Okay, this needs to stop...

I had just read an article on cyber bullying. A friend of mine had posted it. , or Niki Foxx, had written this article. Please understand, viewers, that I am crediting her for this. I am just re-posting her article.

A Challenge to End Cyber Bullying
By Niki Foxx
A little known but rather large problem effecting and hurting today’s youth, will it ever end? Maybe, maybe not but the good news is it’s always a worthy challenge.

As a recent victim of this cyber bullying, I have made it my own personal goal to make this issue more known and I have started this goal by first off, creating a group on a well-known website. There is also a Twitter group that is dedicated in trying to get the help of a famous actor to speak out against this issue of Cyber Bullying. But that is not all I plan on doing to make this problem more known to the world.

Have you ever been a victim of bullying? Regardless to the fact if it was cyber bullying or not? I imagine most of us have and if I have my hopes in the correct place, most of you believe it should stop. That something should happen. That people should defend it and speak out against it. Well it’s true it only takes one voice to speak out against something but good news is with that voice alone, there are a thousand other voices that will follow it.

Now I’m sure by now most of you are curious as to just what happened with my experience in Cyber Bullying. Well it’s actually a fairly simple story but to understand it, you must first know a few things about me. I am a digital art hobbyist. The type of digital art I practice in is photomanipulation and digital comics. Photomanipulation also called “photoshopping” can be defined as images that are generated through computer software to improve thing such as the look or readability of the image.

With my photomanipulation skills I took a picture of someone, put them into a different background, different clothes, different hair, skin and eyes. One of the basic rules of photoshop is that if you are photomanipulating a person you must make them unrecognizable to the original image and it is not considered copy right. I believed it was but others felt it wasn’t. And as such I was harassed, ridiculed and even threatened over this. In the end, it is just a picture. And yet I was cyber bullied over it. Someone even told me to kill myself over this.

I admit it may have been wrong of me to photomanip someone regardless of the fact I put them in different clothes, skin etc. But to threaten and harass someone over a picture made me begin to think, how bad does the rest of our youth have it? After all if one is threatened death over a picture than what else will they threaten death over?

I’m sure that most of you have no doubt heard stories about cyber bullying, teen suicide over cyber bullying and truthfully before I thought this was a little issue. That it didn’t matter, I did not even give it a second thought until it happened to me. Ever since I started this group against cyber bullying, I have seen and heard more and more stories about it. I had no idea just how great this issue was and it needs to be stopped.

I do not have any children but I can well imagine what it would be like if my child was being cyber bullied and they did not tell me. In all actuality a child will not speak when they are being cyber bullied. Now with that said, imagine if your own child was being cyber bullied, harassed, and threatened through the internet. Imagine you knew nothing and one day you find them lying dead in their bedroom. What if they were in the bathroom? Or perhaps even in their school?

What if there was a note? A suicide note that said they couldn’t handle it, that they never spoke a word to anyone about it because they feared nobody would understand or care. That the pain they felt through cyber bullying was too great that they took their own life. That the things these bullies said behind a computer screen were right. But now you can’t reverse it, you can’t rewind this tragedy. And more importantly you cannot erase what is already on the internet, it is forever.

If we took all those who have cyber bullied others and put it all together, I guarantee you would be shocked to know just how cruel our youth can be. But all is not lost, I may be small and I may not have real world experience. But you don’t need experience to have hope for a better world and you certainly don’t need it to speak out and stand tall. All you need for that is strength. And I hope that you will join me in this quest in trying to promote cyber bullying.

I have now extended it to several websites in hopes that there will be a change, I also have plenty of other ideas to help promote cyber bullying. Perhaps get our local High School involved. Even make videos, poetry, stories, anything to promote this issue. If we can just do that, imagine what else we could do.

My dream is to get this issue known to the point where a law is passed against it. A law? Yes a law, I know some may think that ridiculous. But we have laws against texting while driving, why not cyber bullying as well? We have sat back and done so very little over this issue, like taking a toy away from a child. It only does so much to improve their behavior before we have to take it away again. I believe this issue needs to be taken with an iron fist.

I understand some may disagree and argue but you cannot say you will not at least try. Try to help promote cyber bullying and try to spread it wide. To every state we can, to reach across the country and round this world we call the planet Earth.

So I present a challenge to you, help us get cyber bullying more known. Help others understand how grave of an issue this is and maybe just maybe. We can finally make a difference.




Thank you, Niki, for sharing this. It does mean a ton. And I, hopefully as well as others, will continue to share this story.
I had been bullied, too. Not cyber-bullied. But physically, verbally. That is of no difference. Bullying is unacceptable. It was yesterday, it is today. And it will be tomorrow. Please spread this on. You can copy and paste ((be sure to credit the writer, Niki Foxx, when you post)), favourite, comment, whatever... But get this issue better known. "Knowing is half the battle." And then we can act. We can act to better the world, to save it from the cruelty of many. But, please, tell others of this. People need to know.