As adults we need to be the watchers and protectors of our
children. We need to stand up for them when they cannot. Bullying starts so
young now. If we see a child being bullied, stand up for that child. You have
no idea how much that can impact the situation for the good. And surely you can
remember being a teen and just wanting to fit in. Imagine going through those
years being bullied and harassed every day. Let that child/teen/adult know we
see them and they matter. There have been too many suicides; too many lost
because of this epidemic. We need to
cherish and protect our children, not turn a blind eye to their pain.
According to the website NoBullying.com:
Bullying Statistics 2014
Bullying is a global problem that
requires an immediate call-to-action.
According to the Center for Disease
Control in 2014, 6 percent of high school students reported being bullied
during the school year and 14.8 percent reported being bullied online.
…
School bullying prevention programs are
known to decrease bullying in schools up to 25 percent.
About 19.6 percent of high school
students in the U.S. report to being bullied in the past year according to the
Center for Disease Control in 2014.
Half
of all high school students admitted to bullying someone in the past year.
When an adult intervenes in a bullying
incident, it stops within 10 seconds or
more about 57 percent of the time. This is why standing up to bullying is the
major step in bullying prevention programs. (Emphasis added)
StopBullying.gov states:
There are three types of bullying:
Verbal bullying is saying or writing
mean things.
Social bullying, sometimes referred to
as relational bullying, involves hurting someone’s reputation or relationships.
Physical bullying involves hurting a
person’s body or possessions.
And not to be left out, of course, is cyberbullying. This is a great article: http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/cyber-bullying-statistics.html
According to the above site:
Cyber bullying affects many adolescents
and teens on a daily basis. Cyber bullying involves using technology, like cell phones and the Internet, to bully or harass another person.
Cyber bullying can take many forms:
Sending
mean messages or threats to a person’s
email account or cell phone
Spreading
rumors online or through texts
Posting hurtful or threatening messages
on social networking sites or web pages
Stealing a person’s account information to break into
their account and send damaging messages
Pretending
to be someone else online to hurt another person
Taking unflattering pictures of a
person and spreading them through cell phones or the Internet
Sexting, or circulating sexually
suggestive pictures or messages about a person
Cyber bullying can be very damaging to
adolescents and teens. It can lead to anxiety, depression, and even suicide.
Also, once things are circulated on the Internet, they may never disappear, resurfacing at later times to renew the
pain of cyber bullying.
(Emphasis added)
So (and you knew it was coming, right?) here’s the thing
about bullying. It seems to be pretty easy to do when you are sitting behind a
computer screen or on your smartphone. A
few weeks ago a great blog was posted in our fandom that sent the super
shippers (“SS”) into a tizzy. Funny thing is, these dizzy tizzies - for the
most part - hadn’t even read the blog!
How silly is that?! They had all sorts of opinions about how wrong this blog
was without evening looking at it. *le sigh* That blog “cast” received a boatload
(get it, ship/boatload?) of harassing comments that lasted all day. (Lucky
them.) Because of someone’s opinion
on a blog.
Now here’s the interesting thing: One of the captains (i.e.,
leaders) of the SS protested that such things shouldn’t be posted on such a public blog. Make no mistake, wherever
you put down your words on the internet, it is public. Unless, of course you
set your privacy settings so private that only you can read what you wrote.
Whether you are on Tumblr, Blogger, WordPress, etc., your words are on the web
for time indefinite. And can be found. (Also,
it is generally considered good form to actually read what it is you are
complaining about before complaining about it.)
A word SS (and their barnacles) like to use to describe
people who follow Purv on Twitter is the “Antis.” This is patently wrong. By definition “anti” is:
noun, plural antis.
1. a person who is opposed to a
particular practice, party, policy, action, etc.
(Dictionary.com)
No one I talk to on Twitter is “anti” that (relation)ship.
Not at all. We just don’t believe that ship exists. It’s a ghost ship. Like the
movie with Gabriel Byrne. This ghost ship goes sailing around, luring hapless
victims to it and then kills them off one by one as they start investigating or
questioning things that happen on the ship. See, there’s a difference. I’d say
we are more “non-believer/don’t want to die” than an “anti.”
