Many of us with jobs occasionally have to
travel for work. Sarah Hyland’s job as a television actor on Modern Family required her to travel to
Sydney. However due to the high-profile nature of Hyland’s television job
playing a promiscuous teen, many ‘fans’ have a hard time distinguishing between
fantasy and reality. Being gracious and cooperative when a stranger wants a
photograph taken with you is a requirement of the job. Hyland was merely doing
her job… then the 29-year-old deviant manhandled her mammories. Not too many of
us face the risk of sexual assault while on a business trip, but there seems to
be a whole different attitude towards famous people. It is as if society
doesn’t see them as human beings, making them one of the most vulnerable
working classes.
American talk show host Jimmy Kimmel often
broadcasts a segment on his show titled ‘Celebrities Read Mean Tweets’, where
familiar faces read incredibly offensive comments made directly towards them by
strangers via Twitter:
The interesting thing about this whole trend of insulting famous performers on Twitter, is that the vast majority of those dishing out the insults would never directly say these kinds of things to their faces.
The March 2014
issue of DOLLY magazine (a monthly Trans-Tasman children’s magazine) features
an article ‘Twitter Hate: How far is too far?’ where they briefly investigated
social media bullying.
“You
would never hate on someone in real life, so why should Twitter be any
different? People should never think it’s okay to spread harsh comments
online…” 16-year-old Paula told DOLLY magazine, “Celebs aren’t
numb to bullying because they’re famous, they’re just like us. You may not
think that saying mean things on Twitter is a big deal, but haters should ask
themselves, ‘What if I were reading these hateful comments about myself? How
would I feel?'"
Another unsettling thing is that each one of these celebrities are parents, and their children have to deal with strangers saying such malicious things about their mother or father on such a public forum - merely because they were born to famous parents.
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| Does this little girl want to hear someone call her father an "old irrelevant pig", simply because he went to work an did his job? |
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| Would you tell these little girls that their mother "looks like a duck's vagina"? |
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| Most kids would be downright terrified if a stranger told them that they wanted to punch their dad "until there's bones in his stool". |
These people do not need the world to kiss their behinds, but they also don't deserve the often unwarranted malicious criticism that is constantly thrown at them. It's very easy to develop an opinion on a person solely based on the image that is portrayed of them, positive or otherwise. Rarely our opinions are based on knowing the celebrity personally.
But why do we target celebrities? According to Carlin Flora, "the best targets for gossip are the faces we all know." And in this day an age, we see and hear about celebrities more often than our own friends. The more often we see their faces, the more our brains respond - irregardless of whether they are attractive or not. But with overexposure, a person's endless omnipresence at every corner becomes tiresome and irritating - and celebrities are the most overexposed human beings of all.
British musician John Lennon's controversial, yet unsettlingly correct theory about The Beatles being "more popular than Jesus" has well and truly been proven now. Jesus, HaShem, Allah, Brahma and Buddha risk fading into more and more obsolete existences in favour of the Gagas, Kardashians, Ellens, Oprahs, Beyoncés and Biebers of the world. Their lives appear more materialistically privileged than ours and we envy that. They were all once ordinary people like us so we subconsciously believe that if we copy what they do, we can also live their glamorous lifestyles. In the mean time, we can hate them and abuse them because the minute they became famous, they stopped being human beings, right?
But why do we target celebrities? According to Carlin Flora, "the best targets for gossip are the faces we all know." And in this day an age, we see and hear about celebrities more often than our own friends. The more often we see their faces, the more our brains respond - irregardless of whether they are attractive or not. But with overexposure, a person's endless omnipresence at every corner becomes tiresome and irritating - and celebrities are the most overexposed human beings of all.
British musician John Lennon's controversial, yet unsettlingly correct theory about The Beatles being "more popular than Jesus" has well and truly been proven now. Jesus, HaShem, Allah, Brahma and Buddha risk fading into more and more obsolete existences in favour of the Gagas, Kardashians, Ellens, Oprahs, Beyoncés and Biebers of the world. Their lives appear more materialistically privileged than ours and we envy that. They were all once ordinary people like us so we subconsciously believe that if we copy what they do, we can also live their glamorous lifestyles. In the mean time, we can hate them and abuse them because the minute they became famous, they stopped being human beings, right?
