I am the proud aunt of two fabulous teenage nieces. When I was out to visit them for Christmas, my youngest niece suggested that I check out the book, Girl Online, about a teenage blogger since she knows that I blog a bit, too. I decided to go ahead and read it, even though the audience for the book is pre-teen/teenage girls. I figured that it would be cool to be able to talk about a book with my niece and would provide a very fast, light-hearted read. For the most part, it was exactly that. It fit that stereotypical format of any romantic comedy in that a girl meets a boy. He seems too good to be true and they fall hard for each other before something breaks them up, only to reach an understanding at the end. Yet, I found something interesting within that format, which is the blogging piece of the story.
In the book, the main character decides to start a blog to share her frustrations, her fears, her feelings in an anonymous fashion. In the beginning of blogging, readers find her and completely relate to her. They comment about how much they like her honesty and her spirit. The main character begins to feel like blogging in her safe place where she can share her feelings and really process them with the help of her readers, her supporters. Then, a vicious rumor about her is shared online, including her real identity. Suddenly, the support is gone. Instead, her comments and her other social media profiles blow up with negativity, criticism, judgment. The insults are brutal and filled with name-calling. She loses more than her readers. She loses her safe space. After a few days of feeling beyond isolated and horrible, she finally turns back to her blog to try to explain herself. She writes the following, “For the past couple of days, I’ve had total strangers posting lies and abusive messages about me all over the Internet….These people don’t me. None of you know me. None of you know the truth about what really happened to me. And yet you all think you have the right to post an opinion or call me names.” Later she says, “For so long this blog has been my safe place-the one place I felt I could talk about my innermost feelings and not be judged. But in the past couple of days I’ve seen how shallow the online world can be. It’s a world where people think it’s OK to hide behind their screens…and say poisonous things about a person they don’t even know.”
Needless to say, this part really spoke to me. I have seen and experienced some of this myself. The online world can be beyond harsh.
