I may have told one of these stories before, but I know I haven't told the other one.
Here is the good story. A few years ago I was talking to a woman whose daughter had gone through a period of being shut out by her friends in high school. It came up when I was working on the Long Reading list. We were talking about books and what I had been reading recently; she was very interested because it sounded familiar.
One thing I will always remember is that by then the friends were all reconciled, but you could tell the mother was not quite thrilled with that or trusting of them. I have seen this with other mothers, and it makes a lot of sense. You can hope everyone grows into a kinder adult, but we know that is not guaranteed.
The other thing I remember is being very impressed with how the adults handled it. The mother found out her teen was being bulled by former friends and spoke to the school. I don't remember if it was the principal or guidance counselor, but they asked the daughter what she wanted. She wanted to change her lunch period, because that is where the bullying was happening. She needed some space, and they gave it to her.
It sounds so simple and logical, but this is where we fail a lot.
Maybe we are afraid they will ask for something we can't give. They might, but then we could always offer a counterproposal. If we want to help someone, at least hearing what they think they need seems like a good start.
Unless we don't want to help too much.
I worry that sometimes we don't. Maybe it feels like the appropriate thing to let those who can wield physical or social power use it and abuse it, because that's the way it's always been.
The most common response to bullying is to tell the bullied person to ignore it and they will get tired of it. That is a lie. We all know it's a lie.
Here is the bad story.
Way back in my early days of Twitter use, in addition to following a lot of musicians I liked, I also followed their family members and girlfriends. A lot of other fans followed them too, and it kind of seemed rude not to.
With one of my favorite bands, I actually interacted with two of the girlfriends a bit.
One of my good qualities is a good memory, and thoughtfulness. If I see that you are interested in a certain topic or learn your favorite animal or something like that, I will let you know about pertinent things: I think you would like this book or this tour or this recipe. Stuff like that. Nothing big.
One day, one of the girlfriends sent me a private message thanking me for how sweet I had always been. I was so touched.
I didn't know it was goodbye.
Not all of the fans were nice. That was something I did kind of know, but it wasn't something I generally saw a lot, or even thought to check.
She deleted her profile, and eventually he did too.
Going off of Twitter isn't exactly a tragedy, but why should you be harassed off of it because of whom you date? It's not like that leaves an opening that any of the bullies are going to get to fill.
Except that there are people who like it.
Internet trolls get increased self-esteem from their trolling. I would say that's a personality flaw, and that there are lots of ways to feel good about yourself that are better for you and everyone else, but there are those who would disagree.
(That is not a particularly new article, but it came up again recently, I believe due to discussion on Twitter moderation changes.)
A big limitation on how much good we can do may be a lack of interest.
There is reasonable disagreement on whether the best thing to do with trolls is block or mute or report or ignore or engage.
If they are being a troll and loving it, there is probably not much you can do to improve them, but I do remember long ago someone that was trolling, along with others, and reaching out. While that was initially not appreciated, a point was made that I believe helped.
Perhaps there are times when it can feel good to be a jerk, or at least okay, but we aren't irredeemable yet. Certainly, it makes sense to think about what we do and what we enjoy and what the consequences might be for ourselves and others.
I will get back to that.
Related posts (two posts about that last incident, if you want it):
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/04/harassing-your-idols.html
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/04/teachable-moments.html
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