“I have never met this person, and I already hate her on a deeply personal level.”
“We dont want to see how much her ugly face doesnt care in yet another blog post. Youll give me nightmares”
” She is an awful person.”
“the financial and aesthetic disadvantages she faces that don’t impede others.”
“Uggg she’s disgusting.”
“she is just a run of the mill average jane nobody dumbfuck”
“She is the very definition of delusional.”
“Is she an adult? She can’t be.”
“I don’t know that woman, but reading one single page of her blog makes me hate her.”
“holy fuck she looks like a mess”
It’s almost been a year since my 5 minutes of “infamy” on Reddit. Someone decided that my blog wasn’t worthy of a copyright notice, and decided to plaster my blog on Reddit Delusional Artists. And a few other places (those just didn’t get the traction he was looking for). I responded the best way I knew how, with a big fat fuck you. And they came back in droves to find new ways to hurt me. Regardless of what those people thought was fun and games, what they were doing was bullying.
And yes, I tried to make light of it. Because that’s what I do. I had fun responding. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t cry for the better part of a week. That doesn’t mean their words aren’t still haunting me. That doesn’t mean Brian didn’t want to hunt them down and destroy them for making me cry. I was bullied when I was a little girl. It sucks. I escaped relatively unscathed, albeit completely socially awkward (probably one of the reasons I didn’t want to talk about my period, MOM). And as an adult, they say we’re supposed to be able to push through it, but that’s a dirty rotten lie people who’ve never been bullied tell you.
Because bullying hurts.
It stings. It burns to the core of your inner confidence, taking away everything you think and feel and replacing it with vitriol. Throwing gas into that inner flame of self-doubt.
And that sucks.
I’m lucky to have the real life and digital support that I do, as I was able to get through the bullying relatively unscathed. But that isn’t always the case.
Cyber bullies can destroy people. And they do it behind screen names and anonymous posts. Words hurt, people. Bruises heal. Words haunt you forever. I know those insults above are long forgotten by the people that wrote them, but they’re ingrained in my memory forever.
9 months after my Reddit bubble, I’m still getting the occasional hit ftom the Delusional Artists thread. A thread that exists to bully people (despite its context to only comment on people who are “delusional artists”). Each time I see a referral from Reddit, I’m reminded of the things they said. Just in case, for even a moment, I has forgotten.
One of the bright spots of the whole mess was reading responses from the few people who stood up for me. Maybe not the ones who laced it with an insult, but the ones who genuinely said, “hey, this is wrong.”
So the next time you see someone talking shit online about someone else? Leave a comment or send them a message offering your support. You’d be surprised how much you can help.
Have you ever been cyber bullied? Bullied in real life? Have you ever been a bully? Or stopped one?
I’m writing today for #1000Speak with the mission to build from bullying. This is my story. What’s yours?
22 Responses
I’ve dealt with bullying on my blog in recent months and that shit pisses me off. And, like you, I responded by writing a blog post. Why people feel the need to be so vile is beyond me, but I suspect it’s because they’re miserable and hate themselves so it’s easier to tear someone else down than look inside and make a positive change.
Keep holding your head up high, Chrissy. I love you and so do many others. The haters can go fuck themselves.
Thank you, Kim. You are so right, and your friendship means a lot to me. You rock!
I am so sorry you had to go through that terrible situation. You have obviously handled it with grace, and are the ultimate winner! Thank you for sharing your story, pretty sure you will always have everyone involved with #1000Speak behind you 🙂
The #1000 speak is so amazing! I love that we’re taking a stand for compassion!
I’m sorry that happened to you. It’s amazing how brave–and so ugly–people can be in the anonymity of the internet.
Thank you. It saddens me that people can be so horrible, but for every awful bully out there, there are 10 good people who can stand up and against them.
This is just the kind of stuff that makes me sick to my stomach. What on EARTH did you do to deserve that treatment? Absolutely NOTHING. Why oh why were they so attacking? This just boils me.
How dare people be so evil. I am SO sorry you had to endure that kind of attack.
I just watched the most devastating video about this precious woman who suffered from a disease that left her unable to gain any weight- when she was a teen, she found randomly saw her face on the side bar of utube and it turned out to be HER. This 8 second silent video on utube with her when she was 11 had MILLIONS OF HITS and THOUSANDS of comments telling her to go kill herself and make the world a better place. The title of the video was “Ugliest girl in the world.” Who who who who??? On EARTH would add to those comments??? Who would see an 11 year old girl and say those evil things?
