Tweeting Through Tough Times
One of the people I encountered was one of the girls who had made my life as a 4th grader, hell. She turned one of my friends against me, purposely left me out of activities, and made fun of my clothes. Most of the stories have been permanently blocked from my memory, and have only come to my train-of-thought recently, due to the form of bullying that I have started to encounter.
“Subtweeting” is a term that was most recently developed by users of the Twittersphere. A rough definition of subtweeting is “Indirectly tweeting something about someone without mentioning their name. Even though their name is not mentioned, it is clear who the person tweeting is referring to” (Urban Dictionary). This form of tweeting is the best way to insult or complain about someone without having to confront them face to face.
|
Social media. I remember hearing this word for the first time in middle school. My best friend at the time introduced me to Facebook. After begging for a few months, my mom finally gave in, and let my set up my very first account. What I encountered on the site was different than I thought. Girls being rude to each other, boys posting stupid things on their walls, and somehow my family members fitting into the mix?
|
![Picture](/uploads/6/0/9/6/60961551/editor/tweet2.jpg?1490191774)
The only way to get notified of a tweet is if you directly mention a username in the tweet. The username will turn blue and serve as a hyperlink. This gives the mentioned person a message of “Oh hey look! This person is talking about you!”. Of course, usually when this happens, it is a positive message.
![Picture](/uploads/6/0/9/6/60961551/published/picture4_3.jpg?1490193431)
If I subtweeted something lovey dovey about my boyfriend, I would want him to see it, and know it was something about him.
![Picture](/uploads/6/0/9/6/60961551/tweet2_1_orig.jpg)
In reality, an actual positive subtweet looks like this.
Savvy twitter users, like myself, seek out subtweets in order to keep a record of what is being said about me online. In a world that you can give someone access to your tweets, some people choose to “protect their accounts” and only let specific people follow them. This gives them free range to tweet about whatever they choose.
|
If you want to be a little more secretive, you can use the person’s first name or nickname, but they will not get a notification of the tweet. Usually when this happens, the tweeter wants you to see it, but more in a while-they’re-scrolling-they’ll-notice-it-and-laugh kind of way. In other cases, people only subtweet to either make a joke or a point of something they are frustrated with. This is letting the internet know “I AM UNHAPPY AND I DO NOT WANT TO CONFRONT MY ENEMIES FACE-TO-FACE!”.
|
![Picture](/uploads/6/0/9/6/60961551/published/face.jpg?1490193220)
In my case, I have recently found subtweets about my best friend and me because even though I do not follow the unidentified tweeter, she does not protect her account. When my suspicion rose of how I was being talked about behind my back, I simply entered her name, and I found three different tweets that referred to my best friend and me by referring to us as “roommates”.
Subtweeting not only affects the subtweetee, but also the subtweeter. In my case, the subtweeter, my roommate, is using what I say to make her followers laugh or react in some way that gets her a favorite. The favorite lets her know that “I think this is funny” or “This is a good tweet” or “I want you to like me, so I’m pretending to like you”. The favorite gives her a rush of excitement because she feels important for like a millisecond of time. My less-than-clever roommate subtweeted about me in order to get the rush of happiness that I guess she needed to get through the day. By telling her followers that I am unclean made her feel like she had power over me. Basically, her action was an act of bullying. Cyber bullying. She was able to belittle someone and get a rush of joy from it, which is really kinda sick.
|
I know we all talk about people behind their backs. Well, maybe not everyone, but I would say most people. Sometimes they make you angry and you need to get it off your chest. BUT, publicly shaming someone, even if they weren’t the intended audience, is in fact a wrongful act.
The girl who endlessly bullied me in elementary school did it for reasons that I still do not know. And somehow this form of bullying, along with the rest of the things that she texts us, seem to upset me on the same level as that bullying did. And this isn’t even to my face. These words are being said to strangers who do not know who I am, and they still have the ability to make me sad.
The girl who endlessly bullied me in elementary school did it for reasons that I still do not know. And somehow this form of bullying, along with the rest of the things that she texts us, seem to upset me on the same level as that bullying did. And this isn’t even to my face. These words are being said to strangers who do not know who I am, and they still have the ability to make me sad.
![Picture](/uploads/6/0/9/6/60961551/published/11855711-1131961590151804-8905648643597378206-n_1.jpg?250)
I discussed this idea with my roommate, Emily, because she too was included in the nasty subtweets. (You can look at and listen to the entire interview here). Emily also agreed that what she did was cyberbullying. And yeah, she thought that it was a way of getting anger out, without the use of confrontation, but nonetheless, it was wrong. We often hear our roommate using foul language, and stomping around her bedroom, so we know there is something else not quite okay.
Does social media give us the power to tear the emotional ties away from our words? Maybe. Possibly. A lot of the time, it does. But, should we let it? Because social media is a very present part of our lives, it makes EVERYTHING on it effect us. For example, have you ever posted a picture on instagram, not gotten the enormous number of likes right away, and then deleted it? Or, have you tweeted something that you thought was hilarious to someone else, and they did not react in the way you wanted to? How much power does social media deserve? We give it power because we spend time taking amazing pictures, and retweeting only the funniest things to make people think that we are someone we want to be. We can stop giving it the power, but connecting with people in person, rather than just online.
![Picture](/uploads/6/0/9/6/60961551/published/picture11-orig_1.jpg?250)
Bottom line, stop subtweeting your enemies, talk to them in person, and try to solve a problem.
Stop spending hours taking and finding the perfect picture to post at the perfect moment, and spend time with people.
Stop putting your life into social media, and instead put your life into your connected, personal relationships.
Social media out, friendship, in!
Stop spending hours taking and finding the perfect picture to post at the perfect moment, and spend time with people.
Stop putting your life into social media, and instead put your life into your connected, personal relationships.
Social media out, friendship, in!