Wrong. Fame does not ensure immunity to verbal abuse. Nor does it condone being the deliverer of said abuse. A large number of people copy their famous idols - whole magazines are released each week with advice on how to look just like them. But often the poor behaviour of a celebrity can influence us - even their destructive tendency to publicly shame and abuse others.
American born pop star Miley Cyrus instigated a very public social media war between Irish rock musician Sinead O'Connor when Cyrus took to Twitter to mock O'Connor's ongoing battle with mental illness, namely her cry for help following a suicide attempt. It was all in response to industry veteran O'Connor's genuine concern that Cyrus was being unknowingly exploited by the music industry.
The concern is very real in all aspects of this scandal. It is estimated that 25% of the world's population are dealing with mental illness at present. O'Connor worried that the mockery could have a potentially devastating affect on Cyrus's young and impressionable fans, who may be too embarrassed or ashamed to seek help if faced with mental illness themselves. To put her concern into perspective: Cyrus has more 'followers' on Twitter than the whole entire population of Kazakstan - that's an enormous amount of influence, good or otherwise.
Australia's Next Top Model judge Charlotte Dawson was an avid user of Twitter and often got into very public social media brawls.
"When we're on the air, Alex Perry and I often get Facebook comments or tweets about how ugly we are..." Dawson said, "Sometimes people just don't like us, or decisions we've made on the show, or they want to get back at us for eliminating their favourite model. What better way to attack our looks?"
But when a Twitter user compared the judge's appearance to plastic surgery addict Jocelyn Wildenstien, Dawson made the biggest mistake ever - she reacted and responded, then retaliated in shrewd fashion by publishing the troll's name and place of employment. From then on the insults and threats began flying at Dawson by the hundreds, taking a huge blow to her already unstable emotional pride and mental wellbeing.
Dawson made no secret of her bitter relationship with her birth country New Zealand, even going as far as to call the entire nation "small, nasty and vindictive" in an interview with The New Zealand Herald. No stranger to dishing out attacks herself - she once asked her Twitter followers to "please kill" Filipino fashion blogger Bryan Grey Yambao - when the threats were turned towards Dawson however, it had severe consequences.
"On behalf of NZ," one user wrote, "we would like to you to please GO HANG YOURSELF!!!"
After reacting, responding and retaliating all night, a heavily intoxicated Dawson signed off with "Hope this ends the misery ..", and photograph of her hand holding a small pile of pills.
"You win x" was Dawson's coup de grâce. Dawson was then rushed to St Vincent's Hospital after a suspected suicide attempt.
Following her discharge from hospital, Dawson did her rounds on the media circuit including a 60 Minutes interview with Tara Brown in regards to her suicide attempt, Twitter trolls and cyber bullying. When asked by Brown if her "aim was to die" Dawson replied, "I believe so."
On Sunrise, with the help of police she tracked down some of her online tormenters and questioned them directly. One of the trolls was 20-year-old Jordan McGuire who appeared unfazed, "They're things that I say on Twitter. And Twitter isn't real life."
McGuire's comment brings up a current social uncertainty that needs to be addressed now. Is cyberspace just as real as the world that surrounds us, or should we see the Internet an alternate reality, where anyone can be whoever/whatever they want?
And more specifically, it raises the issues reality television shows like Australia's Next Top Model and the personalities featured in them. Reality stars use their own names, and even when claiming to play a 'character' or exaggerated form of themselves on television, the viewers are lead to believe that reality television personalities are accurately portraying themselves for the cameras. Their Twitter accounts and online-presence provide an interactive platform for the real world viewers to talk directly to the 'characters' they are watching on their television.
It's a very confusing phenomenon that has not yet been completely deciphered and explained.
For instance I was a very big fan of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Outback House. Like any fan of a television show, I had my favourite characters and the characters I loved to hate, namely the squatter's wife. By watching this show alone, I am not going to track the woman down and directly abuse the way she acting on the show. That would be malicious and pointless, like sending hate mail to Harry Shearer because Mr Burns did something nasty on The Simpsons.
The real problem with the Charlotte Dawson saga was that primarily she was an addict, and her drug of choice was Twitter. Responding to trolls on Twitter is like poking a stick at a hornets nest. They'll come at you in a swarm and sting repeatedly until you run away. If you're allergic to their venom, it'll kill you. Dawson's allergy was depression, and the online abuse was the poison.
At 11:18am on 22nd of February, 2014 NSW Police discovered Charlotte Dawson's body in her Woolloomooloo home. She had committed suicide by hanging.