Another word the SS and its barnacles (ok, so I suppose I
will have to stop calling the followers of the SS “barnacles” after I write
what I’m going to next. We all know that barnacles attach themselves to a ship
with amazing tenacity. You can’t get them off with a jackhammer. So much so
that eventually they destroy the ship they are attached to. One or two or three
do not harm, it’s the mob that kills.) use incessantly is “monkey.” Let’s just
think about this for a minute shall we? Again, going to an online urban
dictionary, this is what it defines “monkey” as:
A racial slur directed towards a person
of African-American ethnicity
Slang for the female genitalia, Pussy!
Continually using “monkey” to describe Purv and anyone who
happens to follow her on Twitter dehumanizes those you speak against. They are no longer human beings, but little
monkeys that throw their own crap (*not the actual word used. I prefer not to
swear though) around (I read that all the time, too). Clearly not human beings,
but animals.
This form of dehumanizing has been going on forever, but
especially during the time when conquering nations were working to colonize
their new subjects (“The White Man’s Burden”).
Slave owners used this reasoning with their slaves. Hitler’s regime used
it against the Jews. The Hutu against Tutsis in the Rwandan genocide. The Serbs against the Croats/Muslims in the
Bosnian genocide. The Janjaweed against those living in Darfur.
I’m not saying you SS are acting like those examples. But I
would bet money you’d love for those who are not shippers to be gone from the
Holy S&C Empire. You’d love to get your ghost ship anchor and chain around
our necks and drown us all in the murky depths of the ship’s wake.
The SuperShippers are a case of “do as I say, not as I do.”
They say they stay in their lane, but this is not true. They say they don’t
like people telling them what they can or cannot say on their own blogs, yet
freely (and voraciously) do the same to anyone who dares to disagree with their
Ideology. In fact, they like to say that the “monkeys” have “drunk the
Kool-Aid” and have had the “wool pulled over their eyes” re: Purv and her
posts. Oh silly little SS! It is YOU who
hands out the Kool-Aid. As in “Wait - you dare to question me?! Off with your
head! Be gone from the Holy S&C Empire, never to return!” This is handled by banishing them - you are
blocked forever! Just like in Jonestown - people drank the Kool-Aid and died.
You will figuratively “die” if you question the Shirt.
The Shirt is good at saying “I don’t have time for Purv,”
yet a majority of her blog is used to obsess about Purv. Or “Assy” as they are
calling her. (Nice. Very “classy.”) You allow your “anons” to call her - and
anyone who follows her on Twitter - terrible names and say terrible things
about them. “But,” you say, “I have no control over what people send me as
questions! Or what they say about her!”
Very true. But, you do have
control over what you publish in your blog. If you weren’t as obsessed about
her (as you claim), you wouldn’t even need to publish those anons. Your
faithful sheep are simply following your lead, trying to appease their captain
(baaaah). If you stop publishing all the hateful talk, eventually it will stop.
If you think she posts nothing but lies, what does it hurt
you? You claim not to read her tweets. So ignore her. They only ones she’d be
hurting (if they are indeed lies) are the people who believe her. And you have
admitted that we are sub-human to you by continually degrading and dehumanizing
us. So be Elsa. Let.It.Go.
Another thing: Oh you SS sure make a huge deal about others
who post a private DM. *thump* Sorry, I fell out of my chair laughing at that
one. You mean like the woman who posed as a “friend” to Abbey (who you all call
“avocado girl” and still make fun of eggs) and then betrayed her trust and
posted it all over the internet? Those
kind of DMs? Riiiiiiiight.
You love to call Purv and her “monkeys” a cult, but when I
called the Shirt one, she was highly offended.
Let’s see who is more like a cult, shall we? Purv - who actually lets people have
disagreeing conversations on her Twitter feed, or the Shirt, the “baby sister”
and everyone else who follows them, who, if they ask a dissenting question, are
banished and blocked from the Empire forever?
And the Shirt wins by a mile!
