It’s Monday again friends and I’m afraid today’s post is not a happy-go-lucky type of post. As you may be able to tell from the title, today’s post is all about Cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is something that is quite close to me, as it is to a lot of people from my generation and the generations after mine as it seemed to hit its peak during my time in high school. Now high school is hard enough already, I really don’t think we needed to add anything else into the equation that seems to only result in depression and anxiety. But anyhow, we found a way to torture each other without even seeing each other. Well done everyone. We really out-did ourselves there.

Photo by: Steven Greenwood

When did being popular become more important than being ourselves? When did laughing stop being a way of expressing happiness and turn into a way to make fun of the way people look and speak and come from?

We wonder why people prefer being on their own but when we’re alone we don’t have to Face the embarrassment of falling down in front of everyone else. We don’t have to face the laughter and the comments. We don’t have to be embarrassed by who we are. When we’re alone, we can be anyone.

There has never been a time in my lifetime when bullying hasn’t been popular. Bullying is cool and trendy and talking about bullying is cooler and trendier. But then Cyberbullying was reborn. Now we can hurt people we don’t even know, people we’ve never even met just because we’re one of their 900,000 followers somehow this gives us the right to say what we want to them or about them. As if following them allows us to cast our opinions on their hair, their clothes, their face, their life without ever even hearing what their voice sounds like in person.

If Cyberspace was run like a school, half the people in there would be in the headteacher’s office. And none of them would pass their class in kindness. If this strange world where we all connect via iPhone was a playground I wouldn’t have even be picked to play with you. Isn’t it atrocious that people have to practice letting insults fly by? Isn’t it embarrassing that we as a race have become so good at hurting people and saying mean things that people actually have to practice being resilient and strong and happy? 

To all who have bullied me, I forgive you. And I am sorry for not remembering you. And I am sorry for ever pressing send. And I am sorry for scrolling left when it wasn’t right. I look back on my time in high school and I realise that I don’t understand. It isn’t okay to make someone feel bad, not on purpose and not over and over again. It isn’t human. 

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all start appreciating each other and loving each other’s differences? But instead we hate each other and hurt each other for our talents. 

I say that this is related to high school but these words are not just for children, they’re for everyone – adults too. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been on earth, it doesn’t matter what you’ve been through or what you’ve experienced, no matter how old you are – people matter. 

We all deserve a chance to be happy and to be loved but somehow throughout time Facebook has changed the way we define the word friend. It’s incredible how someone you follow on Instagram could be sitting right next to you but if it came to it you would have no idea how to interact with them face to face. Would you?

No. 

Instead you just sit, double tap their latest picture and like their latest status. Because double taps are now compliments and unfriending or blocking is how we express pain, this cyber-action is now how we say, “I’m not okay.” And we wonder why people bully through Cyberspace but it’s the only way we make contact with anyone anymore. 

Does anyone actually have 900,000 friends? Would you actually like 3 million people actually following you? 

No. 

If we could all try to be a little more human. A little more decent. A little more kind. We could shut down this society we have created who are devoted to being mean and judgemental through a place we call Cyberspace just to make it less personal, just to detach ourselves from the fact that it is us saying the mean things but because we have a screenname we don’t have to feel responsible. If we could switch this life off, not just put it on standby but actually turn it off we could actually call ourselves human again. 

You don’t need 900,000 friends. How awesome would it be if we could return to the time when you knew, if your whole world came tumbling down around you, you had someone you could turn to and rely on. Maybe not a whole gang of them, but you know, one.