Cyberbully Memorial
Ashlynn Morrow
What is cyberbullying?
cy·ber·bul·ly·ing/ˌsībərˈbo͝olēiNG/
noun
- the use of electronic communication to bully a person, typically by sending messages of an intimidating or threatening nature.
This has became a big problem recently especially because this is the "age of technology" so electronics are almost always in our reach. Anyone and everyone can be effected by cyberbullies. At any time or moment someone could post, text or send anything about you to a large group of people at one time. This issue is happening 24/7 almost everywhere. Cyberbullies can often be hard to find because of fake usernames and accounts anyone could pretend to be someone else. For example, in 2006 Megan Meier friended a guy names Josh Evans on MySpace; the two began to message and talk quite often. As the two became closer Megan told Josh about struggling with depression, ADD, and other personal things. In October that year Josh told Megan he didn't want to be friends anymore and began to turn against her. He started harassing her and telling her "the world would be a better place without you" eventually the school caught on and joined in on messing with her. As a result Megan ended up hanging herself in her own closet. Soon to find out that Josh was not a real person, but a neighbor named Lori. This is shows how easy it is to pretend to be someone you're not.
Why should there be a memorial for this?
Strictly to inform people about this issue and reaching out to those who may experience cyberbullying and let them know they are not alone. As of now there are no laws restricting cyberbullying. Kids who have to deal with this have harder times getting away from their bullies. It is said kids who are cyberbullied are often bullied in person, so I believe that if awareness for cyberbullying is raised and decreased the number of kids bullied in person could also decrease. This issue will only increase as more technology is created if not stopped soon.
Where would this be?
I would choose to put it outside or around of the Sony Technology Lab & Museum in New York. I would put it here because people who would see it in this location must have a passion or be interested in technology, so they could know more about it or be more likely to stop it. My monument would be a life size girl with her head down in her hands with hurtful post of text imprinted in her skin all over, all made of copper.
Goal
My goal for this is to raise more awareness for this issue and be able to place laws to create more rules on social media to help keep cyberbullying low and also create more consequences for cyberbullying. This is not an invisible problem and is not going to go away anytime soon which is why we need to get working on this asap because it is only going to grow from here.