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Somebody could write a good book on media-created panics. Note that not a single suicide or serious injury is referenced in the Grand Forks news story. What I was thinking was that the actual behavior the provokes the alarmed over-reaction, and the unhappiness it expresses, is probably real enough. This looks like a slightly new way of expressing it, is all.
I looked at the film from Grand Forks are we sure that the point system etc. is not somone's idea of a joke, making fun of the over emotional? I could see sombody setting up a website and developing a supposed sub-culture just to find out how long it would take for a scare story to appear on the evening news.