This is all Heidi Montag's fault.

There is truly nothing sadder than the loss of an 18-year-old Floridian cheerleader with the moxie and gumption to pursue some big ol' fake tits.

"West Boca High." I don't think there are three more melancholy words in the English language.

What sort of parent allows / encourages their daughter to do this? Losing their daughter isn't punishment enough - they should be on lockdown and their other kids placed with family who love and respect them.

Kuleba was beloved by classmates at West Boca High, more than 400 of whom gathered outside the school Sunday night for a candlelight vigil. They hung Kuleba's shining silver pompons and cheerleading T-shirt on the fence outside the school

NEVER FORGET

oh vanity of vanities

Girls, you look fine. Stop this shit.

Wise editorial decision to crop all the pics so we can't decide for ourselves whether this was truly an elective procedure. Thanks a lot Palm Beach Post.

@TheHonJudgeSmails: we know you're in mourning all morning. and afternoon.

@BettyCrocker: The kind of parent who bestows a Lexus on a teenager.

I'm outraged - everyone knows the NSFW version follows the break!

@MartyPants: is bewb augmenting anything but elective, ever?

And in the last graf, the Palm Beach Post assumes its readership is competely fucking stupid...
Anesthesia is a way to control pain using medication.

I'll bet her parents are divorced.

It is creepy beyond belief for parents to buy tits for their teenage daughter. Creepy as fucking hell. Ugh.

@MartyPants: really, mom? a lexus? A LEXUS? you've ruined my life! i wanted the boxster. biznatch.

Hopefully they'll be able to close the coffin.

@MartyPants: The kind of parent who bestows a Lexus on a teenager, then charges $1 for candles at the memorial to go to the family for "expenses."

A talented athlete, her path toward cheerleading began with competitive gymnastics.

In 2000, National Gymnastics of Boca Raton took 30 of its students, including Kuleba, to one of the nation's biggest gymnastics invitationals - the Gasparilla Gymnastics Classic in Tampa. Competing in bars, beam, floor and vault against others in her age group and skill level, an 11-year-old Kuleba placed first all-around.

"She was very talented," said Leila Milgrim, 16, a friend of Kuleba's. "She was a great athlete. And she had all of these other things going for her, too. She did everything well."

Kuleba had brains to match her beauty, friends said, earning a GPA above 4.0, acing advanced placement courses and earning an acceptance letter from the University of Florida.

She was excited about taking pre-med courses in Gainesville. But the day she really looked forward to was in May, when she was to go to her senior prom for one last hurrah with her friends.

She'd just bought a stunning dress and made plans with a date.

"It was a great time in her life," said friend and classmate Larraine Saavedra, 16.

Cheerleading and academics made for a rigorous schedule but Kuleba still spent three years working an after-school waitressing job at a Rotelli's restaurant.

On her days off she would often stop by the restaurant with friends and order her favorite dish: a Malibu salad with fresh mozzarella.

Her name is still scribbled on the Rotelli's schedule, slated to work after school Thursday.

@Botswana Meat Commission FC: I read "shining silver pom poms" and pictured two implants.

@hypocriteoath: Well. You know. Maybe if you like really "need" it. Then it's a "need," you know? Right?

I mean...isn't that what Senior spring break is for? That and corrections of deviated septums before you get to college.

@dado: first of all based on your icon we are destined to be married.

Second, when are people going to remember that plastic surgery is still surgery i.e. potentially risky and dangerous and not the same as a trip to the Macy's counter for a free makeover? Why were her parents allowed to breed?!

girls at my high school would get fake tits all the time. it was no big deal.

How wrongheaded is this? She has all that on the ball and feels a need for implants? The parents taught her a poor set of values.

@misssgolightly: Exactly.

girls in my high school got fake tits all the time. it was no big deal.

The myth of affluence crystallized by a series of tragic mistakes. The parents can use the money from the lawsuit to numb themselves back together with her.

girls in my high school got fake boobs all the time. it was no big deal.

Sad story. But, wait--surely the parents who were able to afford the white Lexus can take care of her funeral expenses without, er, help--no?

@TedSez: Must have been the dress. Probably a sweetheart neckline. The boobs must have been part of "our baby's all growed up and going to prom!"

Damn you 5-7-9 and your sloppily cut, synthetic, sweat-shop schmattes!

@TheHonJudgeSmails: Nailed it!

@ChrisRixBlows: We get it. We get it! You like fake boobs.

