In the last few years cyber-bullying became an up-to-date topic for many people. Especially teenagers are involved in online abusing as well as scientists are interested in this online phenomenon. Now youtube-star Rebecca Black shows: being an online-victim can make you successful and famous.
What is cyber-bullying?
Cyber-bullying is the use of social-networks, cell-phones, e-mails or chat-rooms to abuse, tease and threaten another person or another group of people. There are a lot of cases where classmates wrote abuses in online forums or putting an intimate or exposing video online. Usually the reason why teenagers are doing that are: fun, cultural conflicts, demonstrating power, acceptance in one group or because they fear to be the victim. Especially in new media there is no way to escape for bullied victims. If someone abuses a person online in a blog or social network it will be a public information and the victim cannot just go home and hide.
Rebecca Black: victim, but famous
The past showed us that we had a victim who got hurt and an offender who was the one who abused someone. Everything was clear before some internet-stars appeared. One of them emerged a few weeks ago. Rebecca Black is not the classical victim of online-bullying because she benefits of the people who hate her. More than 53 million clicks in six weeks for the song “Friday” and more than 700000 comments for her youtube-video. Most of the comments make fun of the people who appear in the video, the lyrics as well as of the pop-song which seems to be too primitive and crappy for most of the youtube users. One user just posted on youtube: “WTF was that shit I almost threw my iPod away to stop the madness she needs to stop singing and jump off a cliff.“
The 13 year old online-star is confused and got hurt of all the bad comments and reactions of her song as well as for her music-video. Anyway she has the attention of all the American TV-Stations and her song entered in the iTunes charts on position 46. She is successful and does not stop to put more stuff of her online. So another version of the song appeared on youtube where she is performing her song live with her friends in a living room. It is us who give people like Rebecca attention and make her successful even when we do not like her. One iYoozy-user posted a comment which makes the situation very clear: ”We don´t hate you because you're famous. You're famous because we hate you.”
Use of New Media
It is not new that new media can be used as a platform to put your own stuff online and become famous, but in the past users expected positive reactions for their stuff they were putting on youtube, myspace, etc.. It seems that we now reached a point were we just can use new media to get attention in a positive or a negative way. It will not make any difference if you want to become famous. All artists who spend a lot of time and work hard to write and record songs feel treated unfair. Why do people want to listen and watch crappy songs and videos and do not prefer listening to a song with good lyrics? The song “Friday” is just a representative example where some users and media will go in future and so far the top of all the crappy output of online users.
It might be not seen as cyber-bullying in the eyes of the offenders because they never met Rebecca personally and do not go to school with her also. Youtube users rate the song like they rate any other funny stuff in which are no people involved, but this time there is one human being who is abused and most of the people do not realize that fact. There is a difference between the classical online-bullying and the case of Rebecca. Most of the comments are not personal and the people who rate and abuse her are far away from her. Anyway telling Rebecca anonymous and far away that she should jump of a cliff because it is not bearable to listen to her voice is cyber-bullying.
New role of the victim
Even if it was not Rebecca`s aim to obtain all the hate of the youtube-users, in future there might be much more people who want to be famous at any price. Cyber-bullying now gives you the ability to get the attention of lots of people and can make you famous. The role of the victim has changed in some cases. Now we can put crappy stuff online on purpose and wait for how shitty the users rate or how many bad reactions we get for a video or a song. The classical role of the victim does not disappear, but the victim has the ability to use the abuses in a positive way. The online-victim is able to become a star. Anyway the victim is still a victim who has to fear psychological problems and might need the help of other people. The offender remains constant and does not realize that his power to abuse is used in a positive way.
There are a lot of people who think that Rebecca was not cyber-bullied. These people should ask themselves how they would feel after putting a video online and reading thousands of bad comments. You might be famous and you might feel good giving interviews to well known TV-stations, but when you leave the house of your family it will always remain that there are 53 million people who saw your video and the majority of them hates you. Success does not make cyber-bullying go away.
Sources:
http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/musik/0,1518,752176,00.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2LRROpph0
http://www.thecampussocialite.com/wp-content/uploads/rebecca-black-plague.jpg
If I was in her feet I wouldnt even bother posting up a horrid music video like "Friday".
ReplyDelete