Dear bully

Dear bully;

I feel like there's no nice way to start a letter like this because there's honestly just nothing nice about it. So I first off want to start by saying that I'm sorry. I am so sorry that you are very angry with the world, I am so sorry that you've had to face what you've had to face throughout your life. I am very sorry that at such a young age the only thing that life has left you is bitter. I, however, am not sorry that this has left you under the impression that your hatred and dislike for people has left you with the impression that you can bully them. 

I know you might read this and be left going, "that dumb bitch writes a passive aggressive letter on the internet - how fucking mature is she". The reason that I'm tackling this through my blog is because I'm entirely sure that there wouldn't be any way to say what it is I have to say with you in person. Whether it is because you believe I'm a complete nut or think that I'm ten shades of wrong, I am confident you would not listen. 

You see, the entire reason I'm writing this is because you've made it your mission to make my little sister's life hell and I'm not okay with that. You're one of the major forces in her almost crippling anxiety. I realize that reading this, where you are now, you might find a flicker of sick and twisted pleasure in that - I don't. I don't think that driving someone to the point of requiring help for anxiety is something to be proud of. Ever. The major issue I have, however, is that you thought it was alright to tell her that she should kill herself through the March break and that the world would be a better place without her. 

I just want to tell you, whether you care or not, that I think quite the opposite actually. I think the world would fucking blow without my little sister in it and I am absolutely disgusted that you seem to think your opinion of her is the only one that matters. You're a mother, you've gone through hell and back for your daughter, so I don't have to tell you what it would mean if someone told you that the world would only benefit from her being gone from it. 

Now I'm not angry with you for saying that, I was at first, I'll be honest. I wanted to get online and turn all those nasty comments you unleashed on her and throw them back at you. I wanted to pound the everliving fuck out of you to somehow bring you down to the level you seem hellbent on bringing her to. I'm not angry now. Instead I'm sad, I'm sad for you. I'm sad that the only way you seem to be able to feel alright about yourself is through wishing people out of existence. I feel sad for you because the only way you feel good is through trying to destroy other people. I feel absolutely sorry because you won't take anything away from being told that because you think you're entitled to that right.

I honestly and truly hope that nobody ever treats you or your daughter the way that you treat other people because nobody deserves that. I hope that if someone ever treats you or your daughter the way you treat people someone is strong enough to stand up for them, because everyone needs someone to stand up for them. I hope that you find someone to stand up for you and I hope that you find people that will only help you bring yourself up - not bring others down. 

I want to let you know that I'm not angry with you, I'm not going to get mad at you and I'm not going to blame you - but I will not allow you to continue to bully my little sister. Just like you should have someone to stand up for you I'm telling you that I will stand up for her. I will not threaten, I will not yell and I will not ever physically hurt you - but I will not tolerate bullying.

I think that it's easy to call people names and insult them when you're angry, I've definitely been there. I think that it takes a stronger, bigger person to turn that inwards and find out why the actions of someone that don't affect you bother you so much. I think it takes unimaginable strength and courage to tell yourself that you're unhappy and realize that through your own unhappiness you're harming others. I think that, and maybe you're not ready yet, and hope that someday you are strong enough to not let others matter to you. I hope that one day that you're strong enough to not need to bully people to feel good about yourself. I honestly hope that one day you give your daughter an amazing role model to look up to, because from the big sister of the girl you told to kill herself, that's not the case right now.

Of bullying and making the world more awesome

Sometimes people drive me crazy – scratch that, a lot of the times people drive me crazy. There’s one thing though, that just puts me over the edge every single time.

Bullying. Any and all bullying, all the grey areas of bullying, justifying bulling, laughing about bullying and especially shrugging off bullying.

Everyone who knows me or has me on Facebook knows about a specific incident of bullying last week – some of you were expecting a blog post sooner but I really needed to just calm down and get my head on straight before I tacked this in a post. What set this off? A group of kids made a Facebook group to bully my little brother. Of course, I’m emotionally invested in the person being bullied, but this is something I’m confident I would do regardless of the person being bullied. I confronted the group, and threatened to call the police.

What came next is what absolutely drives me up the wall. People came to the rescue of the bully and began to laugh everything off as a joke. The bully at this point owned up, apologized – but on the group was still laughing about it. When met with conversations about depression and bullying-related suicide one commenter felt like replying with, “CUM SHOTS!” was the appropriate reaction. When I brought up suicide, one commenter chimed in with, “Aw – is he going to go kill himself now?”

