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Cyberbullying
Inquisitor77
2 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered User regular
2 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered User regular
I'm a Big Brother and my Little has confided in me that he has experienced cyberbullying. Mostly in the form of him posting Youtube videos and getting comments from his classmates, which then apparently became a whole "thing" in his school about how bad his videos are.
To add some color, his videos aren't terrible. They're normal videos for a 12 year-old where he shows dumb stuff he does on Roblox or he's watching videos and commenting on them while watching them (e.g., the vast majority of "streamer" content that's out there today). He can come across as pretty abrasive, egotistical, and doesn't have a lot of self-awareness (e.g., the vast majority of the human race, especially at his age), but he isn't posting stuff that could possibly be construed as anything particularly destructive or abusive towards others.
So basically it's normal bullying except dialed up another 17 notches because the internet is great and has only served to benefit mankind.
I was curious if anyone knew of any good resources? I've done some internet searching but frankly everything I've found has been underwhelming. I know that cyberbullying is a problem. His mother is well aware of the situation (he's already changed schools once because of stuff like this). What I'd like to know is if there's anything I can specifically do to help him as a mentor and friend beyond the normal "be there for him" and "talk to him".
To add some color, his videos aren't terrible. They're normal videos for a 12 year-old where he shows dumb stuff he does on Roblox or he's watching videos and commenting on them while watching them (e.g., the vast majority of "streamer" content that's out there today). He can come across as pretty abrasive, egotistical, and doesn't have a lot of self-awareness (e.g., the vast majority of the human race, especially at his age), but he isn't posting stuff that could possibly be construed as anything particularly destructive or abusive towards others.
So basically it's normal bullying except dialed up another 17 notches because the internet is great and has only served to benefit mankind.
I was curious if anyone knew of any good resources? I've done some internet searching but frankly everything I've found has been underwhelming. I know that cyberbullying is a problem. His mother is well aware of the situation (he's already changed schools once because of stuff like this). What I'd like to know is if there's anything I can specifically do to help him as a mentor and friend beyond the normal "be there for him" and "talk to him".
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Let me start by saying that I have no idea the best way to be supportive. I honestly don't, and my way of dealing with that in particular is "you can post videos of yourself to the internet when you're 30," which may not be the most effective thing. I guess the ship has sailed on that with this kid anyway.
As much as I hate to discourage creativity and so forth, have you thought about having a talk with him about The Nature of the Internet? Specifically, the permanence. The things you put up never, ever truly go away, and once they're there it's easy to lose control of your content. I don't think a kid his age can really understand what that means, I know I didn't when a friend talked me into signing some garbage petition I can still find with a google search of my name. It was like 20 years ago. The internet barely existed and somehow it has survived and still comes up, ugh. It might be best to suggest that future videos he makes are private or unlisted and only for people he shares them with specifically. Especially when there's bullying involved you can end up with gifs and shit out there because people are terrible.
Maybe you can get together a few stories from people you know about the thing they posted that wouldn't go away.
Short-term, however, he can completely block them so they can't contact him on those accounts on YouTube. Click "About" on their profile, then hit the flag button. In the drop down menu, you'll see an option "Block User." Once you confirm your decision to block this commenter, they won't be able to send you direct messages, or be able to comment on your videos or your channel. If they keep making accounts, he'll have to keep banning them, but it ought to get him at least a small bit of peace. It would also be a good idea to file reports on them to YouTube as well- touch all the bases and hopefully something will happen.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
That's a really good idea. We've never really talked about "the Internet". I don't think I can dissuade him from doing anything (one of his issues is that he's as stubborn as a mule and the other is that he never thinks he's wrong, which make for a pretty rough combination), but maybe I can get him to see that there are downsides.
Unfortunately it sounds like his mom has done everything she can. She actually works with special needs kids in a nearby district, so she's well aware of how to leverage the bureaucracy. The problem here seems to be that there isn't much the originating school can actually do, which is why he changed schools in the first place.
Per ceres's comment I think it would be good to talk about things he can do while he's on the internet to manage the problem.
Really appreciate the advice, everyone!
There's a lot of advice out there for content creators, and even if they are 42 instead of 12, they are encountering people being dicks to them online and off. If you dont think this kid is about to stop making videos, my best advice is to take his content creation seriously, and find the resources that take it seriously as well. I was ruthlessly committed to being an artist, and that is what kept me going through all sorts of things. I looked to concept art forums full of professionals and got not always the best advice, but it was certainly the advice that stuck with me the most at the time.
