Bullying has already claimed a lot of victims even before the internet era. As technology improves, bullying gets worst. Now, people are given more avenues to hurt and humiliate someone. Before the internet, you can just transfer schools or town to get away from bullies. Nowadays, avoiding them is even harder.
Here's the thing, the internet offers us with more freedom and gives us the ability to reach out to more people anywhere in the world. If used positively, the internet is a great invention. However, like any great invention, if placed in the hands of the wrong crowd, it can be really dangerous. If used properly, it's a great tool. If abused, it can kill.
I was also bullied when I was growing up. Luckily, there was no internet back then and I had a lot of support around me. I survived because I have friends and family and because I did not really understand the whole bullying game back then and kept fighting back.
But a lot of bullied teenagers are not as lucky as I am. Teenagers like Amanda Todd lost their lives because some people are too selfish and thinks that they are the only ones who deserve to live a happy life.
Teenage years is a turbulent period. I know. I've been there. This is a point in everyone's life when a lot of changes happen so fast and everything is so confusing. Everyone wants to fit in.This is a period of self-discovery. This is a period in our lives when we are at our most vulnerable.
Yes, Amanda did made a bad decision by showing her boobs to that guy she only knew online. Yes she made a bad decision by giving herself to someone she thought liked her. But it is cruel for others to judge her based on those decisions. It is cruel for people to comment that she deserve what she got for being promiscuous and for making a dumb decision.
I think these people forgot something. SHE"S A KID. She may only be 13 or 14 when she made those decisions and didn't we all made dumb decisions when we were at that age? Well, we probably did not all end up flashing our boobs and losing our virginity but we all did something dumb when we were teenagers.
For a girl who grew up in an era where physical image and the approval of society is everything, she must have felt really great when someone calls her beautiful. If you are a girl, you would understand this. When we are teenagers, there are a lot of changes in our bodies and we felt so awkward about how we look and how others perceive us. We were trying to fit in. We wanted to be accepted. I bet it's the same thing for her. She just really wanted to be liked and accepted.
I hate bullies. I think of them as people with a lot of insecurities in their lives and they are trying to compensate for it by being cruel to others. They feel happy when they torture and humiliate their victims because they feel superior to them. That is why bullies only target people who are meek and those who doesn't fight because they know they can never intimidate people who fights back.
I really don't blame victims for opting to kill themselves. They feel alone and harassed. Without a good support around them, they would feel hopeless and depressed. I guess the feeling that you are alone in this world and everyone is against you is enough to drive people to seek death than continue to live. When you are doing your best to hold on to life and the only thing you want is for someone to reach out and pull you up and what your getting instead is a kick and every one telling you to let go, sometimes it really makes you want to kill yourself.
Sometimes, no matter how much you try to be strong and no matter how much you want to fight back it reaches a point where you no longer know the reason why you want to fight back. When you are fighting alone, you get tired and you lose the will to fight. Sometimes, it feels useless to fight against the tide. Sometimes, when you are at your darkest and most depressive moment, letting go is an easier and less painful option than staying alive.
This world is cruel. People are cruel. Teenagers are cruel. We are all judgmental and we often do and say things that we don't realize hurts someone. Some people are more vulnerable than we are. Sometimes they are already suffering from the inside and the words we say can make or break them. It is never good to tell someone that they are a waste of space. It is not good to tell anyone that they deserve to die and that they don't deserve to live in this world. I don't mean to encourage vanity but I don't think it is right to call teenagers ugly. You know, when it comes to self-esteem, teenagers are the most vulnerable. And when you are at that age, image means a lot.
Truth is, we all have to be responsible with how we use the internet and how we deal with the people around us online or in the real world. We all have to think twice before we say something to someone. Yes, I do have the tendency to say hurtful things but I am doing my best to stop it. I guess we have to be aware of what we are doing and how it affects others and not just how it makes us happy. We all have the right to have fun but it should not be at the expense of others. Especially, not at the expense of other people's lives.
Bullying has to end. It doesn't matter if it is being done online or not. It is a very cruel thing to do to anyone. Bullying someone doesn't make you superior than that person. It only makes you look like a sissy who can't take on someone who is your equal.
We will never understand the state of minds of the people who killed themselves because of this senseless thing. We will never know how desperate and depressed they were that they had to kill themselves. We won't know because we did not try to find out. We won't know because we did not try to understand them when they were still alive. But do we need to lose more lives before we stop it?
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