It was a good Sunday morning, I woke up, went for a run in my neighborhood, got to do some body weight workouts, and tended to my normal Sunday, which involved some cooking, shopping, and cleaning up, and getting ready for another week. I stumbled upon a YouTube video by Greg Doucette on responding to the hate comments he receives on his channel, and it really blows my mind to see how these small comments that anonymous people make towards others regarding sensitive issues (physical appearances, health, diet, lifestyle decisions, fake natties, etc.) really affect us. Those small hate comments affected Greg & Ally enough so that he made a video addressing the haters:
Briefly recapping the video, it seems as the video started from a previous one that was uploaded somewhat recently regarding Ally and her thinking about surgery to alter her physical appearance (Wisdom Tooth Body) and the amount of hate comments that were associated with it. Ally had gotten a facial shortly before the video so her face looked “shiny” – and people had to comment on it. She also mentioned on the video that again, she was contemplating surgery to enhance her physical appearance – which is completely her choice and fine, but the haters have to digress somehow…
As I write this and check some of the video’s comments, I see:
What the heck guys!!!
This doesn’t even capture the worst of it!
Go watch the video, and see the hateful comments associated with it.
Why do you all have to hate?
I remember Greg Doucette commenting on Hana Kimura’s death – a suicide by a young girl who was repeatedly cyberbullied online through her instagram and twitter, albeit through Japanese comments, but hate nonetheless. Her suicide struck me so much that I even wrote about it in my personal journal and reflected on it shortly after the news struck me.
As a bonus, I’m going to copy paste from my journal – I hope someone out there can resonate with me:
“Hana Kamura Suicide.
Definitely sad. Online bullying has to stop. Sucks people’s lives just have to suck so much that they have to stick out that negativity on others. Cmon. Really? You don’t have anything going on in your life that you gotta take it out on someone else? Get a fucking life!
Chances are, if you’re human and you’re even reading this, that you’ve been subject to cyberbullying. Whether it be an insult or shit talk directed towards you, you’ve definitely been subject to it. Crazy how regular such a thing is, but if you ask around, no one will admit to cyberbullying. Sounds like someone’s hiding a dirty little secret!
What’s even sadder is that she’s Japanese.
Unless you’re not Japanese, you won’t know the cultural expectations that are placed on you early on in life. The pressure to do good in school, make your parents look good socially, ensure that you have a bright future, always having to put a false smile on, otherwise you’re deemed to be strange, “okashii”, weird, “hen”, awkward, whatever it is. You’re always looked weird at for carrying some type of dead burden, or if you’re down. You’ll get told to “cheer up” or “act alive”, but no one really understands. You’re scolded if you do something wrong, behind the scenes. You get put aside, you start getting yelled at. It’s all definitely fun and games, till something as tragic as this happens.”
I apologize for the swearing and explicit language, but I wrote it in the heat of the moment when I found out about the news. (Looks like I wrote this in my journal around 5/23/2020 – right around that timeline)
I do appreciate that Greg has his own video on Hana Kimura’s death, and with his recent video on him addressing the hate comments towards Ally, I recognize that he is able to cope with all of this and address it directly – really showing how strong he is. But 99% of us aren’t that strong to address hate directly. He even mentions that Ally is a strong, confident woman, which I 100% believe, but even a bunch of comments like the ones above has affected her. We’re all subject to cyber bullying, and it all it really takes is a few harsh words spread throughout the internet to get someone to take their life.
This has to stop! How? I don’t know. I just feel like I had to write about this to get this off my chest.