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Betrayed online like Amanda Todd, a teen speaks out on 'wanting to be loved' as pop culture verges on porn culture.
Scene from 'Sext Up KIDS,' which focuses on 'the powder keg that is porn culture" and rapid hypersexualization of girls.
TYEE LIST #13: With mobile power comes great responsibility. A teacher's tipsheet.
New BC-wide anti-bully strategy vague, avoids homophobia, say critics. But it has potential.
You won't hear me say that word, as I work to protect kids.
Amanda Todd was a 15-year-old girl in British Columbia who, like so many of her peers, spent part of her childhood online.
She used a webcam to chat with new people. She was plugged into social media. And after her death by suicide last week, a video she made and posted on YouTube a month before was shared across the world. It told a heartbreaking story of the bullying and torment suffered after a day in Grade 7 when she sent a chest-baring photo to someone on the Internet, which was later revealed to her real life social network.
The fall-out elicited unbelievably cruel words and actions from peers. When changing schools didn't bring relief, Todd drank bleach in an attempt to end her life. When she failed, kids egged her on to do it again.
While a full picture of her death remains unclear with a police investigation ongoing, Todd's story has captured worldwide attention. And in the conversation now about young people, social media and bullying, the element of how commercial culture seeks to hypersexualize young people demands much more discussion, say advocates.
"Hypersexualization is very important. That's a huge problem and a huge component to this," says Chantelle Krish of YWCA Metro Vancouver, a non-profit that targets hypersexualization among youth, among other issues.
Seventeen-year-old Dawn, who was interviewed about her "sexting" (or sexual texting) experience in the documentary Sext Up KIDS, now reflects on Amanda Todd. In Grade 7 Dawn shared an intimate photo with a boy she knew and really liked, figuring it would remain private. When she reached high school she learned he had forwarded it to friends, and that it had circulated around not one, but two schools.
"I just wanted to feel loved. When you want someone to like you, you go to pretty much any extent to get that, especially when you're young and don't know any better," she tells The Tyee in a phone interview.
Dawn was picked on for the photo, not tormented. But the level of unkindness Todd faced doesn't surprise her.
"It doesn't surprise me at all, but I think it's horrible. It makes me sick to my stomach," she says. Teachers in Dawn's school are aware of what goes on between kids, "but a lot of them feel uncomfortable stepping in because it's such a huge, serious topic that they don't even know how to handle it. With my mom, she just couldn't believe it."
There's something happening in the private lives of young men and women that no anti-bullying program seems to be able to crack. Todd's story renewed pleas for a new approach, with B.C. Premier Christy Clark announcing plans for an anti-bullying summit on Nov. 13 in Vancouver that would bring together "parents, educators and experts" to discuss the issue. Clark tweeted there are "more details to come."
With that in mind, Dawn offered a few insights about what we're up against.
Desire to be loved
"My heart just dropped. I was like, how many people have seen me like this?" Dawn told an interviewer who asked how she felt about her private photo being shared in Sext Up KIDS.
Sext Up KIDS is a brave film that combs through many aspects of youth culture today: Marketing maxims like Kagoy, an acronym for "Kids Are Getting Older, Younger"; the "powder keg that is porn culture"; and the rapid hypersexualization of girls, to name a few.
In the film, Gail Dines, author of Pornland and a professor at Boston's Wheelock College, uses a lot of visuals to show her class how today's pop culture is "becoming porn culture." Her students watch young pop star Miley Cyrus evolve into a highly sexualized entertainer as the images flicker by on screen.
"Now when you look at Miley Cyrus, what you see is someone who fits in seamlessly with the hyper-sexed society. And remember, to be visible you have two choices in a hypersexualized society. You're either fuckable or invisible," Dines tells them.
Square that frightening new reality with some timeless teenage feelings, like wanting to hear you're pretty at 13. Much activity online, including sexting, is about finding validation.
"In seventh grade I would go with friends on webcam / meet and talk to new people / Then got called stunning, beautiful, perfect, etc.... /" wrote Todd on cards she held up that told her story on YouTube.
"People love to hear that they're pretty," Dawn points out. "The person who took the picture of themselves... even just profile pictures they think are pretty, they want to hear good feedback. But there's always going to be those bullies who are like, 'No. No, you're ugly.'"
Though they can be sites of torment, Dawn stresses that Facebook and Twitter are also for many young people the primary site of belonging -- what she calls "the number one" human need.
"We need that before anything else -- to feel loved. Sometimes it's hard to face people in person, especially when we haven't been brought up to get a group of people together and go to movies anymore."