Adults were pretty much graded by how seriously they took my artwork. I wasn't bad, but I was not a child prodigy either, so there was a whole gradient of reactions from adults and I could tell who was being a putz even when I was 11.
If I were in your shoes, I'd be looking for these things
- Real advice for adult streamers when it comes to dealing with harassment, death threats, and that sort of thing that's digestible on his level. Sure, hes a kid, but he sees himself as a god-king because hes in middle school, and treating him like an adult can sometimes break into that ego. Is his computer secure? Does he understand privacy settings? You might think he wont take it seriously, but by the time I was 13-14 I was managing my digital life and computer better than my parents. Adjust these resources to match the severity of the attack he was under.
- What does he like about content creation, what is aiming for with his videos, and what part of that can you find mentors in that will expand his skillset past youtube? Maybe its comedy and improv, maybe its actually editing, criticism and journalism. Maybe it is strait up streamers, and maybe you can find some candid videos of streamers he likes talking about their influences. Its hard to know what guys are total fucking shit heads without consuming their content yourself, so if you can spark a mutual interest by listening to a podcast or something together, that might help. If you can find a way to get to him by way of the thing hes committed to, I highly recommend it.
- Social outlets away from school if its possible for you to help facilitate and research. Art camps were expensive and also really important for me in realizing my community might be elsewhere. Building up my social awareness and independence is what got me to the point where bullying was less of an issue. Its scary to express, but there's almost nothing my parents could have done to stop bullying from happening to me other than to not let me interact with the world. They instead did a pretty great job getting me exposed to the world and I learned how to deal with the bad shit my own ways.
It's very worth making sure he knows how to make a video without giving away his full name, those of the people he knows, or address, especially if he's going to post publicly and even moreso if there's bullying involved.
You don't have to look far for advice about dealing with crazies as a content creator especially on youtube. Pretty much any channel you regularly watch over a certain threshold of subscribers is going to have a story. I think just about everyone I watch does, either bullying, stalking, or in Philip DeFranco's case someone broke into his fucking house.
One of the things I've struggled with lately (after a year of hanging out together) is how to be supportive without reinforcing negative behavior. Or, more specifically, how to get him to realize that he isn't (as you put it) "a god-king", that a little self-awareness is a good thing, and that the world doesn't revolve around him.
The reason I bring this up is because he puts on a very big front about being really good at pretty much everything. Which I can tell is bravado (and a self-defense mechanism besides). But I can see firsthand how incredibly grating that kind of behavior might be to his peers, especially as he starts entering his teenage years where people will be even more brutal if he's lacking in any basic humility or self-awareness.
As another example: In addition to making Youtube videos, he is also very much into baseball. When we've talked about it, he has said that he wants to be in the major leagues and that he thinks he can make it. This is all really common for kids - everyone has dreams.
But I have noticed that he very clearly doesn't have the drive. He has the dream of wanting to be a baseball player, or a big internet streamer, or whatever, but he doesn't actually put in the work. When we play catch or go to the batting cages, he can barely swing a baseball bat, and his go-to complaint is to say that his mom should buy him a lighter bat, even after I've brought up (in a constructive manner) that one thing he can do is exercise and build up his strength ("If your mom can't buy you a new bat, you can try to attack the problem from a different angle that you can control. What if you were stronger, would that make it easier to swing your bat?").
Like, he could literally go out into his backyard and swing his bat for 30 minutes each day, and that would make him stronger. But he doesn't do any of that, even after I've brought it up (without deriding his work ethic), and even after repeatedly trying to positively reinforce when he does practice on his own or work hard (such as schoolwork) and pointing to real-world examples of players he admires and showing how much work they put in every day. To tie this back to his social life, I've seen firsthand that his teammates on his baseball team clearly don't like him, and I have a suspicion that it's because he talks way too much game for being the 2nd-string right-fielder who is likely the worst hitter on his team.
I'm pretty sure that this Youtube stuff is very much in a similar vein - he wants the recognition and authority without putting in any of the expected effort. And he thinks he's already hot shit so not only will he share his opinions about anything and everything, he won't take any advice that doesn't already confirm his worldview. So he's in this destructive cycle where he will stubbornly continue to keep doing what he's doing but it will continue to result in negative consequences. Like, putting up a video that says, unironically, that you're "the best X ever" and have it clearly show that you aren't even remotely close is not going to get you a lot of friends. Especially if you follow it up by "dabbing on the haters". (Holy shit why is the internet even a thing for kids.)
