Prevention and combating cyber bullying and internet violence among youth

Prevention and combating cyber bullying and internet violence among youth
– manual for youth workers –
Cyber bullying story – Resource sheet
Lucie’s story 5
In January, there was a big party at a place called LIFE that a lot of the girls and boys in my
grade were going to. I really wanted to go but had other plans made for that night. I was so
upset that I couldn’t go, I wrote a mean post on my spam account on Instagram that was
immature, angry and rude directed to some of the people going to this party. Rather than
accepting that I couldn’t go, I made it seem like I didn’t want to go in the first place. About a
month later, a girl in my grade somehow came upon this post and shared it with other kids in
our grade. People started to say terrible things about me while I was within earshot. Hearing
this, I decided to go up to 4 or 5 of the girls and apologized immediately for the post and tried
my best to make things right. They all said that they understood and that was the last I heard of
it for the time being.
Fast forward 6 months later and I posted a photo of myself on Instagram with the caption “Life
is good”. A bunch of people including a boy I previously was hanging out with attacked this
post with really mean and rude comments about me. I was so upset that I privately texted the
girl who seemed to be leading these comments asking her why she was writing these hurtful
things and she replied by saying “it’s a joke and we are just having fun.” She then continued to
write more mean things about me and even made a post about me on her spam account,
purposefully so I could see it. She threatened me saying “I deserved this” and that she would
hurt me and live stream it for other people to watch. I was scared and devastated when students
from my grade who I thought were my friends commented about how funny she was and how
annoying I was. People from other schools that I didn’t know even chimed in! I felt attacked
and all alone. My close friends tried to comfort me privately, but no one had the courage to
actually defend me on social media. I had this horrible sinking feeling of everyone hating me
and talking about me behind my back. Some of my sympathetic friends even wrote to me that
they would “hang themselves” if people were writing these kinds of things about them. I was
so confused and sad that I decided the right thing to do was tell my mom and my family. My
5
Text taken from https://www.cybersmile.org/blog/lucies-cyberbullying-story
Last accessed on 22/06/2018.
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