Amanda, We're Sorry

So, Amanda Bynes has been judged to be mentally unfit to stand trial for her DUI arrest from 2012. At this point in the sad, sad trajectory that is the current modus operandi for poor lady Bynes, it's no surprise. But it was a hard road for her to get to this point of general concern and actual help, and the general public certainly didn't help matters.

Listen, we're all guilty on this one, you guys — a lot of the stuff she did was outrageous, so of course without the knowledge of the true extent of her issues, a couple funny drags on her were to be expected. A video with a few drag queens here, a bunch of comedy parodies there. I even took part in it all myself, too. But that doesn't take away from the fact, which is: we fucked up.

We were insensitive, not-very-empathetic humans. Because instead of treating the very public mental unraveling of a child star turned famous adult person as serious enough to warrant immediate action, we instead made fun of her for an entire year. Not just a couple of weeks, but a year! That's a long time to be the butt of an entire pop culture-obsessed subset of society.

When she was tweeting nonsense about murdered vaginas and ugly people, we laughed and scrunched our faces; we all, collectively went "this is crazy!" and instead of really, truly caring, we decided to just guffaw and roll our eyes and preemptively declare another actress as a ticking time bomb of self-destruction.

I'm not trying to be all scolding-society mom, as there's no real blame to be thrown around here: without any confirmation of an official variety, we were left up to our own devices and thoughts. But it's time to get better about all of this. First there was Britney Spears, then Lindsay Lohan, and now Amanda Bynes and possibly-maybe Miley Cyrus if we're not careful. We'd so much rather gleefully fall down the rabbit hole of judgement and hatred at the expense of others that now, we don't even care if these people have real, honest-to-goodness problems.

"But what about the parents and real friends around her? Shouldn't they be the ones in charge of all this?" you ask. And, yes, obviously — one would hope. But sometimes life isn't that kind, celebrities (just like normals!) aren't always graced with the good fortune of a well-intentioned guard of family and friends. I mean, why do you think they make so many movies about fucked-up, selfish families? And I'm just going to go out on a limb and say undergoing a huge public flagellation probably doesn't help matters in any of those regards.

Listen — whatever is going on with Amanda Bynes is clearly a very personal, very hard struggle. We should let this one ride itself out without much more judgement or ballyhoo. And how about, instead of ignoring the signs and sticking with the current outlook of "oh well, whatever, it's all just a topic of judgement and conversation in the end!" when it comes to people's public (and/or private) struggles, we learn from all of this? Maybe try to be a bit more kind-hearted?

It's what you'd want and expect from the people that surround you — it just so happens that Bynes happens to be metaphorically surrounded by an ever-watching public eye with an opinion for every one of its assholes.