Iced Tea.

Not surprisingly, the spread of Stand Your Ground laws - 27 states now have them - has been linked to an increase in homicide rates. (Source: CNN)

Yet if anyone's been justified in standing his ground, it's probably Rob Majury. He's a retired cop who, in 2020, shot a shotgun wielding 18 year old who blew a hole in the Majurys' front door. While his wife called 911, Majury chased after the kid, but tripped and fell. Majury went back to his house to wait for the police to arrive, when Eric Rohan Justin (in some accounts referred to as Eric Rohan Johnson), shotgun still in hand, returned to the Majurys. He was warned to put the gun down but, instead, pointed it at Rob Majury, who shot and killed Justin.

We can argue all we want about whether there's a better way, about whether Majury should have shot to wound rather than kill, etc. 

But I don't think there are a lot of people who, if someone had just shot a hole through their front door, and then - still armed - came back to complete whatever he'd set out to do, wouldn't have expected the worst and done whatever they could to protect their family. In this case, Rob Majury's wife and three kids. One of who is social media influencer Ava Majury. The young man who was killed by Ava's father was one of her fans.

While the influencer culture is generally less physically harmful than Stand Your Ground laws, I'm not wild about it either.

There's something I find appalling and/or idiotic about young folks whose ambition is to become an influencer. 

And yet, many of these young folks can make a lot of money for their "content," shilling for brands.

Ava Majury began posting videos on Tik Tok when she was 13, her shtick being lip synching. 

Ava is a very pretty young woman, and built up a Tik Tok following of 1.2 million. She also has hundreds of thousands of followers on Snapchat and Instagram.

Unfortunately, not all of them are kids who just want to see a cute girl lip synching. Some of them are out and out creeps, pervs, bad guys.

Eric Justin/Johnson was one of those guys.

He allegedly sent Ava hundreds of messages on social media. He even paid her classmates for information about the TikToker, according to her family. (Source: WFLA)

So, Eric Justin/Johnson was obsessive and delusional and, at least once he got his mitts on a shotgun, a bad guy. But how about those POS classmates who sold nformation about Ava. Talk about depraved. 

Ava's parents also made a tactical mistake:

...they allowed their daughter to sell Johnson [Eric Rohan Justin] two selfies for $300.

Not gonna blame the victim here, but what a colossal lapse in judgement. I suppose they figured what the heck. Her pictures are all over Instagram, anyway, so why not monetize. Still, letting your 13 year old sell pictures of herself - however innocent - to some rando. Ugh.

Then he started asking her for explicit photos, the family said.

“I had an opportunity to actually text this person and said ‘Hey, she’s a minor and you need to not contact her anymore,’ and we notified the authorities,” her dad, Rob Majury, 51, told NBC.

But Johnson was not deterred. Last summer, he arrived at their doorstep with a gun and started firing shots through the front door, the family said.

And that's where and how Eric Rohan Justin/Johnson met his death.  

After the shooting, the family moved and Ava began homeschooling.

“Everything has changed,” her mother told NBC.

“More security on our end, more reviews with accounts, more checking in. Just trying to be normal for Ava,” her father said.

What didn't change for Ava was her social media presence.

“It became such a part of her personality and her being, that to take it away would maybe harm her more,” her father explained.

Awful as this story is "standalone," there's more: another stalker, this one in her highschool. This kid (a juvenile, so no name) had been in contact with Eric Rohan Justin/Johnson.

A video shared by another classmate showed him shooting a gun at a range and prompted Ava to begin homeschooling out of concern for her safety. Her family’s lawyers filed a stalking case in Collier County court.

The family hopes to obtain an injunction for protection Monday so she can return to class. (Source: Foxnews)

Ava and her parents are speaking out about becoming parents and kids on social media becoming more savvy about social media, being on the lookout for signs that someone out there watching you is unhinged and/or evil.

Good for them, but maybe it's just not a good idea for a child (e.g., a 13 year old) to be sharing online with anyone other than people they know. Of course, in this case, some of the kids Ava knew turned out to be sleezy non-friends who sold pictures of her and her phonenumber to her stalker. 

Cautionary tale for parents whose 13 years old are clamoring to become social media stars.