@Tnuc:
See the latest "Side-show Bob" Simpsons episode.

Notice how places with sunny weather and beaches in the states have people who get crazy with the body tune-up thing to the point where it's like a cartoon? I'm sure this girl was obsessed with getting boobs for her confidence but I think they need to match it with the legal drinking age.

@MartyPants: That would have so much better if you'd typed "sloppily sheared." - Your Editor

@ChrisRixBlows: great you went to Jugs High, now fucking stop.

*IN WHICH DIS BREAKS THE "DON'T BLOG ANGRY" RULE*

Yes, this is infinitely more tragic than the hundreds of other high school kids who die for stupid reasons, because she was pretty and they were just fake boobs. She had so much jiggly promise. Let's hold a candlelight vigil for all the other victims of plastic surgery worldwide. Err, well, mostly in the US.

This deserves more coverage than kids who die from abuse, violence, or drug involvement because it ties in great with other trend pieces and other infotainment - all linked at the bottom of the page! Besides, most of those kids are ugly or minorities. We sympathize with this girl and secretly condemn those other kids who drive drunk, huff too much paint, or get caught in crossfires. Hell, not only is the coverage broader - the REACTION is broader. I wonder if the kid who hung himself the other month got a candlelight vigil?

If you are a dancer, cheerleader, gymnast isn't the last thing you want is big breast? I mean if I turn to fast I might knock myself out let alone trying to do a cartwheel.

She wanted killer tits. She got 'em.

@ADismalScience: did he have big uns?

Gawker Ladies, this is corny. But what do you say we all write letters to our future daughters about loving and accepting their bodies? Then we can give them to them when they start going through puberty. My friend did something like this for a project for a college class and I loved the idea.

Oof. "Mo-om! All the girls in my grade are AT LEAST a C-cup! Even the freshmen have biger boobs than me! It's, like, totally killing my sense of self-worth! I NEED new boobs! If I don't get them I'll just DIE." Wait. Now I'm depressed. This is so sad.

Oh, ladies. We of the small-breasted ilk often dream of being busty, but even the flattest of tits are infinitely sexier than hard, immobile half-cantaloupe implants shamefully foisted upon us by a big-tit obsessed culture. It's a shame this girl had to die before she embraced her itty bittys. Dare to love yourselves as you are for fuck's sake.

@CodePink: I hate being serious in general and in this forum in particular, but I think yours is an excellent idea.

It's tragic. She never had a chance to enjoy the finer things that life has to offer, like fake boobs. And such as.

@CodePink: Um, hell YES. It's taken me 29 years to get to where I'm at, I'm hot shit and I feel like spreading it.

@Eve Summers:
Boo. yet...well, fitting.

@ADismalScience: I and the world would care about those "others" if they would just get some hair extensions, blond highlights, some teeth brightener and if that brightener got on to their skin it wouldn't hurt.

@CodePink: That's guaranteed to elicit a heart-tugging "ewwwww, so gross" from your baby girl.

@Unfun: Spreading it?

Excellent.

(And, back to the juvenilia.)

@CodePink: Have you ever done those projects where you write letters to yourself and then they get mailed to you 5, 10, however many years later, or you open them at graduation or something? I always look back at those things and think man, I was so lame. Good thing I'm so much cooler now.

At least she died trying to achieve greatness.

Sad, just sad. Silly girl.

And did no one clue little Kuleba into the fact that girls keep filling out until they're about 21 or so? I grew an inch and went up a size all over. Who the hell lets a kid mutilate her boobs before she's finished growing?

@CodePink: Well, I'm going to do this later when I'm not working. I'll post it to here. I'm all about this kinda shit. Tits, pro-women, future daughters, I'm ovulating, woo!

@Phyllis Nefler: I think, jesus, I haven't changed at all. I'm just older and more pathetic. What happened to all those "accolmplishments?"

She looks like Natalie Holloway. I smell a conspiracy! Not sure what it is.. I just got a whiff.

Damn ya'll are cold as hell.

@CodePink: I have boys currently, 11 and 13. Maybe I'll just go home and smack 'em for good measure.

Oh, dear me, the narrative arc of Stephanie Kuleba's breasts is not at all like Kelly Kreth's.

Guess prom queen is not in the cards now, huh?

Let's not lose sight of the important issue, here:

What does Kanye have to say about this?

@Road_Rash: I'm not! I haz a sadness! I'm all motivated to go an a feminist march today