You say Sam has enough mothers. Doesn’t need anyone else’s
help in protecting him. Yet the young girl who may or may not have touched his
bum during a photo was jumped all over - harassed and bullied by many, many
shippers. It was like watching a kid on the back of a bus being surrounded by
bullies. Whether she did it on purpose, said that she did it on purpose, but
really didn’t, or something got lost in translation, who cares? Like you said,
Sam is a big boy. He certainly knows how to stand up for himself. And if he had
felt uncomfortable at that time, there are people there who are hired to
protect Sam who would have had the girl extracted from the situation in a
nanosecond at a nod of his head. Stop being so hypocritical!
As for the lady who lost her young daughter to cancer. That
is an awful, terrible thing. I cannot even begin to imagine the pain of that.
Truly. It was awesome that she was able to raise money for cancer in her
daughter’s memory. It sounds like she was able to raise quite a lot due to the
generosity of this fandom. That is one of the truly great things about our
fandom!! We rally around good causes and we are a force to be reckoned with
(just ask Shatner) *wink* But she took something that the pretty
Unicorn said and twisted it - whether by intention or misunderstanding. No one said that she lost her daughter
because of karma. No one believes that either. I wouldn’t associate with
someone who believed or said such a thing, it’s not my style. Bad things happen
even to our most precious and innocent - our children - and we can all agree
that is the worst thing that could ever happen to a mother.
The SS are also pretty high and mighty about Purv having
“sources.” Yet it is ok for ya’ll to stalk where S&C live, or stalk a loved
one’s grave, etc.? Does this mean you never read a People magazine? Those
articles are full of “sources.” Again, don’t be hypocritical about things that
you do, too.
Hey Shirt - Why does it bother you that a fan group sent S
an expensive gift? Because you are too good to even say hello if you were to
pass him in the street? While you don’t like that the gift was sent, you SSers
sure are all abuzz about the reason for the gift being made. Endless
speculation. December wedding. Baby on board (I’ll bet C just loves to hear that she looks like she
could be pregnant!). If you can’t stomach the fact that fans sent him some
money for a kilt, you should just ignore the fact that said kilt is being made!
When the pretty Unicorn lost an incredibly close friend, she
tagged a few people about it that the Shirt took umbrage with. This cracked me
up. What doesn’t though, is that she made fun of the pretty Unicorn for this
and continued to make snide remarks about it for a long time after. How someone
grieves is their own business. And the Shirt should know as she herself
recently lost a loved one, for which I am sorry for her loss. It is a terrible
fact of life that we will lose our loved ones in death. It never gets easier,
no matter how many times we have to go through it. It certainly doesn’t help
when we have people making fun of us and bullying us about how we go thru the
process. And I feel the same way about anyone who may have done the same to the
Shirt while she went thru the process.
Another thing - the Unicorn gets bullied relentlessly about
the cowls she makes. Really? Cowls? You
say awful things about her because of cowls?! Something she’s doing to raise
money for charity. Wow. Whenever she gets an acknowledgement from Sam the
bullying starts. Really ladies, jealousy does not become you. And let us just
say for sake of argument (and I don’t believe this to be the case at all, FYI)
that she is doing this to be acknowledged. For personal glory. All the money
she’s put into the yarn, all the time she’s put into making the cowls. Sending
them out. Etc. All this is for glory. She’s helped raise A LOT of money doing
this. Do you think the person with leukemia getting a treatment made possible
by this money cares if the person did it for purely altruistic reasons or
selfish ones? Do you think the mother watching her child suffer and slowly die
maybe get cured because of this money cares for the reason? This isn’t about
Sam. Or the pretty Unicorn. Or you. It’s about people who are dying from a
cancer that not a lot is known about. Let’s keep perspective, shall we?
I wrote in a TwitLonger that I posted awhile back about
women having been beaten down by men since the beginning of time. As women we really
need to start building each other up and become a force to be reckoned with
(not openly advocating rape). Do you know what the only profession is in which
a woman outearns a male? Modelling.
Nothing against models or their job. But come on - modelling? Not politics. Not
science. Or engineering. Modelling. Where the woman’s job is to be quiet, look
pretty and wear as little as possible. There’s something horrendously wrong
with that picture!
I’m not saying that
I’ve never said something about someone else that I shouldn’t have, or
regretted later. Of course I have. You get a few thousand women together on one
site and there’s bound to be some friction.