Teens define private differently
Asked why she thought some of Todd's peers would offer criticism rather than support when the photo surfaced, Dawn put it this way:
"There's a lot of pressure from parents, being like 'Oh you can't do this, you can't do that.' I wouldn't go home and say, 'Oh mom, guess what I just did?' You want to keep it private, and there's pressure to keep things like that private, even between two people. So when something like that gets thrown out there, and everyone knows about it, everyone criticizes it even though they might be doing it themselves."
Privacy to some young people primarily means "private from my parents" or "private from my friends." They may have a different understanding of what it means to be private online. That can be hard for parents to get, because technology allows kids to build a firewall between their online lives and their parents, says Maureen Palmer, the director of Sext Up KIDS.
"Because they adopt the technology so quickly, when parents get online as they did on Facebook, kids just move to Twitter. They will find new ways to keep their behavior private. The slut shaming, the bullying, the risky behavior for the most part, takes place where parents can't see it."
Krish from YWCA Metro Vancouver said kids' understanding of how they present themselves online is critical in the quest to end bullying. Her organization promotes media literacy and plans to hold a youth conference in November on the subject, with workshops on hypersexuality, aggression and online visibility. The aim is to get kids thinking critically about who they are, rather than who they want the world to think they are.
"With social media, there's a lot more around the portrayal of yourself rather than your actual self," she says.
It's up to young people to protect sexual privacy too, and for that Dawn's advice is simple: "If someone does get a photo like that, don't forward it to anyone. Just delete it. Then you know it stops with you."
Focus on the bullies
For any sort of future anti-bullying initiative, Dawn would like to see a greater focus on what drives bullies.
"I don't think people are born mean," she says. "I think it should be more focused on how to help bullies become at ease with themselves."
After interviewing kids and experts for her film, Palmer feels that a big part of addressing bullying today is about addressing shame.
"The media message is 'show off your body,' but if you do, to the wrong people, your life can be ruined. We need girls to not be ashamed of healthy sexuality -- and we are so, so far from that, it's ridiculous," she says. "We are so busy we are not having the vital conversations. We also have our heads in the sand. Everybody I talk to says it's not their kid watching porn or posting naked pictures of themselves. YES, it is your kid."
Krish agrees that conversations about sexuality will be key in helping both victims and bullies in the future, and adds that she'd like to see young people invited into the discussion.
And when those discussions happen, Dawn says, don't forget to keep trying to drive home this important message: "Once you're OK with yourself, then no one's opinion, except for the one that you really love, matters," she says. "Accept who you are, instead of getting someone to tell you who you are." ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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alive
35 weeks ago
Conform or die?
Maybe kids would think differently about their bodies if we had more "free beaches" (clothing optional)?
In an age where nude pictures and videos are everywhere, it sounds a bit stupid to be so Victorian about a set of boobs!
About fitting in and be accepted, perhaps it would be sensible to realize that in groups the lowest common denominator applies; not necessarily the smartest choice to aim for?
Yes, kids mature earlier and society keeps them away from life longer and longer; Schooling is dragged out forever and most will never need the stuff they had to learn.
There is a saying about idle minds, that certainly proves true these days; so the question is should society try to entertain / occupy those minds, or perhaps let them join the adults sooner?
wondering
35 weeks ago
puzzled
Having survived our education system from decades ago, I understand how lonely and vulnerable teens feel on many occasions due to raging hormones, school dynamics and their insecurities. Add to that mix, absent parents who want or need to work all the time that are often actively seeking sex due to marriage failure and it does become a heart wrenching combo. However I am puzzled by why these teens seem so ignorant of the negative problems of social media when their skills at navigating it are so high. There has been enough news and info out there on the downsides of Facebook and the impossiblity of getting off, let alone the social/legal consequences of social media that arose with the recent hockey riots in Van. that I'm wondering if this generation isn't just addicted to being viewed for a quick social fix? Kinda like sugar it seems to me.
dorothy
35 weeks ago
soo convenient!
Oh, so all that bullying takes place in some little sub-culture where 'we' can't see it, and now we want the governments to be involved, to introduce programs to 'do something'.
I would laugh if it didn't make me cry. How come no one gets it? The governments here are the ultimate bullies! Cramming down our throats the mony-making schemes of their buddies, no matter what we think or prefer. How ludicrous to aske them to intervene! It's their own MO.
