Journal #7

Let me start off with saying that bullying is stupid.  Any time a person has an idea in their head that they are better than someone else for whatever reason, that is straight up stupid.  I have never been in a serious bullying situation, nor have I really known anyone who has been, either.  I can, however, talk about what I have learned about in the past in classes and such.  I remember in eighth grade they had a speaker come in and talk about virtual bullies, on Facebook and such.  There had been a girl who had been mean to another girl or stolen her boyfriend or something very minimal and the victims mother felt the need to step in on the situation.  The mother got on Myspace (I know, back in the day) and created a fake account as a high school boy and added the girl who had been bullying her daughter.  She began to slowly build a friendship with the girl, always calling her pretty and continuously complimenting her until the girl began to trust this boy.  After a few months the boy began to throw out digs on the girl, BULLYING her back.  He eventually make her feel so horrible about herself she thought she had no reason to live and committed suicide.  How did this effect the victim?  In this particularly situation, very strongly.  She made herself so vulnerable to this Myspace boy she had never met that his opinions were, in the end, the difference between life and death.  How did this effect the bully?  I would be very angry if this did not virtually ruin the mother who created the fake accounts life.  I don't remember the exact reason she felt the need to step in on her daughters life, but I do remember it was an extremely petty and definitely not worth anyone's life.  Hopefully the mother was effected very highly and learns from her mistakes and others can also learn from it.