Like, this is all common stuff even for grown-ass adults, let alone kids under 13. But I fear that in not giving him any critical feedback from a safe space, I am preventing him from learning from his mistakes except in these kinds of disproportionate situations where the stakes are way too high. But I also don't want to make things worse by reinforcing the bullying in any way. It's just that so far, being almost wholly-supportive doesn't seem to be helping all that much.
All of this might sound like I hate my Little, and I really don't. I'm really just venting. We have fun when we hang out, and I know he really enjoys it because he's always asking me about stuff we can do together (and he's always really quiet and sad when I'm driving him back home). It's just really difficult to figure out how to get him to realize how his own behavior can in some small way be adding to his problems without somehow reinforcing the bullying that he's getting. If he's a dick to me, I don't really care, and I can point those instances out without making him feel attacked. But if he's a dick to his peers, they'll make his life hell. And I'm desperately trying to find a way to get him to just like, stop being a dick so that he can at least find peers who aren't complete assholes to hang out with, instead of watching him double-down and ostracize literally everyone in his class.
I'll look into Youtube content creator resources and see if there's anything there he might enjoy. Maybe we can talk about what's in them and come up with ways he thinks he can improve, and that will help him gain some self-awareness... This would also be a good way to talk about how "the Internet" works and its pitfalls.
Source: a chronic underachiever.
Yeah...with that combo of personality traits it doesn't really matter what he does; he's going to be in for a really rough teenage years. It's cyberbullying because he's doing stuff online; it would be a different type of bullying if he was trying something else.
I'm not saying don't have a talk or several about The Internet (absolutely do) but you may want to try talking about things like the way people behave, the way people 'should' behave, and that sort of thing. Don't say "this is a thing that you do" since that will make him defensive and even more set in his ways, just maybe see if you can talk about ethics in a sort of abstract, Golden Rule sort of way. Also maybe see if there are particular people he admires that might make good role model examples. Things more generally applicable to all facets of life, like not giving in to toxic masculinity and considering other people's feelings.
Encouraging him to practice is good. His peers will discurage this behavior by responding poorly, and you might want to approach it from that angle "it seems like you are trying to tell your friends that you are better than them all the time" " the best thing I've ever done in life is surround myself with people I thought were better than me." You don't have to pretend he's not being a dick, for sure.
Finding advice that is both social and human can actually be pretty hard. There's a lot of stuff out there about dedication and being independently successful, and that's easier to take on than the emotional stress of being bullied, socially awkward, and lonely. He might feel like people will only like him once he's great at something, so instead of loving the thing, he's waiting to be good at it. Being cool sucks over having friends, it's a lesson some people never learn.
Emphasize being in the moment and not the future when ever you can, what does he actually like about baseball, if he sucks at it? Does he actually like anything about making videos?
Creative people talk about getting in the zone, have you seen him concentrate on something with intense focus? Foster a safe environment for him to place value in feeling comfortable with himself over winning, and just question his reality. Ask him enough questions to encourage critical thinking. Ask him to learn something and teach you.
Anyway I'm rambling but, it sounds like you are already doing great and probably having a positive effect, just remember that everyone is terrible in middle school.
This really resonates with me... I don't remember what happened to me when I was a kid to help me grow out of it. And I don't want him to have to go through what I did when I was a teenager, that's for sure.
I agree, I think the bullying would exist regardless of the internet. The internet just makes it 100x worse because he can never escape it unless he's never online. Toxic masculinity and his perspective devolving into a recursive echo chamber of terrible ideas is also something I'm trying to steer him away from.
One of the things that I hated about growing up when I did was that "not caring" was synonymous with "being cool". As an adult, I see how much of a toxic influence that mindset has been on me personally, and it's frustrating to see a variant of that today. He's definitely expressed to me the sentiment that you have to be good at something to be cool, and while I immediately pointed out that there's a difference between being the kind of person you want to be friends with and being good at something, I'm not sure how much it stuck.
I appreciate the advice and the encouragement. He's definitely at that age where everyone just kind of sucks, so I should probably not be surprised that he and everyone around him just kind of sucks.