Nor does bullying happen 'out there'. It happens in every workplace, every street, every line of traffic, and many homes as well. The guys who take you over on your right, when you cross an intersection? The people who shove and push to harass you out of so many lineups? The meters that don't work, but you'll still be fined for not having paid? I could go on and on, but to what purpose? We have learned to step aside for the bullies or jerks in our every day life; we are so well conditioned, that we don't even register the bullying. How can we possibly help our children? We need to raise the profile and 'get negative' in a constructive way. We need to make it not respectable to bully and shove, even in the most modest fashion. It is not 'their' problem in 'their' little world, it is everyone's problem.
Fiat lux
35 weeks ago
Our whole economic system is
Our whole economic system is built on bullying, called "competitiveness", ruining the lives and stealing the food from the mouths of others..
Kids grow up in it and do their part against their peers so they can become good "competitors" when they grow up.
Chairman Harper is the biggest bully , by selling the whole country off from under the feet of the people. In secret.
Ed Deak.
Bailey
35 weeks ago
Love
Here's the thing: everybody feels this great fear that nobody will love them. It sits at the center of every insecurity and need and hope and fear. It especially inhabits the young, who don't have any idea at all who they are because they haven't become it yet.
So they wonder. Am I this?, am I that? All the possibilities there are seem possible to them. And the words we use to describe ourselves are rated hierarchically. This is the part of Mr. Deak's message that seems to me most important. To be rich sounds good. We want to be rich, not poor or even middle class.
The rich are as often miserable or crazy or stupid as anybody else, their problems may not be money problems, but they could be worse. They let the money distract them from who they truly might be, which has nothing to do with rich or poor.
Same with sex words. We want to be pretty, or sexy or hot, but the pretty sexy hot people can have huge problems with that, not being able to tell if anybody really likes them for who they are, or even cares who they really are.
How hard that is when you yourself don't know who you really are yourself, because you're still a kid while you're having all these questions. Our real needs are not related to these descriptors of impossible conditions which are imposed on us from our culture, but how is a half grown child to figure this out?
It sure would be nice if humans could stop judging each other in these strange ways and start learning how to behave well in ourselves instead.
They get their sense of shame from listening to us dump on the people we choose to judge. They see clearly how we would judge them if we really knew what they feel inside, but they don't know it's because we also have those same insecurities and fears that we feel we must drag others down.
andsbc
35 weeks ago
interesting
that cruelty seems to be more socially acceptable than boobs.
paisley
35 weeks ago
Way ta go Mom.
Sexualizing young girls has been going full steam ahead for the last several decades. Parents or more particularly mothers( sorry ladies time to own it) have had their heads stuck in the sand for most of it. I had the argument with my ex-wife when my daughter was 8 years old about make up to no avail. I have yet to meet any father who thinks it is okay for their daughter to leave the house making a sexual statement in their tweens….ever! Fathers have little to no influence in the household decisions pertaining to the sexualisation of young daughters and the continual commercial bombardment that plays far too much a part of our lives. I have had many heated arguments with mothers concerning this subject only resulting in their complete disdain for my personal feeling on the matter. The chickens are coming home to roost and it is well past the time mothers stepped up and stopped encouraging and enabling the sexualisation of the children.
AnnieP
35 weeks ago
Missnamed
This was not so much a case of bullying as it was a case of sexual predation. Perpetrator should be caught and treated accordingly. Lots of creepy men out there.
AnnieP
35 weeks ago
One more comment
True about the kid culture, but let's not blame it for this. The perpetrator was a pedophile and a predator and he is responsible for his crime and no one else.
freebear
35 weeks ago
Everyone wants to be popular-not invisible
And now there are more tools-polaroids only 'instant' photo then; when I was a teen being on sports teams was a way to be popular; and the only porn accessible was old copies of playboy and penthouse.
Popularity now is more sought using electronics means instead of in person interaction.
Also the cult of/emphasis on celebrity probably plays a role.
As for bullying; they copy what they see and hear-majority of teen shows have a lot of verbal bullying and put downs. And polical debate often uses bullying; political attack ads, name calling for example Premier Clark!
Puberty is about discovering your value as a person, and some see that as power/social status over someone else.
anarcho
35 weeks ago
Bullying is essential to the system
Our economy and political structure is based upon a top-down, authoritarian system. Rather than a more consensual approach, people are forced to obey the dictates of the bosses, bureaucrats and politicians.Even in the exercise of basic democratic rights we are bullied as witnessed by the people at Toronto G20. As long as we have bullying at the top, don't be surprised that we have bullying at the bottom.
toquer
35 weeks ago
Bullies everywhere, all times, all places
Dispense with the tired rhetoric, unsubstantiated by real facts, that bullying is a function of our present system. What we call bullying is an endemic part of any social group: it runs from the ancient world, through the indigenous world, fascism, socialism, capitalism...forget what 'ism' is involved, it is immaterial to the simple fact that status jockeying is a part of being human, and someone will always play dirty.