Now these kids are between 16-18 years old, which I’m pegging as old enough to know a lot better – and yet they laugh at depression, bullying and suicide. It’s a massive joke that warrants, “Stay gold – pony boy!” and Kansas lyrics typed on a public forum. This infuriates me. I’m all for finding the lighter side of things – but DO NOT laugh off bullying. Nothing drives me up a wall further than shrugging off bullying as a joke. It’s not a joke, it’s not funny. Anyone who laughs at bullying, regardless of severity,  is feeding into continuing the cycle of bullying. Why would someone stop bullying at a small scale if they’re being egged on? What would stop someone from escalating at that point because hey, people are finding it funny?

It’s not funny. Being on both ends of bullying I know how it affects people and I know what it can do to someone. I’ve spoken with people who have been diagnosed with clinical depression from being bullied – and worked with them. Yet, we live in a world that still says, “oh come on it’s just a joke – you can’t take a joke?” You’re right, I can’t take a joke – especially when the joke is not funny and hurts someone else.

Bullying is not a black and white issue – there is a lot of grey area , however the way we treat and confront bullying should be one-dimensional: Do not allow it. Bullying kills people. Literally, something that pushes someone to want to end their life isn’t funny, so why are we allowing people to laugh? In this instance, calling the police was met with joking, laughter and giggling – which makes me wonder, what are we not doing in addressing this as a serious issue? When cops bring about chortling and snickering instead of remorse, what is going wrong?

I will never allow for bullying, I will not stand for it and I will speak out against it when confronted by it. I do not allow bullying either in person or over a computer screen because bullying, in any form, is wrong. We live in a world where people are quicker to laugh at someone than stand up for them and that’s sad. We treat depression like it’s that person’s fault that they have it, more so if they’re being bullied because that means they’re weak. We hardly ever point the word “weak” at bullies because apparently their ability to insult and ridicule makes them strong. I call bullshit on that. I will defend someone’s strength of character with depression or while being bullied over someone’s strength of character while being a bully any day.

I honestly, honestly hope that even just one of you – one person in 7+ billion who reads this takes a stand in some way against bullying. Not because I’m asking you, not because it will make you look good but because it matters. People matter, you matter, he matters, she matters – they matter.

I found this video last week and honestly I watched about ten times the day I found that Facebook group. One quote stood out the most:

“We can make every day better for each other, if we’re all on the same team let’s start acting like it. We got work to do. We can cry about it, or we can dance about it. We were made to be awesome.” – Kid President

 

And all you're ever going to be is mean.

The Amanda Todd story has been making headlines everywhere so it's really no surprise that this has been a story that made me think. A friend of mine and I went out to dinner and just talked about Amanda's story and just bullying in general; this got me thinking further and I suppose this post is just a summation of my thoughts on the whole thing. 

First off, talking about Amanda's story - if you don't know what this is about please read this before you continue on. This is most definitely not the first person I've read about that's committed suicide due to bullying and unfortunately I know this will not be the last. I think what's the most disturbing, other than the fact that 15-year old girl committed suicide,
is that afterwards people are disputing whether or not she deserves the sympathy and people are still bullying her online – after her death.

I think the biggest thing that everyone forgets is that this girl was 15 – she was still a baby. She didn’t even fall under the legal sexual age of consent in Canada (which is 16). She was dealing with things that even I, at 21 years old, would find tough – and she was doing them at 15. It got me thinking, why do we look past the age based on the type of bullying that’s going on? This girl was sexually abused and sexually exploited, not physically, but sexual abuse doesn’t have to be physical. She was abused but our culture says that she put herself in that situation at 15 and thus deserves the title of skank, slut and whore. We don’t throw any blame at the person who posted those photos, but yet again blame the victim. Shouldn’t we be there, supporting someone who was sexually exploited at such a young age? Canadian law does not allow for the fabrication or possession of child pornography and that’s exactly what this is. Why hasn’t this person been charged? “She’s a slut – she deserves it” is a disgusting mentality, the fact she’s had so many people tell her to go die or go kill herself is heartbreaking.

Now, I grew up in a small-ish Northern Ontario town and knew most of my graduating class from elementary school, but honestly there was no bullying to this magnitude. Without sounding like “kids these days,” is bullying actually morphing into something way beyond the coping skills of pre-teens? I honestly think so, I mean you had boyfriends and girlfriends at 15, but you held hands and then went home and maybe, maybe *gasp* made out. There were no naked photos posted on the internet or Facebook to verbally attack people for being sluts.  Has social media actually created a super easy platform to just bully the crap out of people? Yes. A thousand times yes. Kids are cruel, but now they’re cruel with wifi access and photoshop.
I found this on Tumblr last night.