Varying degrees of hormones J Differing opinions. But that’s cool. Just because I
don’t believe in the ship, it doesn’t make me the enemy. When I first joined
this fandom, I was convinced S&C liked each other. I thought S was really
into C (which let’s face it, who wouldn’t be? I imagine that she’s one of those
women where men just can’t help but fall a little in love with her no matter
who they are. She’s utterly adorable and from my POV nearly perfect. Darn her! J) I read all the SS blogs. But something just
didn’t seem right. In fact, the SS are the ones who let me know there was such
a person as Purv. And while she and I
don’t always agree, we can always have a discussion without it turning into a
“banishment.” Or calling each other foul names. Or saying foul language at each
other. Which is more than can be said for the SS.
After saying all this, and I apologize it is SO LONG, I
acknowledge that the “There is NO Ship”pers haven’t been perfect little angels,
either. I just saw that an anon went on a SS’ blog and said that as long as she
was going to keep writing what she did, she was pretty much going to get
bullied and harassed. Last time I
checked, the United States still allows for free speech. And as long as that
free speech does not endanger someone or bully them, they have a right to it.
That’s why it’s THEIR blog. You want to
state a different opinion that doesn’t harm or bully someone, then start YOUR
own blog. That’s the way it works.
And if you do have your own blog, get used to having people
send you hate mail. It’s a weird time we live in. People have lost their
manners when speaking to others and seem to love to send hate mail to others. I
can imagine opening up hate-filled mail must take you aback at first. Kind of
like finding a screencap of yourself on someone’s IG account as they mock and
bully you over something you said on Twitter (yes, that happened to me, thank
you very much. That account also isn’t around anymore.). You feel all shocked
at first and then you don’t know whether to laugh at them or be furious.
People have said “Just ignore them (the SS). They want you
to engage.” Probably true. But easier said than done. And ignoring what is going on just gives the
bullies free range to continue. As the article about bullying stated in the
beginning of my post, standing up to bullies usually stops the behavior. It doesn’t thrill me to put myself out “there”
by writing these things. I’d rather be working on my novel. But
I.Cannot.Stand.Bullies. And cowards who
hide behind the cloak of the internet to do so are the worst. (And I mean that
from both sides of the coin.) Let the shippers ship. It makes them happy. Heck,
it makes me happy to watch S&C interact whether it’s via tweets or in some
interview. I have no doubt they love each other. They just don’t love each other (my opinion). So let them have their fun.
Same with those who are not shippers. You know, I follow
Purv on twitter, but I think for myself and the wool has not been pulled over
my eyes. Stop saying that. We are not animals, assy, bitches (only on certain
days, I’m sure *wink*), or whatever else you come up with to dehumanize us. I
follow her because I like her. I like the people I’ve met thru her. The info is
fun and I can think thru the process myself to see that it’s true. And if it
ever got to the point where it wasn’t fun anymore, I wouldn’t follow anymore. It’s not the land of Purvistan. It isn’t the
cult of Purv. It’s a nice group of women who chat and enjoy each other’s
company. I believe that is what you shippers have, also.
It is absurd that this is all over a tv show. And two people
that 99.9% of us will never meet, let alone become best buds with. It’s Much
Ado About Nothing. Of course we love the
books. We love the show. We love all the actors in the show. The creator. The
costume director. The writers. The producers. The drivers! Can’t we do that
without being bullies to others in the fandom whose opinion differs with ours? Come
on, we are all supposed to be adults here. Remember: Be Elsa. Let.It.Go.
Finally, while we love our show (to the point of mania), we
need all realize that there are things going on in the world that truly matter.
Kids are being shot and killed while going to college. There are thousands who
are refugees. Who have lost everything and would dearly love to have to only
worry about whether two actors are going to get married in December and have a
wee babe. Our planet is being destroyed. Our polar bears are dying because of
it for heaven’s sake! Space is filling up with our junk. Children are being
sold as sex slaves. Cancer. Donald Trump. These are serious issues! Let’s all
show a little kindness towards one another because we have no idea what someone
is dealing with once they get offline and have to deal with their own real
world.
