Let's all be honest here. Cyber bullying is far too common to turn a blind eye to. The internet and social media has brought us closer together, yet driven us further apart. It has given people fame, power, and popularity, while it has destroyed the lives of others. The problem is that people have a screen to hide behind, and with this, they would type many things that they would not normally say to a person in the real world. What's Happening? So basically, cyber bullying has more than one meaning, one of them we call "trolling", which is actually far more common than one would think. Trolling, the act of deliberately upsetting or provoking someone online is seen everywhere. There are many problems with this, and one of the biggest is that those who are online trolls are supported and loved by millions. Trolling has destroyed many identities online, and it is possible that it is the reason for some people who have committed suicide. Don't reply. The biggest mistake you could make in this situation is to give the troll what they want. Let's not be blind to what is really happening. YouTubers have become famous from trolling. It is now unsafe to be yourself online, as we don't know who is recording and preparing a video. A troll's intentions are to bring out the worst in you, and make you look like the lower person in the scenario. Repeat to yourself that a troll obviously is not satisfied with themselves in general, and they need to bring others down to their level to feel better about themselves. Feeding a troll only motivates them to continue with what they are doing. Ranting and raging at a troll will not hurt them, it will give them what they want. While it is hard to resist, as you want them to feel pain as you have, it is not worth the effort. Don't let the troll have what they want! A troll wants you to feel upset, hurt, or depressed. Showing that you are one of these automatically declares victory for them. While it may not seem apparent, you are the better person. A troll whose life is dedicated to hurting others is in no way a good thing. It may not appear to be, but the troll should be the one who is suffering, not you. Don't become the troll. Most trolls were once victims too. They felt hurt, betrayed, and possibly lesser than their oppressor. We already have enough people spreading terrible anger, don't add to the problems we already have in this world. Not only would becoming a troll hurt others, but it would hurt you too in the long run. Despite anything that may happen, the path these people choose will always end in darkness, albeit guilt, karma (what goes around comes around), or gravity for their actions. It is not your fault. If you were a victim of a troll, then you shouldn't let it hurt you. The troll obviously insults you for who you are. There is no need to pretend to be someone that you aren't. You shouldn't hold it against yourself that you were victimized. There are many great things about you that shouldn't be clouded by someone who insults you for being yourself! You as a human deserve freedom, and denying yourself happiness over something that wasn't your fault isn't anything healthy. Reach out. If you feel victimized, belittled, or hurt, there is no shame in asking for help. We all fall down at least once in our lives. While it is good to be strong, we all need our times to be weak, to fall back on someone, and to love ourselves. Help from others will always help you relieve your stress. A balance between awareness and ignorance. We all know ignorance is a bad thing to possess, but so is awareness. When you are ignorant, you don't care at all about anyone else around you, and if you are too caring, you may care about people's opinion on you too much to the point that you end up hurting yourself. The perfect balance between awareness and ignorance is key to helping yourself out of these situations. Let's be real. We know of the YouTubers who record videos and destroy online reputations, and we know of the "fans" of these trolls and what they say about the victim in the video. Most of them "roast" or insult the victim to boost their reputation. In no way should these people's opinion on you affect you. These people obviously don't care about you or your feelings. It is hard to do, but to not care about their opinions on you is the answer to this problem. They are judging you for being who you are, and no one should be allowed to judge another person. If these people are willing to insult you for being yourself, in no way are they worth your time, energy, or emotions. It is okay to be yourself. No matter what a troll may tell you, we all have our imperfections. Even if the troll has succeeded to upset you, there is no reason to believe them. A common trend with trolls is their actions to upset you in a game. If they are successful, the common quote "Umad?" appears a lot. It is okay to feel anger or negative feelings as we are all immature in some way. Sometimes our emotions can control us rather than we can control them. Problems So today our online trolls mainly appear on YouTube for the most part. Not only are they popular, but they receive support. The problems with the online trolls is that they are glorified and supported for hurting others. They receive money, popularity, fame, and encouragement to continue bad behavior. Not only are trolls the villains, but the staff of YouTube also are able to "bend" their rules to fit their expenses. As money is the source of all evil, YouTube has fallen victim to this. As these trolling channels bring in lots of attention, money, and advertisements, YouTube prefers to ignore their guidelines and allow these channels to break rule upon rule. YouTube can lawyer all they want, or find all the loopholes in their guidelines that they wish, but they know that these channels are primarily violating the terms, but whilst they make money, YouTube gives them every right to do so. Trolling and cyber bullying will never end. There will always be the trolls, and there will always be people who exist only to harm, but the best defense we can offer is to ignore. Hopefully this helped to anyone who is experiencing these problems. If anyone is feeling upset or depressed, feel free to PM me. I am always an open book. Have a great day/night, and stay positive! -Sirius
Just one thing to point out, people confuse someone stating their (usually unpopular) opinions with trolling, I've seen this countless times, where people are flamed for different opinions.
I'm well aware of that, but I hope people are willing to understand that I am mainly creating these threads to help people. I have no intentions to provoke or upset anyone. All topics have a claim and a counterclaim. Both sides deserve to be heard. :)
With trolling, I assume you mean videos from youtubers like Leafy. His youtube channel has become a trend, everyone finding him awesome and all. Leafy is actually no more than just a cyberbully, reacting and humiliating his "victims" who are just trying to live their lives, and the worst part is he is getting supported as well. If we are all going to flame towards the ones who are a little different than the majority, then we will end up exactly like Hitler wanted, a perfect humanity where everyone is the same and perfect to the standards.
