Remember the Star Wars Kid, a kid ruined by his peers via the internet. A kid that had to move into a mental treatment facility in order to complete his education without ridicule. A kid permenantly changed by internet bullying. Now, think of Britney Spears, a woman having a breakdown in the media spotlight. Thanks to new found technologies the internet bullying occuring to poor Ms. Spears makes the Star Wars Kid look like fluffly puppies. Britney has been attacked by all media sources in America, and her breakdown has most likely been featured on gossip sights around the world. One website in particular is Perez Hilton, the gossip gangster, who has been regularily posting horrible photoshoped imagery of the fallen starlet on his blog site.
Now, I am a fan of Britney, and of Perez, but I must point out the horrendous bullying going on by the world. Technology has allowed anyone with internet access to be apart of Britney's demise, to essentially push her a little further for a laugh. I understand Perez's position is to provide gossip for the public, this making him gross amounts of money of course, but I think it is sick that the world, including myself, feeds off of this gossip and demoting people's self-esteem. Some might say that Britney is a personality and knew what she was getting into when she became famous. I agree that there is a different line to cross when dealing with Hollywood personalities, but I think society has crossed this line in the case of Britney, I know we are all curious, but maybe it is time to let the poor woman get her life back and enjoy motherhood.
For educators with older students, make sure you point out what is and is not internet bullying, help them understand this fine line and make them critically think about what they are doing or participating in. If we want our students to contribute effectively to society then we are going to have to tell them the nitty gritty about the society that they live in.
View Perez Hilton for more examples on internet bullying!
4 comments:
Excellent points, Jackie. We often forget that celebrities are real people too ... and certainly this would count as cyberbullying to the extreme.
Thanks for the post.
Thanks for this post Jackie...since Alec's presentation I am aware of cyber bullying, but to be honest, having not come across it myself I tend to forget it exists; and I find it can be easy to overlook how bad it is becoming.
I don't know how bad cyber bullying has become in classrooms, but with kids generally being more technologically advanced and having time to surf the web, I imagine they come across a lot of this sort of stuff. And if that is the sort of stuff that they are seeing...I imagine that it wouldn't be a big jump for them to start participating themselves...just my thoughts, and for the sake of our society, I hope I am wrong.
Kids and especially teenagers have so much to deal with. Kids are being bullied at school, at home and on the internet! I hate that they cannot find an escape from bullying. It just seems that bullying is everywhere.
This is so true. Cyber-bullying really has gone to an extreme. We need to influence our students to use the internet for positive means, rather than negative because it is a very powerful tool. Cyber-bullying is so real. One of the girls in my grade five class during internship was being cyber-bullied and it had a very negative effect on her school performance. Actually, she almost dropped out of school. It is very difficult for teachers to know how to deal with these issues because they are kind of "out of teachers hands" but still directly effect student's performance in school.
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