Hunt for teen reveals social media's horrifying cruelty

As trolls mock missing Jay Slater and hound the real-life woman behind Martha in 'Baby Reindeer', Helen Coffey ponders what happened to our collective compassion

- Helen Coffey

Over the weekend, I assumed that Jay Slater, the teenage boy who disappeared during a holiday to Tenerife, must have been found safe and well. This was the only explanation, I reasoned, for the plethora of flippant comments – ranging from gently mocking to downright nasty – flooding social media.

“Has the search party looking for Jay Slater tried shouting ‘Autoglass repair’. If he’s in the vicinity he will shout back ‘Autoglass replace’,” read one. “If #JaySlater has been on the gear then he’ll have a dose of the munchies. Has anyone thought about shouting ‘Domino hoh hoo’ into the valley?”, went another.

“I’m sick of hearing about that evil cunt that’s gone missing in Tenerife, Harry Kane and Phil Foden have been missing since 16 June and no one set a GoFundMe to find them,” reads a particularly vitriolic offering. (I’m loathe to even share it here, other than to demonstrate how grimly low the level of discourse has stooped.)

When I realised that Slater’s whereabouts in fact remained unknown after more than seven days – and that his loved ones are still, quite naturally, sick with worry after his final message last Monday confirmed that he was lost and alone in the mountains, with almost no phone battery and no water – I felt sick myself. The callousness and cruelty defied comprehension. Why were people online treating the whole thing as one big joke? What on earth happened to our collective compassion?

Neither has the 19-year-old’s mother, Debbie Duncan, been spared the derision and ire of the internet. In the aftermath of every mother’s worst nightmare, her every word has been dissected and analysed, her every facial expression unpicked and judged by a crowd of strangers.