Strongly agreed. Like Hitler, online trolls can't accept the fact that others are different. Sometimes we can't all be the same, and we have to accept that. Good point there! :)
Honestly, Trolls like XboxAddictionz, Leafy and Cringe compilation creators make me sick, literally sick. its appalling that people like to make others lives a living hell for a paycheck, it should be ILLEGAL to be able to profit off of harassing others, it makes me ashamed that i have to live alongside these people. Other than that thanks for pointing this out, a lot of people are targeted for harassment nowadays and it needs to end.
Basically, like what you said, I agree completely. People are insensitive to those who are suffering from these trolls. What is worse is the incredible amount of feedback these YouTubers are given. Everything from their fans to YouTube themselves support them. Why is YouTube letting these trolls break their rules, it is because of greed. They love their money, and if YouTube makes money off of it, they will bend their rules. YouTube can make all the excuses they want, find all the loopholes or explanations to justify that these channels are allowed, but there is no clear justification, and we all know deep down inside that these channels break rule stacked upon rule, and that they do not deserve any of the feedback they are given. There is little that we can do to have these channels removed. Unless we are able to form a multi-billionaire organization that can afford to press charges on these channels, the only form of fighting back or revenge we have is to smother it where we see it. If you see someone who is suffering, victimized to a troll, or feeling large amounts of depression, don't become another troll and make them feel worse about it. Instead, help them, show them that there is more to life than they think. Try and put yourself in their shoes. If you were embarrassed and recorded among millions of viewers, you would obviously want to be helped, and you would want someone to reach out to you.
I know I have an unpopular opinion on this thread, being that I support leafy. WHy you may ask? It's for comical purposes. Do you think he does it for the sake of just hurting them, or for the sake of making his fanbase laugh? If he just did it to shit on people, then those videos with autistic people getting roasted would surely be taken down at this point. People just need to grow thick skin and get over it.
Honestly, if you think that trolling in any scenario is correct, then I don't understand. Before this begins, I would like to not make this a flame war, as there is no need to fight over opinions. I will represent no hostility, and viewpoints will be addressed with no intents of anger or flames behind them. We can't really speak for victims of cyber bullying unless we have been in their shoes. I, for one, have been a victim of massive cyber bullying in my past. While it was on a much smaller scale, I was the center of attention upon hundreds for my immaturity. I had been insulted for who I truly was inside. At the time, I was much younger and cared a lot more about what everyone thought of me than I do now. I had suffered through many months of depression because of this. Compared to YouTube from my situation, you would understand that these victims are obviously suffering. It is one thing to tell them to grow thicker skin and be tough. It's another thing to insult them for who they are. We are not perfect, and we will make mistakes. To bash and belittle someone for a mistake is not anything respectable.
I dont condone cyberbullying, and I never said it was right, however if it is satirical people should just laugh it off. Grow thick skin, it helps.
In all honest I would class myself as a flamer to those who have annonyed me, I have learnt too many roasts and build up emotions and thoughts of people in my head and I wait to be the victim but I hate to confess but yes I do go to far and say some bad things but its the fact that people aren't afraid of someone who is like them, I hate doing it but I can't let someone take the piss because if I do the thoughts roll around in my head and stay there so in my opinion its better to feed the troll if you are experienced, but if you can just ignore it. Trolling ruins way to many friendships and thats really why you should not be one.
I really respect you for taking the time and effort to make a thread about cyber bullying. It really needed to be talked about but no one bothered to try to talk about this subject. This are basic principles of the internet trolls and To be honest These were already knew but about 80% of the internet but they always fall for the traps. Overall great job and thank you because this needed to be talked about.
It is a shame that it is seldom mentioned, but every once in a while, it doesn't hurt to reach out to people. From my perspective, it is getting worse as time progresses. It is far too common to ignore now, and while we can never stop cyber-bullying/trolling, we can help those who fell victim to it, and we can put a right to all the wrongs that have been done :)
I have been bullied online and offline, and I definitely know how it feels. No one wants to get bullied! You may think that you can say some snide remark back, but they're always finding new triggers to get you to "rage." I've bullied people online and offline. You may think its funny, BUT THE OTHER PERSON DOESN'T. You have no idea who that person is when you're online! And you think, "Who cares who it is?" Yeah, well, what if it was your best friend, but you didn't know? Do you KNOW AND UNDERSTAND that the person you're cyber bullying may have depression? That they may be dealing with suicidal thoughts? That their parents may be going through an awful divorce? That their best friend may have killed themself? That their brother or sister may have killed themself? That their crush may have humiliated them know front of the entire school? OF COURSE YOU DON'T KNOW! YOU DIDN'T CARE ENOUGH TO TRY AND BE THOUGHTFUL! THIS PERSON COULD BE GOING THROUGH A LOT OF SHIT, AND YOU'RE JUST GOING TO LOAD MORE ONTO THEIR PLATE! Have you thought about how rude you can be with just one insult? Someone could be debating whether or not they're going to jump, pull the trigger, or let themself drop, and you're going to give them their final push to doing it! "But I doubt their depressed. They're all happy." Yeah, obviously you don't know what TF they're doing behind their screen. They could be bawling their eyes out while saying, "OMG! THAT WAS SO FUNNY! I love you! Hahaha!" You never know what someone is going through.
