(The Verge)- A big news story in recent days has been the talk about Amanda Todd. Amanda uploaded a video on September 7th to Youtube, the biggest online video website in the world. In the nearly 9 minute long video, Amanda never speaks, nor never shows her face fully. It is silent except for the writing she put on pieces of paper describing all the pain she is going through.
In the video, her message is clear. She made some mistakes, and is still paying the price for those mistakes. Amanda talks about having nobody, how she was bullied, beat up and harrassed on the internet. A sick, twisted man harassed her non-stop, asking her to put on a show for him or a graphic picture of her will be sent to all of her friends. When she refused, the picture was online and everyone she knew saw it. The 9 minute video is extremely sad and brings attention of bullying and cyber bullying into the spotlight by the American media.
I have heard all of the stories about her on the news. I never saw the video until last night, where I watched it and felt awful that nobody helped out this poor girl. Amanda killed herself on October 10th, a little over a month after the video was posted. She clearly didn’t get the help she cried out for in the video, and was not able to take it anymore. However, after watching the video, something caught my attention and disgusted me, actually made me sick.
I wrote an article a few weeks ago called “One Tweet Too Far”, about a Patriots fan who tweeted nasty things to a Baltimore Ravens player who lost his brother earlier that day. I didn’t think it could get any worse than that, but it has. The Youtube comments on the Amanda Todd video are downright appalling, disgusting and disturbing. They are so disturbing I can’t even write them for this article. If you choose to read the comments be warned, you will not believe the things people are saying, and it is not pretty at all.
I will mention briefly the gist of what many comments are saying, but again I won’t get into specifics. There is sadly more negative than good. People are angry that we are giving one girl attention while countless others are going through the same thing. I get it, why does this one girl get all of the attention? The media has a big part in that, and has brought this story to the national spotlight. The girl finally got the attention she needed, but sadly it is too late. She didn’t get this attention while alive. Again, as these mighty keyboard warriors (a person who is tough behind the computer-ed) are tearing down a dead 15 year old girl, they aren’t doing anything themselves to help the others they claim are out there needing help. Instead of trying to help others, they sit on their computers criticizing one girl who wanted help and took her life over it.
Other people say her suicide is selfish, she is rotting in hell, she is an attention seeker and threw her body around to everyone. Again this doesn’t even come close to the horrifying things people are writing on this now famous video. No one talks about the fact that this girl was crying out for help. No one talks about how this video has brought the discussion of bullying and cyber bullying back into the national spotlight. People sit on their computers typing their sick, twisted words for the world to see, and none have a care in the world. Even after she died, Amanda Todd is still getting bullied. She is still being called names, still being told she deserved what she got because of a few bad choices she made in life.
It is on the internet where humanity shows how sad we really are as people. Obviously not everyone in this world are awful, and these people posting negative comments may be in the overall minority, but it is instances like these where freedom of speech really brings out the worst in people, and makes you wonder if they really have a heart or just some black hole where their heart should be.
October is National Bully Prevention Month. Speak out for someone you know, or just stand up for a total stranger if you sense a person is in trouble. Your help, thoughts and kind words can go a long way towards making a difference in someones life. Bullying is real, and as the YouTube comments on Amanda Todd’s video shows, bullying can happen in person or on the internet. Take a stand against bullying.