The sexualization of young girls and women is troubling, but more troubling is the strident defense of this launched by a number of feminist groups and thinkers: in a world where 'Slut Walks' are a celebrated phenomenon, and touted as potent feminist expressions, the issue is complicated.
The elephant in this room, however, is social media. Bullying and sexual experimentation amongst the young is not new: it's as old as our apeish ancestors. What is new is that a momentary action, indiscretion, or flash of a boob is recorded, archived, and made freely available for endless reproduction. We've all done stupid things. Those of us who got it out of our system before the advent of facebook, etc. are lucky: these potentially devestating lapses in judgement only exist in memory. Imagine if your worst young teen moment could be accessed, copied and dispersed any time, forever, by anybody.
That's the root of the problem. That's what makes it different than the past.
anarcho
35 weeks ago
A cop out toquer
For sure there have always been individuals who try to dominate others. But for most of human existence such people were dealt with by being expelled from the group or killed outright. Only in a class society, which means a state, are such people given power over others. Hierarchical, power based societies are founded and are run on domination, ie bullying. These are facts, not rhetoric. By looking at the problem ahistorically, you let the system off the hook which is a cop out.
RockyRacoon
35 weeks ago
@dorothy right on! Like we can compartmentalize this bullying
from the bullying we are getting every day we get out of bed and go to wrk. General Strike! We need to stop exploitation at every level not just for the 15 and under.
RR
worried
34 weeks ago
bullying
Have we all forgotten Lord of the Flies? Or Cats Eye by Margaret Atwood? Bullying is not a new phenomenon and it's not any crueller now than it was in the days of Charles Dickens. I think we need to focus far more on how do we create resilient young citizens whose focus is not always on peer acceptance. Rick Hansens' Foundation created a program 20 years ago to try and move the focus to "What makes a hero". As adults I'm not sure we do our kids any favours by continually raising peer acceptance and popularity to such a pedestal. The philosophy of Me to We is trying to get young people to see past petty peer dramas to the larger world. As parents we need to keep exposing our children to opportunities to try different activities in the hope they will find something they love to do. Unfortunately one of the main characteristics of the current government has been to cut funding to all kinds of programs for kids: Arts, drama, summer camps, sports and rec. These leaves lower income families with less ability to get their kids into more healthy pursuits.
snert
34 weeks ago
Bullying will not go away
What is needed is a program that sets out what bullying is and how one can deal with it effectively if and when one becomes a target.
Bullies are not necessarily stupid people so bullying can be carried out very subtly. It's also important to realize that in the case of psychological bullying the bully relies, significantly, on the co-operation of the victim in order to dominate over them.
The old saw, 'sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me' should carry way more weight than it does when dealing with bullies. Children have to be taught that they are in charge of their own feelings and if they respond to a bully as such then the bully loses any power he/she may think they have.
Physical abuse is a completely different matter and has to be responded to in a different manner.
What's really sad about the whole Amanda Todd affair is that the effective use of humour could very well have defused the whole issue.
Ramone
34 weeks ago
Again?
Articles, documentaries, "exposes" about how children and teens are being "sexualized" are a regular feature in the MSM. Every few years they basically repeat the same story and update it with the details from the latest sensational story making the rounds that month. What changes in between?
Our culture and society is very sex-negative. If it did not regard sexuality (especially female sexuality) as something dirty and shameful, maybe, instead of being so overwhelmed with the shame and guilt that it lead her to commit suicide, Amanda Todd would have told her blackmailer to piss off and felt comfortable telling her parents and reporting him to police.
Instead, the social sanction and stigma girls are saddled with if they are openly sexual is so powerful that it ruins lives. Even just a false rumour, malicious or otherwise, about a girl's ostensible sexual behaviour is enough to stigmatise her in the eyes of her peers and many adults (who should know better) alike.
OTOH, popular culture, and the advertising industry are saturated with sexual imagery and innuendo. Throw raging hormones, normal curiosity about sex and predatory adults into the mix and it's a minefield.
Honest, comfortable discussion about sex and sexuality (especially teen sexuality) is almost non-existent - unless the discussion is about STIs and STDs, unwanted pregnancy, pedophiles lurking in every shadow and generally sex-negative topics. Oh and sensationalist pieces about "sexting" kids etc. that are, with minor updates, year after year.
Sad.