I don’t understand how cruel human beings can be. I just don’t.
I have been attacked in comment sections- and once on twitter. It hurts. I know. And I’m so so sorry you had to feel that hurt too.
I saw that video! It was horrifying. For people to just be so unbelievably awful to a little girl makes me so very very angry!
Internet trolls are the worst, they use their anonymity as a crutch to make hateful comments. I’ve been bullied in real life, so I understand how it feels. Growing up as the only ethnic (and not as well off) kid in a white affluent suburb, I got teased all the time. Kids would talk to me in a mock Indian accent like Apu from the Simpsons, even though I speak accent-free English. It didn’t help that I was a head taller than most girls and got boobs a few grades before them. It made me stronger and more sensitive to my own words/actions, and hopefully this is something I can one day pass on.
Gah! Kids are so mean. Especially when it’s about things they don’t understand. I remember I had a friend in the neighborhood who was Muslim and other kids kept asking her where her Hindu dot was and making fun of the Hindu girl…and she would tell me about it and say, “I’m not a Hindu.” I felt so bad for her.
I know you’ve likely heard this a gajillion times, but haters (I might be too old to be using that word) will always get louder the BETTER YOU are. You hit a nerve because people either wanted to be you, or wanted to do something brave/awesome/exciting/smart/fresh/daring/creative like you did, and you reminded them that they haven’t yet.
I so completely respect how you handled yourself, and that you’re writing about it. I tend to shy away from writing too honestly because I have real fear of bullying! I was bullied terribly in middle school/high school and even though I’m 40, it STILL stings, and I’m STILL afraid to really put myself out their too much (I know how crazy that sounds) because you really have to have thick skin, and some days I just don’t.
Thanks for posting this, for being vulnerable. BTW, your blog is really pretty 🙂 I love the look!
Thank you so much for your kind words, Jessica. It’s horrible what bullying in our early years can affect us as adults. I learned various ways to cope with my insecurities from being bullied, some that were healthier than others.
Bullies are terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE people. You’ve had support over the past 9 months and you’ll continue getting support for the 9 more months to come, and the 9 more after that, and after that, because you are a GREAT blogger.
Cheers and love from The Myopic Misfortune. x
Thanks May! This community is amazing and definitely keeps me going.
It hurts to watch people who are bullied. My heart would ache for my children, then my blood would boil. I felt hatred toward the bullies. I should have felt sorry for them. They are the true miserable people. I would try to build up their confidence by saying, “you are a great kid”. It probably didn’t help then, but it does now. My kids turned into beautiful, smart, fabulous, GOOD, people. Isn’t that the whole point of having children? To raise good and decent people. I am proud to say…THEY ARE MY CHILDREN.
All my love,
Mama
Thank you Mama.
I’m sorry that happened to you, like Brian it makes me want to find these ‘keyboard warriors’ and smash their faces in. I was also bullied as a child and it’s something that comes back to haunt you as an adult at the most unexpected times.
Still, seems you had the last laugh as far as views on your blog go so fuck ’em 🙂
Heh. Yeah…I tried to make the best of it for sure. Being bullied as a child is one of those things that never really leaves you, but hopefully the world became just a little bit better of a place when we grew into adults.
Ugh. Reddit is the meanest corner of the internet. Boo.
It truly is.
I saw your link on blogging to success and it peaked my interest because I had a recent run in with a troll myself. Some guy on twitter left me an unnecessary mean response to one of my tweets. After that I headed to his twitter to see what the hell his problem was and then I saw he was doing the same to a lot of other bloggers too. One girl had tweeted that she wouldn’t be posting on her blog that day because she was sick and that guy responded with ” take a picture or your puke and blog about your pain.” Another girl tweeted that she was doing laundry and was getting ready to publish her new blog post and that same guy responded with ” your blog is as filthy and gross as your clothes.” After I read those tweets from this freak, I blocked him. I love your response to those reddit trolls! Your awesome!
Omg! That’s horrific! I hate when people are mean. Whenever someone trolls my friends, I roll out attack-dog style because I just can’t let people hurt my people, you know?