I had a great talk with a PhD candidate on child development about this one night at a bar. I'd love to read more about it. It was pretty interesting how the emphasis on the effort was beneficial while praise on results could be detrimental.
https://www.mindsetworks.com/science/
Haha, I was at work so didn't watch the video. Whoops.
That’s where I first put art online ummm 20 years ago now (megatokyo) was one of friendlier places to do so. I was in my early 20s and even with the constructive comments etc I had a hard time with criticism. Made me realize that I didn’t want to go down the artist graphic artist route.
i would not be satisfied with this. in the 21st century, it is absolutely the domain of schools to control and set standards for classmates' online interactions. the problem is that a school is made up of many individuals, systems aren't always watertight and you need to make sure the information gets through to the right people: the year group advisor, the welfare officer and the relative deputy principal.
last year, early on, one of my grade 7 students had an issue with instagram bullying that was spilling over into the classroom. the year advisor got wind of it, took the offending commenters aside, made very clear that it was harrassment, and made them delete the comments lest discipline be taken further. they then had a year-wide general meeting about cyber bullying, including how to use privacy functions. this is in addition to the staged theatrical production which is brought in every year to dramatise the impact of cyberbullying.
it may be that your little bro is resilient and savvy and can get a handle on this without intervention. but that the school pleads ignorance on this is troubling. perhaps you could help his mother make headway by digging up the school's policy statements, or figure out some alternate contacts in the school? your own statement of concern would not go astray either
Thank you! And I really do appreciate the support and advice. If anyone reading this is considering volunteering, I'd highly recommend it. It's a very rewarding and fulfilling experience, even though it seems that it never quite turns out the way you expect.
Since this post I've had several conversations with my Little about "the Internet" and the cyberbullying incident. Suffice it to say he has been hesitant to discuss his feelings about the whole thing for the obvious reasons, but I managed to get the gist of it without pressuring him to tell me more than he was comfortable with.
He has considered making the videos private or taking them down, which I think will help him move on. He has also started opening up about things like how he has been having trouble keeping friends over the long term, and how he spends much of his time alone at school. (For example, at lunch he sits by himself, even at his new school.)
I told him a story about how I used to do things like tell all my friends I was amazing at ping pong even though I had no idea how to play ping pong, and then how it went back to bite me in the ass when they discovered I was full of crap. I think that story really resonated with him, because he also seemed to really think hard when we talked about what really makes someone cool or a good friend - is it because they are good at something, or is it because they are kind and supportive people? Is pretending to be something you are not really necessary to make friends? And if you have to be good at something to have those friends, are they really the kinds of friends you want? Which led to him reflecting out loud about how some of his behavior, like bragging or rubbing it in when he wins a game, might make other people feel bad, and how that makes him look to others.
Today we did a bit of roleplaying, and I think he found it really helpful. It made it really easy to give him immediate feedback based on his conversational habits that I've noticed (for example, he will often start phrases with "but" or "no" even though there isn't any actual disagreement - basically creating conflict where none exists). So now instead of being contradictory for no reason, he will try to start his phrases with something like "Yes! And..." It's tough because I don't think he's getting enough social exposure to learn or practice any new skills, but maybe he'll find it useful in the future.
I'm hopeful that he can start expanding his social circle and find people who aren't complete assholes to hang out with. It might be hard, but I feel like every school has at least one group of people who maybe themselves are outcasts or misfits and maybe they aren't "cool" but they are at least decent human beings. I feel like he might be dwelling too much on trying to be popular or cool or whatever, instead of focusing on trying to find people who will be good friends, and who will make him want to be a better person.
This whole experience makes me feel like the internet is just a really shitty thing to use for anything social outside of like, event planning. At least until you are a functional adult. But that might be a slight overreaction. Based on personal experience, it was the internet (and these forums in particular) that helped to make me more empathetic to issues like LGBTQ+ rights, so maybe it isn't all bad.
Also, shit is definitely cliquey and weird, but sometimes you just need to find a kid that you kind of know, and aren't currently at odds with, and go sit with their group. This is primary school, everyone feels awkward and weird, and most groups are afraid to be openly ostracizing to people who fit the general group mold, because if you get too nitpicky on group members, you might be the next person kicked out. Obviously this doesn't hold true if the grunge kid is trying to hang out with the prep's or w/e, but I think there is a lot more social mobility at that age than people at that age realize.
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