Boys make online jokes about rape to score ‘lad points’

SCHOOLBOYS are using online “memes” and social media in making rape jokes to score “lad points”.

More than a third (36 per cent) of 11to 18-year-old boys have shared racist or homophobic pictures, more than double the amount shared by girls, and four in 10 boys saw offensive memes daily, claimed a survey of 20,000 children commissioned by Digital Awareness UK and Headmasters’ and the Headmistresses’ Conference (HMC).

Emma Robertson, co-founder of the digital group, said that the memes range from fat-shaming to jokes about the Holocaust, rape, slavery or comparing black people to animals.

Speaking at the HMC annual conference in Manchester, Ms Robertson told head teachers that teenagers must be careful about sharing these memes online as well as reacting to them.

“I think you have got the groups of students who are just looking to perhaps get lad points, or to entertain, to engage,” she said. “And then you have another group of students who don’t necessarily have the intention of upsetting, offending or being disrespectful.”