 

Now, I’m not sure if it’s true, it very well might not be – but for argument’s sake, let’s say it is. This picture disgusts me. Not the comparison, or downplaying of another person’s suicide but the fact that it’s so easy to just ignore the backstory of a person as long as they fit our requirement for funny internet content. I’ve seen this photo attached to memes everywhere and then saw this comparative photo and couldn’t help but feeling terrible for not wondering who this boy is. How terrible is it that he could have been bullied to the point of suicide for his looks and doesn’t even get the decency of not being bullied for them after his death? Are we that ignorant as a culture we don’t even think of the person behind a photograph anymore as long as that photo is part of something funny? I realize that this isn’t everyone, but take for example Matthew Lewis, the actor who played Neville Longbottom in Harry Potter. Up until he hit puberty everyone thought he was ugly, and it wasn’t until he wasn’t “ugly” any more people began to get incredibly mean about saying that. I know, I was one of those people and it honestly didn’t even hit me until yesterday that, although I didn’t take to the internet with it, I was completely okay chalking up this guys’ worth by the way he came out of puberty. It’s disgusting. I was disgusted with myself for it.

Honestly, I just don’t have the right words for the calibre of bullying that is present currently. 12 year-olds with Iphones and calling other kids “dumb cunts”, and that’s okay – even within my generation, the bullying just continues to ramp up like it’s following some ridiculous curve from the younger ones.

We can justify making fun of one “ugly” guy meme and think it’s hilarious but we feel absolutely terrible when a young girl or boy commits suicide. It’s such backward thinking on an issue that’s so important. What if every single person you told do go die actually did? How many deaths would you have caused because you didn’t like the person, thought they were a slut or just too weird to exist? Honestly, hold yourself accountable for your own words because nobody else might. We can be our own biggest critic but we can be our own biggest motivator to rip someone apart.

Start thinking about the way you treat people, the homeless guy on the corner, the girl you think is absolutely ugly. Make it a habit to keep your own ignorance (and we all have them) and biases to yourself. Stand up against bullying and not just on the internet. Those people that need help exist beyond the keyboard and so should your help.

 

Nicki Minaj; possibly the worst role model out there nowadays

                I very much dislike Nicki Minaj I understand that there are people who love her music, I am not one of them. I can honestly say that as a person I really hate the way she portrays herself as well. That being said, I’ve never met the woman, I’m going off my impressions from interviews, videos and her conversations online with people.

                The latest Minaj blunder comes forward on Twitter where Nicki cancelled her show at V Festival and Dublin because of strained vocal chords. Fans reacted accordingly, some telling her that they were obviously very upset ticked that she cancelled. Instead of just saying that’s life, she took to social media to rant the hell out of everyone with the following tweets:

               Any photo without a picture indicates that it has been removed from Twitter, but as is the case with the internet once it’s there it never leaves. She begins by telling anyone who has a negative thing to say to her to #EatShitandDie, but only because she’s human followed by; if you can’t understand her then it’s obvious “your mother’s a WHORE. This rant ends with my favorite tweet- she shares her frustration in the final tweet with #killyafuckingself. I can hear her publicist face-palming and the internet gathering weapons now.

                First off, I don’t care how mad you are at someone; there is no rhyme or reason to tell anyone to go kill themself. Ever. Not only do you not know who would take that to heart, but that’s the behavior that you’re modeling for your younger fans. Remember those two cute little British girls that loved Nicki Minaj? What if that’s what they thought was the appropriate way to treat people when they were mad? There is no reason for this at all, I don’t care if you’re upset or hurt you DO NOT tell someone to go and kill themself.

                Secondly, now I’m not sure what anyone’s mother has to do with this conversation, but again like point listed above, this is the behavior you’re modeling for your fans. Instead of reinforcing respect and decency, you’re reinforcing that when you’re mad you can call someone’s mother a whore because they aren’t getting you.  Take a fucking breath. Calm down and then address people. Don’t shoot off like a primed and ready pistol because you don’t think people are treating you fair. You know what’s unfair? Someone’s child using the insults you feel you have the divine right to use, to another child in order to bully that child because their idol uses it. Cruelty for children and teenagers is like fire and you’re just gasoline.

                Finally Nicki, your tweet about not letting people make you feel horrible is exactly what needs to happen. I agree, not about your health but about everything else. Speaking frankly, you are a terrible role model, this incident just enforced this. I’m sure you have some very lovely qualities, but they are not the ones that you show the world. Women and men alike need good strong role models to look up to, not the ones that get mad an enforce behavior that’s leading to an epidemic of bullying and bullying-related suicide. I sincerely hope that you’ll stand up and be a role model that admits their mistakes and apologizes for everything you’ve tweeted about. You are human, we all are – we make mistakes. We also need to be the humans that own that and show people we are capable of admitting we’re wrong.


All information and tweets from the Hollywood reporter article by Jordan Zakarin
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/earshot/nicki-minaj-berates-curses-fans-363985