Social media has well and truly become one giant burn book; The Internet a shark tank; and the keyboard a weapon. It's time we identified that we are being sucked out of the real world and into the control of a machine that is basically just a television attached to a typewriter. And by doing so, we are beginning to forget that everything that appears on that screen was put there by a person, no more special or relevant to the world than we are. Like us, they have feelings, emotions, fears, insecurities, flaws and most of all friends & families. The words you are writing on your keyboard may be the very thing that tips another human over the edge, and takes away the person someone loves. Think.
"When we're on the air, Alex Perry and I often get Facebook comments or tweets about how ugly we are..." Dawson said, "Sometimes people just don't like us, or decisions we've made on the show, or they want to get back at us for eliminating their favourite model. What better way to attack our looks?"
But when a Twitter user compared the judge's appearance to plastic surgery addict Jocelyn Wildenstien, Dawson made the biggest mistake ever - she reacted and responded, then retaliated in shrewd fashion by publishing the troll's name and place of employment. From then on the insults and threats began flying at Dawson by the hundreds, taking a huge blow to her already unstable emotional pride and mental wellbeing.
Dawson made no secret of her bitter relationship with her birth country New Zealand, even going as far as to call the entire nation "small, nasty and vindictive" in an interview with The New Zealand Herald. No stranger to dishing out attacks herself - she once asked her Twitter followers to "please kill" Filipino fashion blogger Bryan Grey Yambao - when the threats were turned towards Dawson however, it had severe consequences.
"On behalf of NZ," one user wrote, "we would like to you to please GO HANG YOURSELF!!!"
After reacting, responding and retaliating all night, a heavily intoxicated Dawson signed off with "Hope this ends the misery ..", and photograph of her hand holding a small pile of pills.
"You win x" was Dawson's coup de grâce. Dawson was then rushed to St Vincent's Hospital after a suspected suicide attempt.
Following her discharge from hospital, Dawson did her rounds on the media circuit including a 60 Minutes interview with Tara Brown in regards to her suicide attempt, Twitter trolls and cyber bullying. When asked by Brown if her "aim was to die" Dawson replied, "I believe so."
On Sunrise, with the help of police she tracked down some of her online tormenters and questioned them directly. One of the trolls was 20-year-old Jordan McGuire who appeared unfazed, "They're things that I say on Twitter. And Twitter isn't real life."
McGuire's comment brings up a current social uncertainty that needs to be addressed now. Is cyberspace just as real as the world that surrounds us, or should we see the Internet an alternate reality, where anyone can be whoever/whatever they want?
And more specifically, it raises the issues reality television shows like Australia's Next Top Model and the personalities featured in them. Reality stars use their own names, and even when claiming to play a 'character' or exaggerated form of themselves on television, the viewers are lead to believe that reality television personalities are accurately portraying themselves for the cameras. Their Twitter accounts and online-presence provide an interactive platform for the real world viewers to talk directly to the 'characters' they are watching on their television.
It's a very confusing phenomenon that has not yet been completely deciphered and explained.
For instance I was a very big fan of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Outback House. Like any fan of a television show, I had my favourite characters and the characters I loved to hate, namely the squatter's wife. By watching this show alone, I am not going to track the woman down and directly abuse the way she acting on the show. That would be malicious and pointless, like sending hate mail to Harry Shearer because Mr Burns did something nasty on The Simpsons.
The real problem with the Charlotte Dawson saga was that primarily she was an addict, and her drug of choice was Twitter. Responding to trolls on Twitter is like poking a stick at a hornets nest. They'll come at you in a swarm and sting repeatedly until you run away. If you're allergic to their venom, it'll kill you. Dawson's allergy was depression, and the online abuse was the poison.
At 11:18am on 22nd of February, 2014 NSW Police discovered Charlotte Dawson's body in her Woolloomooloo home. She had committed suicide by hanging.
Social media has well and truly become one giant burn book; The Internet a shark tank; and the keyboard a weapon. It's time we identified that we are being sucked out of the real world and into the control of a machine that is basically just a television attached to a typewriter. And by doing so, we are beginning to forget that everything that appears on that screen was put there by a person, no more special or relevant to the world than we are. Like us, they have feelings, emotions, fears, insecurities, flaws and most of all friends & families. The words you are writing on your keyboard may be the very thing that tips another human over the edge, and takes away the person someone loves. Think.
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