Esha Chanda,

Columnist (Our World)

 

A young soul driven to take her life after anxiety seized her. She got into drugs, took to alcohol and spent months into depression. Blackmailed, tortured and mentally assaulted, the girl decided to put an end to everything by exterminating her life.

This is the story of Amanda Michelle Todd, a 15-year old Canadian girl, who committed suicide on 10th October 2012. The events leading to her suicide have been attributed to bullying through the social networking website Facebook.

On 7th September 2012, Amanda posted a video on YouTube to articulate her emotions to the world. Using flash cards, she narrated her story of how her one wrong step led the society to mock her to misery. Through the video, you gather details of what started as a small online conversation and went on to be the cause of her death.

Amanda, then a seventh grade student, who constantly conversed with people online, was convinced by a man to expose her breasts on the webcam. A year down the line, she received a threatening message on Facebook from him, which said that he would spread her photo across her social network if she refused to put on a ‘show’ for him. During Christmas break, cops knocked at her door to inform that her photo was being circulated online. Sickened by the thought, Amanda went into depression and found solace in drugs and alcohol. She feared moving out of her house.

The situation got worse when the man went a step ahead and created a Facebook page and all added her friends, with the very same obscene photo of her photo as the display picture. Under the pressure of peers who judged her, Amanda’s emotional condition deteriorated. She was compelled to change schools to avoid the judging looks of her schoolmates. The teenager was left alone. Following this, her meeting with another girl’s boyfriend fulled the bullying again that ended up with a physical attack on her. After being beaten, Amanda drank bleach to end her misery but was saved as the doctors managed to flush out the bleach from her body. But they couldn’t flush out her misery. The dejection she faced from her friends, both online and offline created a deeper emptiness in her life causing Amanda to take drastic measures and end her life.

It’s saddening to see that incessant bullying and harassment contributed largely to her suicide. Individuals don’t realize that even a minor case of bullying can trouble a young kid emotionally and physically. And when it continues for an extended period, it can cause a fragile mind to break and damage the person completely. Teenagers are vulnerable; they tend to make mistakes but the repercussions of their actions should not be so high. Our society needs to address such situations. Young kids have to be treated with care, especially in an age where a single photo or a piece of news can been circulated among the society and can be easily accessed through Internet. Amanda was a victim of cyber-bullying. A tragic case, she is not the only one. There are several cases where adolescents are subjected to brutal treatments that shake off their confidence.

Todd’s situation came under the eyes of media since Facebook was abuzz with the news. However, there are many such cases out there where innocent minds are struggling to cope up with relentless bullying. Since the advent of social networking platforms, it has increased to reach a greater magnitude. The effects of a kid being bullied among 50 other schoolmates, intensifies by a hundred-fold when the same is done online.But no matter what the reason or platform be, there needs to be an end to this harassment because a life once gone can never come back.

Amanda made a mistake and she admitted it. Simply because of one mistake, society decided to humiliate her and point out that it was her fault. But doesn’t everyone make a blunder at least once in his or her lives? Do we resort to mental torture and make a joke out of it? And even if it was her fault, did she really deserve this tragic end?  No one deserves to die because of a mistake they’ve committed. We are humans and on most occasions we tend to go astray; we go off the rails and wander on another track. But this doesn’t call for such a callous treatment. In such delicate situations, you find your way back home and the society should help you in getting back on to your feet.

When we are raising such questions on callous behaviour on the part of society, this attitude problem doesn’t end here. After her death, social networking sites were abuzz with activity and some people said that the problem was with Amanda. Her issue was raised as she is a beautiful girl and people are sympathizing for that reason. Other victims don’t get the same publicity. But don’t these derogatory comments dilute the issue? If we, as a society do not deal with the issue of bullying, it will spread. If Amanda Todd’s story has highlighted this cause, we choose to criticize her and divert the conversation from the main issue. The Global Panorama does not intend to focus on Amanda alone but on the issue of bullying. But we must not forget that Amanda is a victim.

Amanda Todd was not just judged in life but is being judged in her death as well. This is a degeneration of people’s frame of mind, wherein they feel no sympathy for a loss of life. The comments of certain people splashed across social media are absolutely disgusting. These people act as moral judges without looking at themselves in the mirror. We urge people to think that this girl lost her life even before she lived it wholly. Now that she is no more, we must stop the cynicism and let her family and friends cherish her memory. When we say “She had it coming”, we come the bullies ourselves.