Carrie & the terrifying teen cruelty in our hyper digital world

There is a scene in Carrie—the recent TV series of Stephen King’s first book which took the world by storm 52 years ago—that is unforgettable. Carrie, the sheltered and homeschooled teen, has her periods in the locker room of her high school. She doesn’t know anything about periods due to her strict religious upbringing; and the high-schoolers upon discovering go into full bully mode. They throw her in the shower, everyone throws tampons at her and there’s a mass frenzy where every girl in the women’s shower room joins in the fun – ‘Carrie Red’ they all scream as a horrified girl cowers as her kind outlook about the world is shattered just as her girlhood. It’s all recorded on social media and shared.The horror of Stephen King's Carrie has always been supernatural, but the machinery that produces her humiliation is recognizably human.