“I just started seeing them last night because everyone was talking about it,” she said. “Some people thought it was funny. I actually find it very immature.”
She hopes the police prosecute the accounts that go over the line.
“Social networking is great, but it’s not when it’s used for all the wrong purposes,” she said.
Some upset viewers apparently are taking their complaints directly to Twitter and filing reports about the accounts. Twitter has shut down most of the local burn books in just the past few days.
Twitter’s press office did not return an eMail asking for comments on burn book accounts.
Manheim police Chief Joe Stauffer reported two Manheim burn books to Twitter himself after a borough councilman called to alert him to the accounts.
Manheim and other schools have had several versions of burn books. One gets taken down, and another one pops up in its place.
Burn books have been around for years in different formats. Formerly called “slam books,” they used to be a spiral-bound notebook where someone would post a question and pass it around in school for others to write an answer. Insults also were usually written in the book.
The burn book was featured prominently in “Mean Girls,” which chronicles the comeuppance of a girls’ clique called the Plastics.
The movie’s burn book was pink, and a photo of it is often posted as the icon for similar accounts on Twitter, which has hundreds of burn book accounts.
Schools in Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina, and other areas also have been targeted by burn book accounts, according to online news accounts.
Many people are hoping the fad is short-lived.
“Harassment is harassment, no matter how you look at it,” Schofield said.
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