Tree-man A Real Man After All.
A quick recap for those who were not there or have forgotten; a young man in Indonesia is infected with rampant growths, and warts, what is later labeled by the media as “bark-like” developments, and his appendages are transformed into “tree-like” limbs, the man himself is labeled the “Tree-man”. Fast forward a little more than a decade of humiliation, a divorce, and public ostracizing not seen since the days of Hester Prinn, and on the scene a young American doctor appears. This valiant young man takes on the monumental task of curing this man of his earthly curse. Five surgeries later, and four pounds of warts removed things are looking up for the Tree-man; the media now declares, “Tree-man de-rooted!” along with a slurry of other clever foliage related article titles. The man hopes to get back to work one day and even looks forward to getting remarried.
On the surface this is the perfect story; neatly packaged with a nice plot arc. But if you cut away the Hollywood special effects your mind wants to so badly add to this story, you can see its true worth. This story does not actually reveal the triumph of one man over his demons; instead it makes a much better statement about the power of the internet. When this story first came to the limelight the interview the Discovery channel filmed was instantly put up on you tube with the simple yet provocative title, Tree-man. A person, with a possible life threatening condition was demeaned for the entire world to see and know him as Tree-man. Who can blame the public for being drawn to such a catchy tag line? How many people do you honestly think gave even a second thought to the degrading title of this blog? A man who has to go through life covered head to toe in warts now has to live with a front seat on the world’s monitor. How many people who had heard of this story before reading this blog knew the Tree-man’s actual name? My point exactly.
Is it okay for the internet to be used in this way? Striping a man of his name, personality and identity, to simply provide entertainment to someone halfway across the globe? Our blog class is a perfect microcosm of what the internet provides. At any moment we can access a video of the Tree-man, juicy campus, or information on the current state of the KKK. Where should we stop allowing anything online? And how do we control it? These are questions to be answered by a new generation, and ones that will inevitably cause controversy.
By the way the man’s name is Dede, he has two kids (teenagers) from his first wife who left him after the growths first appeared.
The internet has vast potential to do good for humankind, and people need to take advantage of this relatively newfound power as much as possible.
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This blog is great! It really shows first hand how the media twists things so that the public will show interest. They know that a title like ‘Tree-Man’ will draw more attention than ‘Man Who Has Warts’. While I think it is disgusting that they removed four pounds of warts, its terrible that his wife left him because of it. The internet should not be used to demean people just to attract attention, but it would be so hard to stop. With the freedom and easy access to make as many web pages as you want, who is to say what is demeaning and what is not? Its a hard thing to judge and even harder thing to stop. People are always going to make up stories, it is up to the reader to stop if the article is demeaning or not.
First of all I feel terrible for what has happened to Dede and I can’t believe how he is still putting up with all of this media attention. I also think it’s terrible how the media and internet immediately labeled him as “treeman” because this is completely humiliating. However, these days anything anybody wants can be put on the internet and everything can be found on the internet. On another note, I think that it’s awful that his wife left him when he first got his warts. It shouldn’t matter and she’s a horrible person. It is good though that the American doctor is doing all that he can to help cure Dede and I wish the best for him. Great blog and thanks for the update.
When I saw the video of him I cringed. The terrible part is that Dede probably gets reactions like mine, and much worse, right in front of his face. However, what the doctor did for this guy shows me that there are good people in this world and that there is hope for anyone who is in a bad situation.
I think that it is terrible the way the story has been portrayed to the public. It is sad that people cringe at the sight saying “that’s not real” rather than feel sorry for him. I think that if the story did not have the title Tree-man in the first place, no one would think that it wasn’t a disease. I sympathize with Dede and I deeply respect him. I think it takes a lot of courage to allow the entire world to see footage of him and to be known as the tree-man. It is also extremely sad that his wife abandoned him after he started developing the warts. I think the story definitely shows how the internet can twist the facts for people’s entertainment and actually hurt those involved in the story.
Its saddening to see what he has been degraded to, he lost his wife, he can’t care for his own kids and now you’ve got people world wide giving him the name tree man, I can’t imagine the humiliation. Luckily he likely doesn’t have a computer so he doesn’t have to see what ignorant insensitive people think of him. People are really insensitive on the internet, they say things they could never say to someone face to face, it cowardice, pure cowardice.