Sometimes you need to put on your strongest armor before going into the world of Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Tik Tok, and so on. The internet is an evil place, where a great deal of cyber mobbing takes place. It takes countless lives away from their loved ones, just because of events happening behind a glass screen. And it needs to stop.
A few weeks ago Kasia Lenhard, Ex-girlfriend of soccer player Jerome Boateng, had unfortunately taken her life. She left behind a 5-year-old son. That got me thinking, what must have been said, for a mother to leave her whole world behind. Then I read all the posts on Instagram, everyone being so sad about her death, and even her Instagram following increasing. It got me triggered. Why now? She begged for people to stop cyberbullying her. Now they no longer can. Yet, they “Stand by her”? Since when? Do they just want a clear conscience?
Why after someone is dead, do people care more?
Iris, author of the blog Philosophy By Postcard had this answer to the question “Why do we respect the dead more than the living?” and it makes sense. When someone is living, you have time to plan the future. When they are gone, all you have left are memories, that you are sadly not able to grow any longer.
“Perhaps we respect the dead because they are totems that remind us to renew ourselves in the time we have left to us; to orientate ourselves to values that have deep meaning for us, and to cherish the living and this unsettling, curious thing we call life.”
I believe that senseless, phony, comments behind a phone screen need to end.
If you want to tell someone how you feel, do it. If you want to tell someone how they look, do it. But when you do it through a different personality or a non-existent one- aka our old friend anonymous- it just seems like you are a coward, who cannot stand up for themselves. It is crucial for one to think about how someone might react to something one says.
The tone sets the base for the music
People do not realize that when they leave rude comments under someone’s post, while they just lock their phone after and carry on with their day, it could have such an immense impact on the receiving party. No one knows what goes on in anyone’s head.
Social media is a responsibility, and one should try to do good with such a platform, and I believe by using it with respect, you will see the virtual world sync into a positive vibration.
