Social Suicide

Several years ago, there was a social media account created that "ranked" girls at Timpview according to their looks.  This account created such a stir that it was reported about on local news, and the administration had several direct addresses to the student body about it.  The account stopped posting, but the response to the account didn't seem to discourage others from creating accounts like it.  This year there was another account created, used solely to bully Timpview students. This is an article that I published on timpviewnews.com in response to that account:

Dear Readers,

Throughout our school’s history, social media has been used to bully, harass, and put down other students.  This year through timpviewnews.com I have tried to change the mindset regarding social media at Timpview because I want everyone to know that Timpview is a genuinely good school--that the best students in the world go through Timpview.  I refuse to recognize the offending accounts’ names, as to not propagate the harassment, but I would like to directly address some social media accounts that were created recently.  And readers, I want to talk to you.  To be frank, I am disgusted.  I am disgusted that accounts created to slander, denigrate, and corrupt Timpview have been able to gain following more quickly than accounts created to uplift, innovate, and inspire.  I am disgusted that good ideas, good work, and good people are getting trampled by students who prefer laughter at other's expense.  I am disgusted that we do not realize the path that we are on as a school.  I am reminded of two of Mohandas Gandhi's seven deadly sins:

Pleasure Without Conscience

and

Knowledge Without Character

because I believe that Laughter Without Caring is something we suffer from.  As a collective student body we would rather laugh than feel, we would rather mock than sympathize, we would rather hate than acknowledge.  I would like us to remember the consequences of bullying.  It never ends well.  It isn’t an issue that is ever just laughed about and then dismissed because bullying is never funny.  So, what can we do?

As I look at these bully accounts, I ponder what it means to “follow” them.  The definition of follow is to accept as a guide or leader; accept the authority of or give allegiance to.  I would be scared to attend a school in which we accept the authority of someone who bullies others.  I would be scared to give my allegiance to someone who doesn’t value my feelings.  What we can do, and what we should do, is shun these accounts.  We should shun bullying, drive it out of Timpview, because all it would take is a few extra pills, a bullet in the chamber, or a tall building for the bullies to realize what they and their “followers” are doing.